Sniper

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Messages 1 - 18 of total 18 in this topic

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 25, 2010 - 08:57pm PT

[photoid=155102]

Strikingly beautiful women. Some say they both looked like angels.

They had over 600 kills between them during WW11.

JL

pud

climber

Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia

Apr 25, 2010 - 09:02pm PT

Killer babe ;)

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Apr 25, 2010 - 09:02pm PT

If looks could kill.

Check out the history of the 'Night Witches'- the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. They flew POS biplanes and kicked ass big time!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Ricky D

Trad climber

Sierra Westside

Apr 25, 2010 - 09:04pm PT

"Enemy at the Gates" is worth a watch if you like sniper movies. Semi-historical account of a sniper feud between Germany and Russia during WWII.

"The Shooter" is a good second view.

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

Apr 25, 2010 - 09:32pm PT

The movie "Shooter" is a pale imitation of the book.

At another time, on another battlefield, my radio call sign had been "Gabriel" because the archangel and I have a lot in common. Legend says Gabriel's trumpet will sound the last judgment. I do the same sort of thing with my rifle.

Gsgt's Coughlign's book also at the end speaks to doctrine. (the way army's fight wars).

For example the German doctrine in WWII was that the squad existed to support the machine gun. The American doctrine was one of "fire and maneuver".

Coughlin's case that the squad should exist to support the sniper as the primary weapons system is probably a bit of an over reach, but the skilled marksman in a day of counter insurgency where military tactics bleed over into a more law enforcement model of selectively striking only the bad actors and spareing innocent lives nothing takes the place of one selectively placed round.

The psychological consequences to and how the rest of us perceive those that are asked to perform that task are something I don't think has been adequately addressed.

Josh Nash

Social climber

riverbank ca

Apr 25, 2010 - 09:43pm PT

scarcollector

climber

Apr 25, 2010 - 09:56pm PT

Those Mosin-Nagant rifles took a lot of lives.

Crodog

Trad climber

Concord, CA

Apr 25, 2010 - 10:10pm PT

The Russian scopes were better than the Nazi's as they could be zeroed by hand and three shots. The Nazi scopes required a screw driver and five shots.

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

Apr 25, 2010 - 10:31pm PT

They had over 600 kills between them during WW11.

That's watching 600 heads explode in a pink mist.

Something to contemplate.

Crodog

Trad climber

Concord, CA

Apr 25, 2010 - 10:38pm PT

Tatiana Nikolaevna Baramzina (Russian: Татья́на Никола́евна Барамзина́) (December 12, 1919 – July 5, 1944) was a Soviet sniper in the Great Patriotic War. She was posthumously awarded the Gold Star and achieved Hero of the Soviet Union status on March 24, 1945.

Early life
Born in the city of Glazov in Udmurtia, Baramzina graduated from the Glazov State Pedagogical Institute and spent two years teaching a kindergarten class in a village school at Kachkashur. In 1940, she enrolled at University in Perm, and when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, she began to attend nursing courses in the evening, while training to become a sharpshooter.

World War II
In June 1943 she was sent to the Central Women’s Sniper Training School outside Moscow and, upon graduation in April 1944, she was sent to the 3rd Belorussian Front. Within her first three months, she had killed at least 16 enemy soldiers, while serving in the 3rd Battalion of the 252nd Rifle Regiment (70th Rifle Division, 33rd Army).

On July 5, 1944 Baramzina's battalion parachuted behind enemy lines as part of a larger attempt to seize the crossroads near the village of Pekalin in Smalyavichy, hoping to block the retreat of German forces. An engagement broke out before they reached the crossroads, and the battalion took heavy casualties. After killing 20 German soldiers, Baramzina was re-assigned to care for the wounded personnel, due to her medical training.

The trench that was being used to hold the Soviet wounded was re-taken by German forces, and after being wounded by artillery fire, she was captured and subjected to torture in an attempt to have her divulge information. After her eyes had been gouged out, Baramzina was subsequently shot point-blank with an anti-tank rifle.

Memorial
In addition to a monument in the local Gaslov park, Proletarskaya Street, on which she had grown up, was re-named in her honour, as well as streets in Minsk and Izhevsk and outside the Podolsk Central Women's Sniper Training School. The Young Pioneers group at the school in which she had been teaching, was also renamed in her memory. A diorama at the Belarusian Great Patriotic War Museum depicts her last stand.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2010 - 10:40pm PT

From Resistance, by Cecelia Ruiz

Lt. Gaines stood in the warm, afternoon light streaming in through the blown out window in Rose’s hotel suite. He waved across at the other sixty-story tower of rooms and smoky windows, several hundred feet away. Hotel security had located the sniper’s room, and CFI’s were over there shaking the place down for evidence. He reached a tissue out through the window, let it go and watched swirling gusts whip it from view. Shooting through that kind of cross wind wouldn’t be simple.

Gaines turned from the window and walked over to the far wall, covered with thick, dark red texturing. Major Stan Matisse, an intel officer from nearby Nellis Air Force Base, looking hale but rather misplaced in a high end casino with his camos and desert combat boots, ran his fingers over five bullet holes in the wall, a somewhat uniform grouping maybe eighteen inches across. He stepped back and studied the holes, tilting his he like a crow. Then he smiled wryly and said, “Now that is arrogance.”

Gaines squinted, staring at the holes but couldn’t see anything.

The Major dug a piece of chalk from his pocket and drew several straight lines between the bullet holes. Then he stood back next to Gaines and for a few moments, the two men stared at the chalk outline of a perfect, five-pointed star.

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

Apr 25, 2010 - 10:54pm PT

My take away from this is the respect and lionization that these women were treated with. That had to have had an incredible healing effect on those that did indeed survive.

We have a socially unhealthy avoidance reaction that results in the diminution of the efforts of those that we ask to clean up or take out the trash.

It diminishes us and can destroy those that have volunteered to subject themselves to real horror. They really are heroes and deserve the accolades.

scarcollector

climber

Apr 26, 2010 - 12:15am PT

from Wikipedia: "There she (Lyudmilia Pavlichenko, first portrait in JL's post) became one of 2,000 female snipers in the Red Army, of whom about 500 ultimately survived the war."

Those are not good odds.

slevin

Trad climber

New York, NY

Apr 26, 2010 - 08:39am PT

Here, in Moscow, May 9th is coming up (the Victory day), so there are postesr of these women all over the city and interviews on TV.

One thing for sure, in addition to oil and natural gas, Russia does produce amazing women! A natural resource in it's own right...

[edit]
My junior trader has just caught me looking at these pictures. So, the first photo in Largo's post is of Ljudmila Pavlichenko, 306 comfirmed kills (assumed number of kills is way over 500) including 36 enemy snipers. Here is another picture