What type of rifle and what caliber did The Great Vassili Zaitsev use as a sniper?

Here is the story on his girl friend Tania Chernova. http://www.snipershide.com/sniping/chernova.html
I bet he used a Moisen. The Soviet Union won the 300 meter gold a number of times with that rifle!

Also there is http://www.mosin-nagant.net and http://www.snipercountry.com/RiflesWhiteDeath.htm

[ 08-13-2002, 05:25: Message edited by: Don Martin29 ]

He probably would have been shot if he used anything but a Moisin Nagant.

Not so craigster. The Soviets were not above copying anything and then even claiming that they invented it. If you read the links you would find that they even bought machinery from Ziess to make the scopes.

War is a miserable situation and The Soviets did much of the fighting in Europe from 1939 thru June 1944. The USA was there only eleven months!

Unlike the "sophisticated" French, Dutch, Belgians etc. the Soviets never gave up. After the battle of Kursk the European war was really over and we (USA) had not even landed yet.

What a mess.

Don, who you calling sophisticated, huh?

I'll admit to naive and incompentent in this context, heck, I might consider the accusation of having a childish world view. But sophisticated? I'd hazard the guess that you've not met many Dutch! Dutch.

Don,
If you'll permit me, a few clarifications.
The Soviet fighting prior to the summer of '41 consisted of grabbing land from neutral countries.
The U.S. was in Europe from Sept. '43, and had been fighting European Axis armies since Nov. '42.
The war was a long way from over after Kursk and Allied pressure in the west made it all but impossible to strengthen the eastern front.

[ 08-13-2002, 22:10: Message edited by: Kboom ]

Gentlemen

According to Major John Plaster's article in Rilfe shooter August 2000, Vasili Zaitsev was one of the first snipers who used heavy scope rifle in battle. Zaitsev used a 14.5 PTRD Anti- tank rifle in Stalingrad. Great varmint round or what

If you want some more info read Plasters books about sniping. A movie were made about Zaitsev one or two years ago "Enemy at the gates" There is a museum in Moscow were Zaitsev's rifle is one display with some more stuff.

/ JOHAN

The U.S. only in Europe 11 months. YIKES�. Italy, or has this country been re-designated. U.S. Army Air Corp bases in the UK???? Does anyone remember the long time Russian enemy the pesky Japanese? The Russians were not much help to the Allies in fighting this front of WW2. The Allies of WW2 were all parts of an essential team.

Yes, the Russians fought hard, suffered great loss, but let�s not re-write history.

Thats Pure BS, US forces were fighting In WW-2 as early as 1940, and some as early as 1937, You ever hear of the AVG and Clair Cheinault? How bout the Battle of the North Alantic? The Navy was under attack from 1939 on and was shooting back. As for the Soviet's on three seprate occasions, the gave serious consideration to asking the Germans for terms. The God that the Soviets denied, did choose sides. The Russians losses in WW-2 can not be dienied. Most for no reason other that the fact there was a degernate running that poor country at the time.

But I did live thru the war! I was born before the Nazi's entered Poland! And the Soviets did do the bulk of the fighting in Europe by far. Suffered 40 times the casualties that the USA did in that theater.

Of course the "Lend Lease" of the Allies helped them survive. Was it decisive? Who knows. At least they did not give up like the French, Belgians, Dutch or join the Nazi's like the Italians, Spanish or Sweads. Neutrality does not fly in my view.

I forgot about the Alies invading Italy and of course they were fighting in Africa also. But compared to holding off the Nazi's for years in St. Pete and losing millions in one city it can't compare.

It's the Russians that kicked the Germans ass. It's plain to see and it was sweet revenge. They deserved each other. A miserable bunch.

But it depends who you ask. I had a Brit tell me that they would have won the war without the USA. I asked, "what about Japan". oops!

There are many "ifs" involved in WW2. A few you should consider. What if the USSR hadn�t been caught flatfooted after a treaty with the Nazi�s was broken, and actually prepared for war? Would the human tragedy and loss of Soviet life have been so great? Another, would be what if the magnificent UK hadn�t won the Battle of Britain? Would there even have been a USSR after 1945? Was the defeat of the Germans in the Russian front due to excellent fighting, or an insane Hitler�s blundering?

In my book Stalin and Hitler were two peas in a pod.

BTW�.It was very kind of the USSR to finally liberate Poland 40 after defeating the Nazi�s.

My take is that if Hitler had finished Britian before invading Russia, things would have turned out differently. Once they invaded Russia, even though Russia was unpreppared, Russia fought a barren earth style war during the early part of the german invasion knowing what the winter would do and hopeing they could survive that long. They also knew by stretching Germanys supply line they were taking valuable resources from the western front.

I suggest that you read "Russia At War" by Alexander Werth. Mr. Werth was a war correspondent stationed in Russia for most of the war, spoke with (and recorded) the ideas and thoughts of a great many principles involved in "The Great Patriotic War" ('41-'45). Don Martin is correct, the losses (on both sides) were staggering. Allied fighting against Germany started in North Africa in '42. Even though Britain and the commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Rhodesia, India, et al) were at war from '39. Mostly, the Brits got there asses kicked, and ran back to England. The western Europeans pretty much just rolled over, the Poles got attacked from both sides (Germany and Russia)at the same time. France was militarily capable of fighting off the Germans in '39, she was just led by very old, tired, fat generals. The French/British alliance pretty much guaranteed the Brits would be pushed into the channel. There were Americans fighting for foriegn (to them) nations before the US government entered the war after Pearl Harbour. The fighting of the Navy protecting the convoys is a little known fact, even though there had been no declaration of war between the USA and Germany at the time, they simply were told to "protect themselves". As for Russia being caught flatfooted, in fact Stalin was very busy moving factories and increasing military goods output. His alliance with Germany was to buy himself territory to use as a buffer between him and the Germans, and to give himself breathing space to bring his country up to speed. One of his vaunted 5 year plans basically had the country mobilised and on a war footing by '44. Hitler didn't want to give him time to get set, and knowing he would have to fight russia sooner or later, he picked sooner. American lend lease to Russia was sporadic and a tiny amount until 1943, when the convoys started getting through with regularity. But yes, the Russians are the ones who gutted Nazi Germany. We came along in '44 (Dieppe was at best a training exercse, and at worst Colonel Blimp type of foolishness) and started the second front (to the Russians, Africa and Italy didn't count). By then Germany was already at the point where she couldn't easily replace her losses. I'm not sure if Russia could have won against Germany without the allies, and I know the Allies couldn't have won the war in Europe without Russia. It does make interesting reading though. As for the comments about "having been there", well, how many riflemen at the front (or anywhere) had any idea what was going on anywhere except there specific area? It would be like asking the guy on the assembly line who puts on hubcaps how everything on a car works. - Dan

This is my last post of this friendly interchange, for I don�t believe anything can be gained by further chat in this section of this shooting related site. We agree to disagree.

Stalin was totally shocked at the Nazi invasion, and breaking the German Soviet Pact of neutrality. I stand by this, and can�t locate any facts to dispute it. I can�t say this is fact though, the following is fact.

Again, we forget the gradual victory of the skies over Germany and occupied Allied lands. Towards the end of the war, the German command had every available aircraft left defend the homeland. The actual exchange of Nazi occupied territory from Africa to the Arctic circle by the Allied armies. The advances in warfare technology on line, not to forget the successful use of Atomic energy. Add to this millions of battle tested soldiers/sailors/pilots and support staff suddenly available after the defeat of Japan. It�s ludicrous to think the U.S. couldn�t have defeated Germany without the USSR

The thinking made famous in the film Patton, regarding not stopping at Berlin, but crushing Communism once and for all while we have all the men and equipment over here anyway, had more proponents in Washington than we commonly think now.

I would like to suggest that some gentlemen here need to read some historical text as opposed to historical novels. There is a difference between the two.

On a side note the capibilty of the Russian fighting man leavs something to be desired. The little country of Finnland not only bloodyd Russia nose it was a massacer (sp) by a very small force on a much much larger force in fact did not Russia sue for peace or smoe sort of non aggression pact??

1894, I apologise. I phrased that very badly, and insulted a great many people. Again, I'm sorry. One tends to forget that England was pretty much on her own there for a while, and sustained horrific losses of her own. Mea Culpa.

Paleo hunter, while the Finns won some battles and did kill a great many Russians, they in fact lost territory in both campaigns. They paid reperations to Russia after the war, and their border with russia was rearranged yet again. I would say that what really saved the Finns was their own good sense in stopping at the pre-war territorial lines and not continuing on to Leningrad with their allies, the Nazis. Once the Russians were winning and peshed into Finland, an accomodation was reached with the Russian government to prevent the Russians continuing on through their country. Stalin was very much a pragmatist, one less enemy to deal with meant he could concentrate more forces on the Germans. As well, I'm sure he realised that a continuing campagn in Finland would have been costly. The Finns weren't pushovers.

As for Stalin being surprised, perhaps at the timing of the Axis he was. There is a great deal of evidence pointing at the fact that the Russians were already moving their factories etc. before the Germans attacked. Again, I refer you to Mr. Werth's book. It doesn't change anything, but it is interesting to see the thoughts of the people involved as they happened, as opposed to whta everyone wanted written in the history books later. Revisionist history has been a Soviet standard for some time, but other nations are equally culpable (no general wants to look bad or stupid). FWIW, and again 1894, I apologise for impugning England. - Dan