The best snipers of World War II: German and Soviet

Heroes of the Great Patriotic War became many soldiers and officers of the Red Army. It is perhaps difficult to single out military specialties that would stand out in particular when awarding military awards. Famous Heroes Soviet Union there are sappers, tankers, pilots, sailors, infantrymen and military doctors.

But I would like to highlight one military specialty, which occupies a special place in the category of feat. These are snipers.

A sniper is a specially trained soldier who is fluent in the art of marksmanship, camouflage and observation, hitting targets with the first shot. Its task is to defeat the command and liaison staff, the destruction of camouflaged single targets.

At the front, when special military units (companies, regiments, divisions) oppose the enemy, the sniper is an independent combat unit.

We will tell you about sniper heroes who have made a significant contribution to the common cause of victory. You can read about female snipers who participated in the Great Patriotic War in ours.

1. Passar Maxim Alexandrovich (08/30/1923 - 01/22/1943)

A participant in the Great Patriotic War, a Soviet sniper, during the fighting destroyed 237 enemy soldiers and officers. Most of the enemies were eliminated by him during Battle of Stalingrad. For the destruction of Passar, the German command appointed a reward of 100 thousand Reichsmarks. Hero Russian Federation(posthumously).

2. Surkov Mikhail Ilyich (1921-1953)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, sniper of the 1st Battalion of the 39th Infantry Regiment of the 4th rifle division 12th Army, foreman, holder of the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star.

3. Kovshova Natalia Venediktovna (11/26/1920 - 08/14/1942)

Participant of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union.

On the personal account of the sniper Kovshova 167 killed fascist soldiers and officers. During the service, she taught the fighters the skill of marksmanship. On August 14, 1942, near the village of Sutoki, Novgorod Region, she died in an unequal battle with the Nazis.

4. Tulaev Zhambyl Yesheevich (02 (15). 05.1905 - 01.17.1961)

Member of the Great Patriotic War. The hero of the USSR.

Sniper of the 580th Infantry Regiment of the 188th Infantry Division of the 27th Army of the North-Western Front. Foreman Zhambyl Tulaev from May to November 1942 exterminated 262 Nazis. Prepared more than 30 snipers for the front.

5. Sidorenko Ivan Mikhailovich (09/12/1919 - 02/19/1994)

Captain Ivan Sidorenko, assistant chief of staff of the 1122nd Rifle Regiment, distinguished himself as the organizer of the sniper movement. By 1944, he personally destroyed about 500 Nazis from a sniper rifle.

Ivan Sidorenko trained more than 250 snipers for the front, most of whom were awarded orders and medals.

6. Okhlopkov Fedor Matveevich (03/02/1908 - 05/28/1968)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union.

By June 23, 1944, Sergeant Okhlopkov destroyed 429 Nazi soldiers and officers from a sniper rifle. Was wounded 12 times. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin were awarded only in 1965.

7. Aliya Nurmukhambetovna Moldagulova (10/25/1925 - 01/14/1944)

Participant of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously), corporal.

Sniper of the 54th Separate Rifle Brigade of the 22nd Army of the 2nd Baltic Front. Corporal Moldagulova for the first 2 months of participation in the battles destroyed several dozen enemies. On January 14, 1944, she took part in the battle for the village of Kazachikha, Pskov Region, and led the fighters into the attack. Breaking into the enemy's defenses, she destroyed several soldiers and officers from a machine gun. She died in this battle.

8. Budenkov Mikhail Ivanovich (05.12.1919 - 02.08.1995)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, senior lieutenant.

By September 1944, Guard Senior Sergeant Mikhail Budenkov was a sniper in the 59th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 21st Guards Rifle Division of the 3rd Shock Army of the 2nd Baltic Front. By that time, he had 437 enemy soldiers and officers destroyed by sniper fire. He entered the top ten snipers of the Great Patriotic War.

9. Etobaev Arseny Mikhailovich (09/15/1903- 1987)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, civil war 1917-1922 and the conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1929. Cavalier of the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star, full cavalier of the Order of the Patriotic War.

The sniper destroyed 356 German invaders and shot down two planes.

10. Salbiev Vladimir Gavrilovich (1916- 1996)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, twice holder of the Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of the Patriotic War II degree.

Salbiev's sniper account has 601 enemy soldiers and officers killed.

11. Pchelintsev Vladimir Nikolaevich (30.08.1919- 27.07.1997)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, sniper of the 11th Infantry Brigade of the 8th Army of the Leningrad Front, Hero of the Soviet Union, Sgt.

One of the most effective snipers of World War II. Destroyed 456 enemy soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers.

12. Kvachantiradze Vasily Shalvovich (1907- 1950)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, foreman.

Sniper of the 259th Infantry Regiment of the 179th Infantry Division of the 43rd Army of the 1st Baltic Front.

One of the most productive snipers of the Great Patriotic War. Destroyed 534 enemy soldiers and officers.

13. Goncharov Pyotr Alekseevich (01/15/1903- 31.01.1944)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, senior sergeant of the guard.

On his sniper account, more than 380 enemy soldiers and officers were killed. He died on January 31, 1944, when breaking through the enemy defenses near the village of Vodiane.

14. Galushkin Nikolai Ivanovich (07/01/1917- 22.01.2007)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Russian Federation, lieutenant.

He served in the 49th Infantry Regiment of the 50th Infantry Division. According to reports, he destroyed 418 German soldiers and officers, including 17 snipers, and also trained sniper business 148 fighters. After the war, he was active in military-patriotic work.

Member of the Great Patriotic War, commander of the sniper company of the 81st Guards Rifle Regiment, guard lieutenant.

By the end of June 1943, already the commander of a sniper company, Golosov personally destroyed about 420 Nazis, including 70 snipers. In his company, he trained 170 snipers, who in total destroyed more than 3,500 fascists.

He died on August 16, 1943 in the midst of the fighting for the village of Dolgenkoe, Izyumsky district, Kharkov region.

16. Nomokonov Semyon Danilovich (08/12/1900 - 07/15/1973)

Member of the Great Patriotic War and the Soviet-Japanese War, twice holder of the Order of the Red Star, the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner.

During the Great Patriotic War, he destroyed 360 German soldiers and officers, including one major general. During the Soviet-Japanese War destroyed 8 soldiers and officers Kwantung Army. The total confirmed score is 368 enemy soldiers and officers.

17. Ilyin Nikolai Yakovlevich (1922 - 08/04/1943)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, foreman, deputy political instructor.

In total, the sniper accounted for 494 killed enemies. On August 4, 1943, in a battle near the village of Yastrebovo, Nikolai Ilyin died, struck down by a machine-gun burst.

18. Antonov Ivan Petrovich (07/07/1920 - 03/22/1989)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, shooter of the 160th separate rifle company of the Leningrad naval base of the Baltic Fleet, sailor, Hero of the Soviet Union.

Ivan Antonov became one of the pioneers of the sniper movement in the Baltic.

From December 28, 1941 to November 10, 1942, he destroyed 302 Nazis and taught the art of marksmanship to the enemy 80 snipers.

19. Dyachenko Fedor Trofimovich (06/16/1917 - 08/08/1995)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, major.

By February 1944, Dyachenko destroyed 425 enemy soldiers and officers, including several snipers, with sniper fire.

20. Idrisov Abuhaji (Abukhazhi) (05/17/1918- 22.10.1983)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, sniper of the 1232nd Infantry Regiment of the 370th Infantry Division, senior sergeant, Hero of the Soviet Union.

By March 1944, he already had 349 destroyed Nazis on his account, and he was introduced to the title of Hero. In one of the battles in April 1944, Idrisov was wounded by a fragment of a mine that exploded nearby, he was covered with earth. Comrades dug him up and sent him to the hospital.

Soviet snipers actively worked on all fronts of the Great Patriotic War and sometimes played great value at the end of the battle. Sniper work was dangerous and hard. The guys had to lie for hours or even days in constant tension and full combat readiness in a very different area. And it doesn't matter if it was a field, swamp or snow. this post will be dedicated to Soviet soldiers - snipers and their heavy burden. Glory to the heroes!

As I remember, about ten years ago for " round table"A popular television program, former cadet of the Central Women's School of Sniper Training A. Shilina said:

“I was already an experienced fighter, who had 25 fascists on his account, when the cuckoo started up among the Germans. Every day, two or three of our soldiers are gone. Yes, it shoots something like aptly: from the first cartridge - in the forehead or in the temple. They called in one pair of snipers - it did not help. Doesn't take any bait. They order us: as you wish, but they must destroy it. Tosya, my best friend, and I dug in - the place, I remember, was swampy, there were hummocks all around, small bushes. They began to observe. A day was wasted, another. On the third day, Tosya says: “Let's take it. Whether we stay alive, no - it doesn't matter. The fighters are falling ... "

She was shorter than me. And the trenches are shallow. He takes a rifle, attaches a bayonet, puts a helmet on it and begins to crawl, run, crawl again. Well, I have to look. The tension is huge. And I worry about her, and the sniper cannot be missed. I see that the bushes in one place seem to have parted a little. He! She took him in right away. He fired, I immediately. I hear shouting from the front line: girls, cheers for you! I crawl up to Tosya, I look - blood. The bullet pierced her helmet and ricocheted her neck. Here the platoon commander arrived. They lifted her - and to the medical unit. It worked out... And at night, our scouts pulled out this sniper. He was a mother, he killed about a hundred of our soldiers ... "

In the combat practice of Soviet snipers, there are, of course, cooler examples. But he began with the fact that the front-line soldier Shilina told about, not by chance. In the past decade, at the suggestion of the Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich, some publicists and researchers in Russia are trying to assert the opinion in society that the sniper is too inhumane front-line specialty, without making a distinction between those who set the goal of exterminating half the world's population, and those who opposed this goal . But who can condemn Alexandra Shilina for the fact cited at the beginning of the essay? Yes, Soviet snipers came face to face with Wehrmacht soldiers and officers at the front, sending bullets at them. How else? By the way, the German aces of fire opened their account much earlier than the Soviet ones. By June 1941, many of them destroyed several hundred enemy soldiers and officers - Poles, French, British.

... In the spring of 1942, when there were fierce battles for Sevastopol, the sniper of the 54th Infantry Regiment of the 25th Division of the Primorsky Army, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, was invited to the neighboring unit, where the Nazi shooter brought many troubles. She entered into a duel with a German ace and won it. When they looked at the sniper book, it turned out that he destroyed 400 French and British, as well as about 100 Soviet soldiers. Lyudmila's shot was extremely humane. How many she saved from the bullets of the Nazis!

Vladimir Pchelintsev, Fedor Okhlopkov, Maxim Passar ... During the Great Patriotic War, these and other names of snipers were widely known among the troops. But who won the right to be called the number one ace sniper?

In the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of Russia, among many other exhibits, sniper rifle Mosin system sample 1891/30. (number KE-1729) "Named after the Heroes of the Soviet Union Andrukhaev and Ilyin". The initiator of the sniper movement of the 136th Infantry Division of the Southern Front, political instructor Khusen Andrukhaev, died heroically in heavy battles for Rostov. In memory of him, a sniper rifle named after him is established. In the days of the legendary defense of Stalingrad, the best sniper of the guard unit, foreman Nikolai Ilyin, smashes the enemy from it. Per short term he increases the score to 494 from 115 destroyed Nazis and becomes the best Soviet sniper during the Great Patriotic War.

In August 1943, near Belgorod, Ilyin died in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. The rifle, now named after two heroes (Nikolai Ilyin was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on February 8, 1943), was traditionally awarded best sniper parts of Sergeant Afanasy Gordienko. He brought his account from it to 417 destroyed Nazis. This honorary weapon failed only when it was hit by a shell fragment. In total, about 1000 enemy soldiers and officers were struck from this rifle. Nikolai Ilyin made 379 accurate shots from it.

What was typical for this twenty-year-old sniper from the Lugansk region? He knew how to outwit the enemy. One day, Nikolai tracked down an enemy shooter all day. Everything felt: a hundred meters from him lay an experienced professional. How to remove the German "cuckoo"? From a padded jacket and a helmet, he made a stuffed animal and began to slowly pick it up. The helmet did not have time to rise even half, when two shots rang out almost simultaneously: the Nazi man pierced the scarecrow with a bullet, and Ilyin - the enemy.

When it became known that graduates of the Berlin sniper school arrived at the front near Stalingrad, Nikolai Ilyin told his colleagues that the Germans were pedants, they had probably learned the classic tricks. We need to show them Russian ingenuity and take care of the baptism of Berlin newcomers. Every morning, under artillery fire, under bombardment, he sneaked up on the Nazis for a sure shot and destroyed them without a miss. Near Stalingrad, Ilyin's account increased to 400 destroyed enemy soldiers and officers. Then there was the Kursk Bulge, and there he again flashed his ingenuity and ingenuity.

Ace number two can be considered a Smolyan, assistant chief of staff of the 1122nd Infantry Regiment of the 334th Division (1st Baltic Front) Captain Ivan Sidorenko, who destroyed about 500 enemy soldiers and officers and trained about 250 snipers for the front. In moments of calm, he hunted the Nazis, taking his students with him to “hunt”.

The third in the list of the most successful Soviet sniper aces is the sniper of the 59th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 21st Division (2nd Baltic Front) Guard Senior Sergeant Mikhail Budenkov, who killed 437 Nazi soldiers and officers. Here is what he said about one of the battles in Latvia:

“There was some kind of farm on the way of the offensive. There were German machine gunners. It was necessary to destroy them. With short dashes, I managed to reach the top of the height and kill the Nazis. Before I had time to catch my breath, I see a German running to the farm in front of me, with a machine gun. Shot - and the Nazi fell. After a while, a second one with a machine-gun box runs after him. He suffered the same fate. A few more minutes passed, hundreds of one and a half fascists ran from the farm. This time they were running along a different road, further away from me. I fired several shots, but I realized that many of them would still hide. I quickly ran up to the dead machine gunners, the machine gun was working, and I opened fire on the Nazis from their own weapons. Then we counted about a hundred killed Nazis.

Other Soviet snipers were also distinguished by amazing courage, endurance and ingenuity. For example, Nanai Sergeant Maxim Passar (117th Infantry Regiment of the 23rd Infantry Division, Stalingrad Front), who accounted for 237 destroyed Nazi soldiers and officers. Tracking down an enemy sniper, he pretended to be killed and lay all day in no man's land in an open field, among the dead. From this position, he sent a bullet to the fascist shooter, who was under the embankment, in a pipe for draining water. Only in the evening Passar was able to crawl back to his own.

The first 10 Soviet sniper aces destroyed over 4200 enemy soldiers and officers, the first 20 - more than 7500

The Americans wrote: “Russian snipers showed great skill on the German front. They encouraged the Germans to produce optical sights on a large scale and to train snipers."

Of course, one cannot but say about how the results of Soviet snipers were recorded. Here it is appropriate to refer to the materials of the meeting held in the summer of 1943 with the Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars K.E. Voroshilov.

According to the memoirs of ace sniper Vladimir Pchelintsev, those present at the meeting proposed to introduce a single, strict procedure for recording the results of combat work, a single “Personal Sniper Book” for all, and in a rifle regiment and company - “Journals for recording the combat activities of snipers”.

The basis for accounting for the number of Nazi soldiers and officers killed should be the report of the sniper himself, confirmed by eyewitnesses (company and platoon observers, artillery and mortar spotters, reconnaissance officers, officers of all degrees, unit commanders, etc.). When counting the destroyed Nazis, each officer should be equated to three soldiers.

In practice, for the most part, accounting was carried out in this way. Perhaps the last point was not observed.

Separately, it should be said about female snipers. They appeared in the Russian army during the First World War, most often they were the widows of Russian officers who died in the war. They sought to take revenge on the enemy for their husbands. And already in the first months of the Great Patriotic War, the names of the female snipers Lyudmila Pavlichenko, Natalia Kovshova, Maria Polivanova became known to the whole world.

Yudmila in the battles for Odessa and Sevastopol destroyed 309 Nazi soldiers and officers (this is the highest result among female snipers). Natalya and Maria, who accounted for over 300 Nazis, glorified their names with unparalleled courage on August 14, 1942. On that day, near the village of Sutoki ( Novgorod region) Natasha Kovshova and Masha Polivanova, repelling the onslaught of the Nazis, were surrounded. With the last grenade, they blew themselves up and the German infantrymen who surrounded them. One of them was then 22 years old, the other 20 years old. Like Lyudmila Pavlichenko, they were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Following their example, many girls decided to master sniper skills in order to participate in battles with weapons in their hands. They were trained in super-sharp shooting directly in military units and connections. In May 1943, the Central Women's School of Sniper Training was created. More than 1300 female snipers came out of its walls. During the fighting, the pupils exterminated more than 11,800 fascist soldiers and officers.

... At the front, Soviet soldiers called them "private soldiers without a miss", as, for example, Nikolai Ilyin at the beginning of his "sniper career". Or - "sergeants without a miss", like Fyodor Okhlopkov ...

Here are the lines from the letters of the Wehrmacht soldiers that they wrote to their relatives.

“The Russian sniper is something terrible. You can't hide from him anywhere! You can't raise your head in the trenches. The slightest negligence - and you will immediately get a bullet between the eyes ... "

“Snipers often lie in one place for hours in ambush and take aim at anyone who shows up. Only in the dark can one feel safe.”

“There are banners hanging in our trenches: “Caution! Shooting Russian sniper!

Soviet snipers worked actively on all fronts of the Great Patriotic War and sometimes played a huge role in the outcome of the battle. Sniper work was dangerous and hard. The guys had to lie for hours or even days in constant tension and full combat readiness in a very different area. And it doesn't matter if it was a field, swamp or snow. this post will be dedicated to Soviet soldiers - snipers and their heavy burden. Glory to the heroes!

A former cadet of the Central Women's School of Sniper Training A. Shilina said:
“I was already an experienced fighter, who had 25 fascists on his account, when the cuckoo started up among the Germans. Every day, two or three of our soldiers are gone. Yes, it shoots something like aptly: from the first cartridge - in the forehead or in the temple. They called in one pair of snipers - it did not help. Doesn't take any bait. They order us: as you wish, but they must destroy it. Tosya, my best friend, and I dug in - the place, I remember, was swampy, there were hummocks all around, small bushes. They began to observe. A day was wasted, another. On the third day, Tosya says: “Let's take it. Whether we stay alive, no - it doesn't matter. The fighters are falling ... "

She was shorter than me. And the trenches are shallow. He takes a rifle, attaches a bayonet, puts a helmet on it and begins to crawl, run, crawl again. Well, I have to look. The tension is huge. And I worry about her, and the sniper cannot be missed. I see that the bushes in one place seem to have parted a little. He! She took him in right away. He fired, I immediately. I hear shouting from the front line: girls, cheers for you! I crawl up to Tosya, I look - blood. The bullet pierced her helmet and ricocheted her neck. Here the platoon commander arrived. They lifted her - and to the medical unit. It worked out... And at night, our scouts pulled out this sniper. He was a mother, he killed about a hundred of our soldiers ... "

In the combat practice of Soviet snipers, there are, of course, cooler examples. But he began with the fact that the front-line soldier Shilina told about, not by chance. In the past decade, at the suggestion of the Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich, some publicists and researchers in Russia are trying to assert the opinion in society that the sniper is too inhumane front-line specialty, without making a distinction between those who set the goal of exterminating half the world's population, and those who opposed this goal . But who can condemn Alexandra Shilina for the fact cited at the beginning of the essay? Yes, Soviet snipers came face to face with Wehrmacht soldiers and officers at the front, sending bullets at them. How else? By the way, the German aces of fire opened their account much earlier than the Soviet ones. By June 1941, many of them destroyed several hundred enemy soldiers and officers - Poles, French, British.

... In the spring of 1942, when there were fierce battles for Sevastopol, the sniper of the 54th Infantry Regiment of the 25th Division of the Primorsky Army, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, was invited to the neighboring unit, where the Nazi shooter brought many troubles. She entered into a duel with a German ace and won it. When they looked at the sniper book, it turned out that he destroyed 400 French and British, as well as about 100 Soviet soldiers. Lyudmila's shot was extremely humane. How many she saved from the bullets of the Nazis!

Vladimir Pchelintsev, Fedor Okhlopkov, Vasily Zaitsev, Maxim Passar ... During the Great Patriotic War, these and other names of snipers were widely known among the troops. But who won the right to be called the number one ace sniper?

In the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of Russia, among many other exhibits, there is a sniper rifle of the Mosin system of the 1891/30 model. (number KE-1729) "Named after the Heroes of the Soviet Union Andrukhaev and Ilyin". The initiator of the sniper movement of the 136th Infantry Division of the Southern Front, political instructor Khusen Andrukhaev, died heroically in heavy battles for Rostov. In memory of him, a sniper rifle named after him is established. In the days of the legendary defense of Stalingrad, the best sniper of the guard unit, foreman Nikolai Ilyin, smashes the enemy from it. In a short time, from 115 destroyed Nazis, he increases the score to 494 and becomes the best Soviet sniper during the Great Patriotic War.

In August 1943, near Belgorod, Ilyin died in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. The rifle, now named after two heroes (Nikolai Ilyin was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on February 8, 1943), was traditionally awarded to the best sniper of the unit, Sergeant Afanasy Gordienko. He brought his account from it to 417 destroyed Nazis. This honorary weapon failed only when it was hit by a shell fragment. In total, about 1000 enemy soldiers and officers were struck from this rifle. Nikolai Ilyin made 379 accurate shots from it.

What was typical for this twenty-year-old sniper from the Lugansk region? He knew how to outwit the enemy. One day, Nikolai tracked down an enemy shooter all day. Everything felt: a hundred meters from him lay an experienced professional. How to remove the German "cuckoo"? From a padded jacket and a helmet, he made a stuffed animal and began to slowly pick it up. The helmet did not have time to rise even half, when two shots rang out almost simultaneously: the Nazi man pierced the scarecrow with a bullet, and Ilyin - the enemy.

When it became known that graduates of the Berlin sniper school arrived at the front near Stalingrad, Nikolai Ilyin told his colleagues that the Germans were pedants, they had probably learned the classic tricks. We need to show them Russian ingenuity and take care of the baptism of Berlin newcomers. Every morning, under artillery fire, under bombardment, he sneaked up on the Nazis for a sure shot and destroyed them without a miss. Near Stalingrad, Ilyin's account increased to 400 destroyed enemy soldiers and officers. Then there was the Kursk Bulge, and there he again flashed his ingenuity and ingenuity.

Ace number two can be considered a Smolyan, assistant chief of staff of the 1122nd Infantry Regiment of the 334th Division (1st Baltic Front) Captain Ivan Sidorenko, who destroyed about 500 enemy soldiers and officers and trained about 250 snipers for the front. In moments of calm, he hunted the Nazis, taking his students with him to “hunt”.

The third in the list of the most successful Soviet sniper aces is the sniper of the 59th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 21st Division (2nd Baltic Front) Guard Senior Sergeant Mikhail Budenkov, who killed 437 Nazi soldiers and officers. Here is what he said about one of the battles in Latvia:

“There was some kind of farm on the way of the offensive. There were German machine gunners. It was necessary to destroy them. With short dashes, I managed to reach the top of the height and kill the Nazis. Before I had time to catch my breath, I see a German running to the farm in front of me, with a machine gun. Shot - and the Nazi fell. After a while, a second one with a machine-gun box runs after him. He suffered the same fate. A few more minutes passed, hundreds of one and a half fascists ran from the farm. This time they were running along a different road, further away from me. I fired several shots, but I realized that many of them would still hide. I quickly ran up to the dead machine gunners, the machine gun was working, and I opened fire on the Nazis from their own weapons. Then we counted about a hundred killed Nazis.

Other Soviet snipers were also distinguished by amazing courage, endurance and ingenuity. For example, Nanai Sergeant Maxim Passar (117th Infantry Regiment of the 23rd Infantry Division, Stalingrad Front), who accounted for 237 destroyed Nazi soldiers and officers. Tracking down an enemy sniper, he pretended to be killed and lay all day in no man's land in an open field, among the dead. From this position, he sent a bullet to the fascist shooter, who was under the embankment, in a pipe for draining water. Only in the evening Passar was able to crawl back to his own. The first 10 Soviet sniper aces destroyed over 4200 enemy soldiers and officers, the first 20 - more than 7500. Vasily Zaitsev, Legendary Sniper During the Great Patriotic War, Vasily Zaitsev during the Battle of Stalingrad, in a month and a half, destroyed more than two hundred German soldiers and officers, including 11 snipers.

The Americans wrote: “Russian snipers showed great skill on the German front. They prompted the Germans to produce optical sights on a large scale and train snipers.” Of course, one cannot fail to say how the results of Soviet snipers were recorded. Here it is appropriate to refer to the materials of the meeting held in the summer of 1943 with the Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars K.E. Voroshilova.According to the memoirs of ace-sniper Vladimir Pchelintsev, those present at the meeting proposed to introduce a single, strict procedure for recording the results of combat work, a single “Personal Sniper Book” for all, and in a rifle regiment and company - “Journals for recording the combat activities of snipers”.

The basis for accounting for the number of Nazi soldiers and officers killed should be the report of the sniper himself, confirmed by eyewitnesses (company and platoon observers, artillery and mortar spotters, reconnaissance officers, officers of all degrees, unit commanders, etc.). When counting the destroyed Nazis, each officer should be equated with three soldiers. In practice, this was basically how the records were kept. Perhaps the last point was not observed.

Separately, it should be said about female snipers. They appeared in the Russian army during the First World War, most often they were the widows of Russian officers who died in the war. They sought to take revenge on the enemy for their husbands. And already in the first months of the Great Patriotic War, the names of the female snipers Lyudmila Pavlichenko, Natalia Kovshova, Maria Polivanova became known to the whole world.

Lyudmila in the battles for Odessa and Sevastopol destroyed 309 Nazi soldiers and officers (this is the highest result among female snipers). Natalya and Maria, who accounted for over 300 Nazis, glorified their names with unparalleled courage on August 14, 1942. On that day, near the village of Sutoki (Novgorod region), Natasha Kovshova and Masha Polivanova, repelling the onslaught of the Nazis, were surrounded. With the last grenade, they blew themselves up and the German infantrymen who surrounded them. One of them was then 22 years old, the other 20 years old. Like Lyudmila Pavlichenko, they were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Following their example, many girls decided to master sniper skills in order to participate in battles with weapons in their hands. They were trained in high marksmanship directly in military units and formations. In May 1943, the Central Women's School of Sniper Training was created. More than 1300 female snipers came out of its walls. During the fighting, the pupils exterminated more than 11,800 fascist soldiers and officers.

... At the front, Soviet soldiers called them "private soldiers without a miss", as, for example, Nikolai Ilyin at the beginning of his "sniper career". Or - “sergeants without a miss”, like Fyodor Okhlopkov ... Here are lines from letters from Wehrmacht soldiers that they wrote to their relatives: “A Russian sniper is something terrible. You can't hide from him anywhere! You can't raise your head in the trenches. The slightest negligence - and you will immediately get a bullet between the eyes ... "
“Snipers often lie in one place for hours in ambush and take aim at anyone who shows up. Only in the dark can one feel safe.”
“There are banners hanging in our trenches: “Caution! Shooting Russian sniper!

Well-trained snipers have always been valued in all the armies of the world, but the importance of snipers increased especially during the Second World War. The results of this war showed that the snipers of the Red Army turned out to be the most prepared and effective in their overwhelming majority. Soviet sniper fighters in many respects were noticeably superior to the snipers of the German Wehrmacht and not only them. And this was not surprising, it turns out that the Soviet Union was almost the only country in the world where shooting training was put on stream, they practically covered wide sections of the population of the entire country, they taught citizens shooting back in Peaceful time, as part of pre-conscription training, the older generation probably still remembers the sign "Voroshilovsky shooter". High quality this training was soon tested by the war, during which the Soviet snipers showed all their skills, this skill is confirmed by the so-called sniper "death lists", from which it is clear that only the first ten Soviet snipers destroyed (according to confirmed data) 4200 soldiers and officers, and the first twenty - 7400, the Germans did not have such dozens and twenty.

Soviet snipers practice ambush

Cadets of the school of Soviet snipers practical exercises. The photo draws attention to the fact that almost all future snipers are trained to shoot with attached bayonets, and sniper scopes are installed only on the SVT-40

Cadets of the school of snipers at a practical lesson

Despite the heaviest defeats of the first months of the war, the preparation the best shooters in units and formations the front line continued at an accelerated pace and did not stop for a minute. The training of snipers, in addition, was carried out in reserve training units and in short courses directly in the combat formations of the troops.

However, the military command understood the need for centralized training of "super-sharp shooters." As early as September 18, 1941, a decree was issued on universal compulsory military training for citizens of the USSR, which made it possible to organize military training population without leaving work. The training program was designed for 110 hours. In addition to other military specialties (machine gunner, mortar, signalman), the study also went along the line of sniping. Nevertheless, it was extremely difficult to train snipers in such a short time, so it was soon decided to open special "schools for excellent sniper training" (SHOSSP) at the military districts. The training went on for 3-4 months already with a break from production. The Moscow Military District alone had three such schools. OSOAVIAKhIM sniper instructors were involved as teachers, which, as in peacetime, continued to train sniper personnel in their schools. In addition, it was decided to organize a centralized training of highly qualified snipers with instructor skills. For this, on March 20, 1942, a school of sniper instructors was established in Veshnyaki near Moscow (http://unitkiev.io.ua/s106217).

A unit of Soviet snipers during a march on the Central Front

Snipers of the Red Army take a position

Our opponents of the Germans also had special sniper schools, but the Germans did not have such a wide coverage and such a serious approach to the training of snipers, and they were far behind the Red Army in sniper business.

During the Second World War, much attention was paid to sniper business in the troops of the anti-Hitler coalition, but the results of the Anglo-American snipers were much more modest than those of the Russians, Germans and Finns. The most trained snipers among the allies were mainly from the British, American snipers mainly distinguished themselves in battles with the Japanese in the Pacific.

Sniper work was difficult and dangerous, for hours, or even days, the fighters had to lie in the snow or swamp, in constant tension and attention, the equipment of the Soviet sniper during the Great Patriotic War was rather stingy. In addition to an optical sight for monitoring targets, they had a variety of field glasses (usually 6- and 8-fold) and TR and TR-8 trench periscopes. For self-defense in close combat, the sniper often took several hand grenades, gun and knife. If a sniper group was ambushed, then the weapons were also supplemented with a PPSh or PPS submachine gun. Throughout the war and after it, until the adoption of the SVD (in 1963), the standard sniper rifle in our army remained a mod. 1891/30 with a PU sight.

In total, from 1941 to 1945, 53,195 sniper rifles of the 1891/30 model were produced in the USSR. and 48992 SVT sniper rifles. For wartime, this is a rather large figure, but if you look at the real number of professional snipers trained during the same time and make an allowance for the natural loss of weapons during hostilities, it becomes clear that all front-line "super sharp shooters" simply could not be provided with special sniper weapon(http://unitkiev.io.ua/s106217).

By the middle of 1942, Soviet snipers were actively working on all fronts of the Great Patriotic War, they unleashed real sniper terror against the German troops, our snipers had a huge moral impact on enemy soldiers, and this is understandable why, since our snipers shot enemy soldiers almost daily and almost on a daily basis.

The most famous Soviet sniper, of course, is the Hero of Stalingrad Vasily Zaitsev, who destroyed 242 German soldiers and officers, including the head of the Berlin sniper school, Major Konings. In total, Zaitsev's group destroyed 1,126 enemy servicemen in four months of fighting. Zaitsev's comrades-in-arms were Nikolai Ilyin, who had 496 Germans on his account, Pyotr Goncharov - 380, Viktor Medvedev - 342. It should be noted that Zaitsev's main merit is not so much in his personal combat account, but in the fact that he became a key figure in the deployment of the sniper movement among the ruins of Stalingrad, of course, the whole of the then Soviet agitprop worked for Zaitsev’s group, which is why he is familiar to all of us.

Soviet sniper V.A. Sidorov at a firing position in August 1941. The Red Army soldier is armed with a Mosin sniper rifle with a PE optical sight of the 1931 model, it is also worth noting the SSh-36 "Halking helmet" helmet (Steel helmet 1936)

And the main record holder for the destruction of enemy soldiers according to the "death list" was Mikhail Ilyich Surkov sniper (4th rifle division), 702 enemy soldiers and officers were recorded on his account, then by the number of enemy soldiers killed in the top ten are:
- Vladimir Gavrilovich Salbiev (71 GVSD and 95 GVSD) - 601 people.
- Vasily Shalvovich Kvachantiradze (259 s.p.) -534 people.
- Akhat Abdulkhakovich Akhmetyanov (260 joint ventures) -502 people.
- Ivan Mikhailovich Sidorenko (1122 s.p.) - 500 people. + 1 tank, 3 tractors
- Nikolai Yakovlevich Ilyin (50th Guards Rifle Regiment) - 494 people.
- Ivan Nikolaevich Kulbertinov (23 separate ski brigades; 7 Guards airborne troops) 487 people.
- Vladimir Nikolaevich Pchelintsev (11 s.br.) 456 people (including 14 snipers)
- Nikolai Evdokimovich Kazyuk - 446 members.
- Petr Alekseevich Goncharov (44th Guards Rifle Regiment) - 441 people.

In total, there are 17 Soviet snipers, whose account of destroyed enemy soldiers exceeds 400 people. Over 300 destroyed enemy soldiers were recorded at the expense of 25 Soviet snipers, 36 Soviet snipers destroyed more than 200 enemy soldiers.

The best enemy snipers are: Finnish sniper Simo Haiha - 5th in general list, on his account more than 500 killed enemy soldiers, of the Wehrmacht snipers, the most productive is the twenty-seventh in the general list of Matthias Hetzenauer, on his account 345 people. killed enemy soldiers and Sepp Allerberg on his account 257 Nazis. (http://www.wio.ru/galgrnd/sniper/sniperru.htm).

Soviet snipers go to a firing position in a destroyed house in Stalingrad

According to some researchers, the real accounts of many Soviet snipers are actually higher than the confirmed ones. So, for example, Fedor Okhlopkov, a sniper of 259 s.p., according to some reports, in total destroyed more than 1000 (!) Germans, using a machine gun as well, but on his official combat account he recorded only 429 destroyed enemy soldiers, probably the situation on the battlefield did not always make it possible to calculate their results more accurately.

In the diaries and letters found with the dead soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht, there are such phrases: “A Russian sniper is something very terrible, you can’t hide from him anywhere! You can’t raise your head in the trenches. Russian snipers lie in one place for hours in ambush and take aim at anyone who shows up. Only in the dark can one feel safe. " But it turns out that the Germans also could not feel safe in the dark. So, the sniper of the 1st Guards Artillery Regiment, Ivan Kalashnikov (it turns out that the artillery also had its own snipers) out of 350 destroyed soldiers, and destroyed 45 Nazis at night - this shooter truly had cat's eyesight!

By 1943, there were already more than 1,000 women among the Soviet snipers, during the war they counted more than 12,000 killed Nazis, the best of the female snipers is considered to be Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlyuchenko, a sniper of 54 s.p., during the war she managed to destroy 309 enemy soldiers of them 36 were themselves snipers.

Soviet sniper Sergeant Tsyrendashi Dorzhiev from the 202nd Infantry Division in a firing position. Leningrad front. The combat score of Ts. Dorzhiev (Buryat by nationality) before his death in January 1943 amounted to 270 destroyed enemy soldiers and officers.

The Combat Regulations of the Infantry adopted by the Red Army in 1942 defined the range of combat missions solved by snipers at the front as follows: "Destruction of snipers, officers, observers, gun and machine-gun crews (especially flanking and dagger crews), crews of stalled tanks, low-flying enemy aircraft and in general all the important ones appearing on a short time and rapidly disappearing targets ... The sniper must also be able to show the infantry, artillery, mortars and anti-tank rifles important targets that are not vulnerable to a bullet with a tracer bullet and other methods: tanks, bunkers (DZOT), guns.

And the Soviet snipers clearly carried out all these tasks assigned to them, so the sniper, Marine Rubakho Filipp Yakovlevich (393rd detachment battalion of marine infantry) destroyed 346 enemy soldiers, 1 tank and disabled the garrisons of 8 enemy bunkers, sniper 849 s.p. Ivan Abdulov destroyed 298 German soldiers, of which 5 people. were snipers themselves, plus the brave fighter also destroyed two enemy tanks with grenades. Sniper 283 Gv.s.p. Anatoly Kozlenkov, in addition to the 194 people he killed. enemy soldiers, knocked out 2 tanks with grenades, and destroyed 3 armored personnel carriers of the Germans, and there are many such examples, our snipers managed to knock out even German planes, as it is known that the sniper of the 82nd Infantry Division Mikhail Lysov in October 1941 from automatic rifle co sniper scope shot down a Yu-87 dive bomber. Unfortunately, there is no data on the number of infantrymen killed by him, and the sniper of the 796th Infantry Division, Sergeant Major Antonov Vasily Antonovich, shot down a Yu-88 twin-engine bomber with 4 shots from a rifle near Voronezh in July 1942! There is also no data on the number of infantrymen killed by him.

Sniper of the 203rd Infantry Division (3rd Ukrainian Front) Senior Sergeant Ivan Petrovich Merkulov at the firing position. In March 1944, Ivan Merkulov was awarded the highest award - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, during the war years the sniper destroyed more than 144 enemy soldiers and officers

Even Hitler's generals died from the fire of Soviet snipers, so on account of the sniper Semyon Nomokonov among the 367 German soldiers and officers destroyed by him, one was in the rank of Wehrmacht general. On account of the sniper 14 s.p. troops of the NKVD

Yevgeny Nikolaeva is also recorded as a German general.

There were even snipers specially designed to deal with enemy snipers, so the sniper 81Gv.s.p. Vasily Golosov killed 422 people in total. enemy soldiers of them 70 people. were snipers themselves.

A special practice of using snipers existed at that time in the NKVD troops. After training and special training, the "super sharp shooters" went on combat training in active army. Such sniper teams usually numbered from 20 to 40 people, the duration of a business trip was from 10 days to a month. Thus, a significant part of the personnel not only received special training, but also underwent a run-in in real front-line conditions. For example, in the 23rd division of the NKVD troops for the protection railways during the war years, 7283 snipers were trained.

Snipers of the division of Senior Lieutenant F.D. Lunin lead volley fire on enemy aircraft

In the memorandum "On the combat activities of snipers of the NKVD troops of the USSR for the protection of important industrial enterprises for the period from October 1, 1942 to December 31, 1943." it says: "... Parts of the troops over the past period have been practicing in the combat formations of the active Red Army, some of them 2-3 times. As a result of combat work, 39,745 enemy soldiers and officers were destroyed by snipers. In addition, an enemy plane was shot down and 10 stereotubes and periscopes. Losses of our snipers: 68 people were killed, 112 people were wounded." (http://unitkiev.io.ua/s106217)

In total, during the war years, a total of 428,335 excellent snipers were trained - this is a huge figure, no other army in the world had such mass training of snipers, which significantly strengthened battle formations rifle units. In addition, in training formations 9534 highly qualified snipers were trained under central control.

I would especially like to remember and note Lieutenant General G.F. Morozov, it was he who made a great contribution to the organization of centralized training of sniper personnel, it was he, heading one of the departments General Staff, accumulated and analyzed the combat experience of Soviet snipers throughout the war.

In total, during the war years, 87 snipers became Heroes of the Soviet Union, and 39 became full holders of the Order of Glory.

As I remember, about ten years ago, at the "round table" of a popular television program, former cadet of the Central Women's School of Sniper Training A. Shilina said:

“I was already an experienced fighter, who had 25 fascists on his account, when the cuckoo started up among the Germans. Every day, two or three of our soldiers are gone. Yes, it shoots something like aptly: from the first cartridge - in the forehead or in the temple. They called one pair of snipers - it did not help. Doesn't take any bait. They order us: as you wish, but they must destroy it. Tosya, my best friend, and I dug in - the place, I remember, was swampy, there were hummocks all around, small bushes. They began to observe. A day was wasted, another. On the third day, Tosya says: “Let's take it. Whether we stay alive, no, it doesn't matter. The fighters are falling ... "

In the combat practice of Soviet snipers, there are, of course, cooler examples. But he began with the fact that the front-line soldier Shilina told about, not by chance. In the past decade, at the suggestion of the Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich, some publicists and researchers in Russia have been trying to assert the opinion in society that the sniper is an overly inhumane front-line specialty, without making a distinction between those who set the goal of exterminating half the world's population, and those who opposed this goal. . But who can condemn Alexandra Shilina for the fact cited at the beginning of the essay? Yes, Soviet snipers came face to face with Wehrmacht soldiers and officers at the front, sending bullets at them. How else? By the way, the German aces of fire opened their account much earlier than the Soviet ones. By June 1941, many of them had destroyed several hundred enemy soldiers and officers - Poles, French, British.

In the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of Russia, among many other exhibits, there is a sniper rifle of the Mosin system of the 1891/30 model. (number KE-1729) "Named after the Heroes of the Soviet Union Andrukhaev and Ilyin". The initiator of the sniper movement of the 136th Infantry Division of the Southern Front, political instructor Khusen Andrukhaev, died heroically in heavy battles for Rostov. In memory of him, a sniper rifle named after him is established. In the days of the legendary defense of Stalingrad, the best sniper of the guard unit, foreman Nikolai Ilyin, smashes the enemy from it. In a short time, from 115 destroyed Nazis, he increases the score to 494 and becomes the best Soviet sniper during the Great Patriotic War.

In August 1943, near Belgorod, Ilyin died in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. The rifle, now named after two heroes (Nikolai Ilyin was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on February 8, 1943), was traditionally awarded to the best sniper of the unit, Sergeant Afanasy Gordienko. He brought his account from it to 417 destroyed Nazis. This honorary weapon failed only when it was hit by a shell fragment. In total, about 1000 enemy soldiers and officers were struck from this rifle. Nikolai Ilyin made 379 accurate shots from it.

What was typical for this twenty-year-old sniper from the Lugansk region? He knew how to outwit the enemy. One day, Nikolai tracked down an enemy shooter all day. Everything felt: a hundred meters from him lay an experienced professional. How to remove the German "cuckoo"? From a padded jacket and a helmet, he made a stuffed animal and began to slowly pick it up. Before the helmet had even risen halfway, two shots rang out almost simultaneously: the Nazi pierced the scarecrow with a bullet, and Ilyin the enemy.

The first 10 Soviet sniper aces destroyed over 4200 enemy soldiers and officers, the first 20 - more than 7500

The Americans wrote: “Russian snipers showed great skill on the German front. They encouraged the Germans to produce optical sights on a large scale and to train snipers."

According to the memoirs of ace sniper Vladimir Pchelintsev, those present at the meeting proposed to introduce a unified, strict procedure for recording the results of combat work, a single “Personal Sniper Book” for all, and in a rifle regiment and company - “Journals for recording the combat activities of snipers”.

In practice, for the most part, accounting was carried out in this way. Perhaps the last point was not observed.

Yudmila in the battles for Odessa and Sevastopol destroyed 309 Nazi soldiers and officers (this is the highest result among female snipers). Natalya and Maria, who accounted for over 300 Nazis, glorified their names with unparalleled courage on August 14, 1942. On that day, near the village of Sutoki (Novgorod region), Natasha Kovshova and Masha Polivanova, repelling the onslaught of the Nazis, were surrounded. With the last grenade, they blew themselves up and the German infantrymen who surrounded them. One of them was then 22 years old, the other 20 years old. Like Lyudmila Pavlichenko, they were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Following their example, many girls decided to master sniper skills in order to participate in battles with weapons in their hands. They were trained in high marksmanship directly in military units and formations. In May 1943, the Central Women's School of Sniper Training was created. More than 1300 female snipers came out of its walls. During the fighting, the pupils exterminated more than 11,800 fascist soldiers and officers.

Here are the lines from the letters of the Wehrmacht soldiers that they wrote to their relatives.

“Snipers often lie in one place for hours in ambush and take aim at anyone who shows up. Only in the dark can one feel safe.”

“There are banners hanging in our trenches: “Caution! Shooting Russian sniper!