German sniper training

the movie title is:
German Sniper Der Deutsche Scharfschütze 1944
Link to the video:
German Sniper Der Deutsche Scharfschütze 1944 - YouTube
The movie duration is: 1:08:22
It mainly covers the camouflage training with plenty of examples(you'd be amazed) and several of the sniper disciplines, I personally have found this video to be pretty entertaining.

 

Only able to check parts of the documentary for now but looks good. Thanx for sharing!

 

Its interesting to compare this with ambushes recorded by NATO troops in the 'stan. There was one in particular that caught my eye. It was an attack as some hummers came around a bend on a cliff side road with a river valley on the other side, with hills on the far side. As the hummers came within view of the locals, a bomb exploded and stopped the first hummer. Everyone left the destroyed hummer on their own and the entire convoy fired at the locals.
Now the interesting part, which kind of correlated to this video. Even though their "shot finder" screamed out that a sniper took the first shot at 600m to 8 oclock (on a hill behind them thanks to the curve of the road around the hills), they concentrated all their fire on the locals in front of them. In essence, the sniper set the bomb near the locals so that they would be blamed for it, then he shot one valuable target in the head, and then retreated. The locals then accuse the NATO troops of starting it, and the NATO troops blame the locals.
The reason I bring this up, is that if NATO troops with a shot finder still fall prey to diversionary tactics, It makes me believe that conscripts would likely fall for it as well.

 

Does anyone here have any idea of the lifespan of German snipers? They were good. They were hated. Lots of stuff was thrown at them in order to kill them. Omar Bradley basically gave the OK to execute captured German snipers.

 

Thanks for the video

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthaus_Hetzenauer
Matthaus Hetzenauer one of the most decorated and famous of all German snipers was credited with 345 kills on the eastern front and was captured at the end of the war. He died in 2004 from deteriorating health issues. So I would imagine that the average lifespan of the average German sniper was quite high.

 

That illustrates a lack of understanding of statistics and sampling. Try applying the same logic to U-boat crews or fighter pilots.

 

Exactly my point with that.

 

"Sepp Allerberger" (a pseudonym) who was also a Knights Cross winning sniper in 3rd Girbigs Div. had definite opinions on how to stay alive while being a sniper. Interestingly, he got into sniping because he felt that being a machine gunner was basically a suicidal mission. Recovering from a wound in his battalion's rear area he happened on a captured Soviet sniper rifle. After practicing with it for a while he was given permission to try his hand at sniping. He became a success and it was only many months later that he actually went to sniper school. He felt that some of the methods taught there were overly-complicated, cumbersome and inpractical. (Hey, after all this WAS German training! ;-) He tried to get some more practical methods into the curriculum. He also felt that first of all, instead of selecting snipers during recruit training on just the basis of their shooting scores was a waste. Most such inexperienced snipers only got off about 20 shots before they were killed. He felt that such talented shooters should be flagged, but training delayed until/if they learned to survive on the battlefield. He also advocated extreme planning re. a sniper's "hide": Always have a way out that the enemy can't see. If you're going into a "hide" in front of your lines make sure you have a way to go to the bathroom that doesn't give away your position. He also felt that shooting more than twice from the same position was a good way to become a dead hero. Etc.

A note on "kill" scores: A German sniper was issued a log book-the Scharfschutzenheft. In it were his kills, but they had to be confirmed by another person and that person had to be an NCO or higher. Also, kills made when he was supporting an attack or when the enemy was attacking didn't count! Only when he was operating basically on his own could that kill be counted. Therefore, German snipers probably killed many more victims than their "scores" indicated. This would account for some of the higher numbers reported by Soviet snipers who probably got to count all kills.

 

Another great example in how we do things today in our military due to German ingenuity. I had a friend in my squadron that was a counter sniper and told me a little about Allerberger's hide method.