Female Red Army Snipers of WWII

[bayonetbrant]

http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/women-with-guns-the-red-army-female-snipers-of-world-war-ii/

In the first months of World War II, the Red Army suffered massive losses of manpower and equipment. In a desperate fight for survival, even Stalin was willing to modify traditional patriarchal attitudes about the role of women. As early as 1931, anticipating a global war, the Communist Party had mandated universal military training for boys and girls beginning in elementary school. Thousands of young women learned to handle rifles in a nationwide network of shooting clubs. Some achieved top scores in marksmanship. A 1934 Soviet film about the Russian Civil War, Chapaev, starred Varvara Myasnikova as Anka, the machine gunner, who became a role model for a generation of girls.

By one estimate, 800,000 served in the Red Army during World War II. Many filled "traditional" non-combatant roles – as nurses, cooks, or clerks, but thousands fought with weapons in their hands and a few rank with history's deadliest snipers. As soldiers who kill deliberately with cold precision, snipers are a powerful test case for the capability of women in combat.

For most Soviet women snipers, the weapon was the 1932 model Mosin-Nagant, a .30 caliber (7.62mm) bolt-action rifle, with a 5-round internal magazine originally adopted by the Tsar's army in 1891. Sniper versions of the Nagant were selected for accuracy, and fitted with a 3.5-power fixed-focus scope copied from German Zeiss optics. Some elite snipers received new semi-automatic Tokarev SVT-40 rifles, which fired the same 7.62 x 54mm cartridge as the Nagant, but had a detachable 10-round box magazine.

much more at the link

the author is also a lifelong wargamer in both commercial and professional arenas and is a great speaker on wargaming topics

[SgtRock]

There was a lot of scuttlebutt on the west front of German female snipers throughout the war but, only Russia used females (pilots, snipers, truck drivers, etc) in battle, funny thing is the Germans thought this was uncivilized and barbaric! If the US invaded Japan, the Japanese planed to use school girls with pointed bamboo poles to rush the beaches to demoralize the US marines, now that's barbaric!
   
That's what Battlefront's new east front game Bagration needs, female snipers! ;D

[Ubercat]

Back in the 90's, my best friend painted me a picture of Rosa Shanina as a gift, based on this picture which was in an Osprey book I owned. She was credited with 54 kills and died in 1945 at the age of 20 or 21.

[ArizonaTank]

They even got a shout out from Woodie Guthrie - "Miss Pavlichenko"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHKjOl9ocR0