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German soldier, in the hills bordering at Salerno, fires upon a crew beside their burning tank

Discussion in 'North Africa and the Mediterranean' started by Bgallo28, May 8, 2014.

  1. Bgallo28

    Bgallo28 New Member

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    [​IMG]

    German soldier, in the hills bordering at Salerno, fires upon a crew beside their burning tank.

    I thought it was a neat little photo from a cool point of view.

    Source: http://www.BattleFieldScars.com
     
  2. KJ Jr

    KJ Jr Well-Known Member

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    Interesting photo
     
  3. Smiley 2.0

    Smiley 2.0 Smiles

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    Wow. That really is neat photo! I haven't seen a lot of photos like this. This is really interesting!
     
  4. harolds

    harolds Member

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    An interesting photo indeed. However, from what I can see from that picture, the tank and its crew were way out of practical range of that soldier's rifle. It could be that's just an illusion of the camera lens, but that burning tank looks far away.

    Shooting baled out tank crews was common practice by all sides.
     
  5. Smiley 2.0

    Smiley 2.0 Smiles

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    Is it possible that a sniper could shoot that far? the German in the picture could be a sniper.
     
  6. Smiley 2.0

    Smiley 2.0 Smiles

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    then again i cant see a scope for the rifle, though it could be obscured... :eh:
     
  7. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Looking at https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&output=classic&dg=brw it looks like there are some hill crests within a couple hundred meters of the beach. German WW2 era rifles had sites that were calibrated up to a km I believe. At 200m they might even hit something. Of course it could be further off than that. Some one good with photo interp might be able to come up with a reasonable range estimate but it would take some measuring.

    Looking more I'm not sure I can identify anything else that could be used as a reference measurement.

    Looking at it even more I'm far from certain that it's even a tank. Also the beach and surrounding water looks very empty if it was actually an invasion site. Of course it could be up or down the beach from the landing site.
     
  8. KJ Jr

    KJ Jr Well-Known Member

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    The depth is very interesting. Every time I look at it it seems to change. Lol. Not sure what is ablaze in the photo.
     
  9. green slime

    green slime Member

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    Image does not look real to me.

    Something about the edges between the foreground and the background doesn't look right.

    Searching for the image, shows it appears to have been posted first on the "BattlefieldScars" website, and then on various WW2 discussion forums this year (AllEmpires.com, posted by Bgallo28 on 8th May) (Military.com May 9th 2014, posted by Bgall28), (ArmchairGeneral.com May 10th 2014, by Chardon of Chardon Ohio), each time, with basically the same commentary.

    "German soldier, in the hills bordering at Salerno, fires upon a crew beside their burning tank. I thought it was a cool photo from a neat point of view."

    Each time referring to the source.

    Further, I find it peculiar, that this image only appears in Google's image finder in this context. It's like this particular WW2 image did not exist online before 2014.

    The BattlefieldScars website, has a creation date "5th April 2014".

    IOW, The photo is being used to generate traffic towards the site.
     
  10. George Patton

    George Patton Canadian Refugee

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    The area just above the black grass in the foreground (hill crest? not sure what you want to call it) doesn't look right to me. It fades into the background a bit, but a sharp edge is still visible -- reminds me of some poor attempts at photoshopping. Conversely, the photo could be from the period:iIts possible that the photo in question was a composite photo made for propaganda purposes.

    I also had a look at the website. He claims that all the photos are from the same book. Maybe someone can have a look at it.
     
  11. KJ Jr

    KJ Jr Well-Known Member

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    That's an excellent point GP.
     
  12. green slime

    green slime Member

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    That was precisely my own thought. But then you'd think it would appear elsewhere?
    .
     
  13. Smiley 2.0

    Smiley 2.0 Smiles

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    I read an article in a World War Two magazine about how some of the iconic photos of World War Two, which were taken during the battle of the Bulge, were staged. The one who took the photographs took pictures that were intended for propaganda purposes. It is possible that this photo could have been taken for similar reasons. Like KJ Jr. said.

    (Just a little FYI here are two of those staged iconic photos)
    Note how in the picture of the troops crossing the road you can see someone walking nonchalantly on the other side of the road.
     

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  14. George Patton

    George Patton Canadian Refugee

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    The spot where those Bulge photos were taken is well-known. I was there two years ago, and I know Martin has re-enacted the famous "road-crossing" photo. Here's one of my photos showing the site today.

    [​IMG]
     
  15. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    The photo has the obvious pattern of something scanned from paper. I see no reason to doubt the authenticity. A Mauser rifle is easily capable of hitting a man sized target out to 600 or 800 yards, even with iron sights. The sights are graduated out to 2000 meters, but at those ranges you're just delivering area fire.

    Of course, the caption is problematic; perhaps something added by the photojournalist who took the photo. You don't know if the guy is actually shooting or just overlooking the scene.
     
  16. harolds

    harolds Member

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    Most German snipers got most of their kills at ranges less than 600ms. For the time, that distance was definitely very long range for the average service rifle. This was especially true using the abominable sights on the k98. Next time you get to shoot a 98 Mauser try and see how many times you can hit man shillouette at that range with service ammo. Good luck!
     
  17. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    I've owned several Mausers through the years. They'll certainly do the job at that range. The limiting factor of any long range shooting isn't so much the sights, it's simple wind and distance estimation. With no wind, or low wind that's not crossing your field of fire (coming from behind or ahead) you've got pretty good odds of hitting your target if you're a competent shot and you've estimated the range correctly.

    I know guys with stock Garands (the Garand has a very blunt front sight, much worse than the Mauser) that can keep rounds in a 12" circle at 500 yards. A Mauser has a very finely pointed front sight which is no doubt a drawback in low light, but if you can see it you can do some pretty good shooting.

    Here's a guy with a stock Mauser shooting at 600 yards. You have to jump forward to about 4:20 to see the results. A damned nice group, but drifted left because of poor wind estimation.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu66AfgcpL8
     
  18. harolds

    harolds Member

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    KB,

    I'm sure certain rifles will indeed get superior accuracy but almost every pre-M16 rifle I've shot (and this includes MANY k98 Mausers) groups at around 3" at 100yds. This also includes the few M-1s and M-14s I have shot. This type of accuracy is, I'm afraid, typical but will keep their bullets inside the torso of a man at most real-life battle ranges of 200ms or less. One exception is my 6.5 Swede from Carl Gustafs that will easily group at 1.5" at 100. The other is a Venezuelan 98 Mauser made by FN in 7X57 that grouped around 1.25". Let's face it, wartime production of rifles and ammo doesn't allow for the extra tight tolerances and fitting that produce excellent accuracy. I love the '98 action and have several sporting rifles that have them, but they've had far more care put into their manufacture than most WW2 battle rifles. I'm sure the accuracy of the rifle/ammo/shooter shown in this video is not typical.

    I guess everyone's different, but I just love the sights on the M1 Garand and think the K98 battle sights suck. The only ones that are worse to acquire a target with are those made Springfield for the Krag and '03.
     
  19. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    A 3" group means that the typical dispersal is only 1.5" from the point of aim. And a 100 yard group doesn't automatically double every time you add another 100 yards, meaning that a 500 yard group from a 3 MOA rifle wouldn't necessarily be 5 x 3" (15 inches), but something much better than that. Yet, even if it were 15 inches your worst hits would still be 7.5 inches from point of aim. You're not trying to shoot somebody in the eye, you only need to hit a torso at long range and that is easily doable.

    In fact though, most standard military rifles of that era shoot at about 2 MOA and as you can see in the video above, he's getting something like 5 or 6 inches at 600 yards. The wind has blown his group left, but if he had accounted for that he could have been making head shots at that range.

    As for the sights, it's more about what you're accustomed to. Look at those old buckhorn and bead sights on early 20th century civilian rifles. Awful, but once you get the hang of it you can do some pretty fine shooting. The Mauser front sight comes to a point, and in good light it's not much different than the post sight on a modern military rifle as far as precision is concerned. It's harder to level that with the rear sight, but with enough trigger time you get used to it.
     
  20. harolds

    harolds Member

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    Admittedly, the rifles I have shot were not newly issued specimens, but most have had good bores and were in good shape generally. Therefore, I think that I'll stick to my 3" theory. Remember that most hunting rifles, (wood stocked) made by Winchester, Remington, etc. in '50s, 60s, and 70's could do little better (2" on average). By my calculations, a 3 moa group at 100yds. equals 18" at 600yds. That would certainly put an enemy in danger but does not come close to the group fired in that video. Also remember that all these cartridge's trajectory parabola take a steep downward turn at around 300yds. As such, the distance to the target has to be almost exactly known. An error of 50yds. in range would mean a total miss. The gradations on the rear sight were only approximations. I have yet to find one that's close to being exactly on. This is one of the reasons that the Germans decided on an intermediate cartridge-accurate shooting beyond 250 yds. was unlikely and therefore standard cartridges had way more power than needed. In Normandy there was a lot of talk about "snipers" because individual bullets were flying around, mostly missing any target. It was found that almost all of these were by-passed individual soldiers firing their weapons at long range. When real snipers fire it usually means somebody needs burying or at best, a hospital. Speaking of German snipers, the top three surviving Germans snipers were interviewed and two out of the three said that 600ms was about their limit-that's with very accurate, scoped rifles! The standard issue 98 wasn't nearly as accurate as those rifles were.

    To me, the Mauser sight's problem was that horrible little notch in the rear sight. Very low and hard to use in poor light levels such as dawn and dusk when many firefights happen.
     

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