Does anyone know these men?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Broncazonk

What a waste of talent: to be arming elite operators with open-sight, bolt-action rifles that were designed in 1898.

I've never understood that.

Bronc

The war that Germany embarked on soon outgrew the capacity of its industry to support it. Adam Tooze’s book “The Wages of Destruction” is very good on this. It’s why their army was largely reliant on horse transport from first to last, for example.

[Broncazonk]

The German Sniper 1914-1945 by Peter Senich (1982) devotes an entire chapter to FG 42 sniper rifles (ZF 4 optics.) Now imagine coming up against a company of paratroopers armed with THAT setup...

Notice how often the Fallschirmjager were photographed with optics hanging around their necks? They knew before anyone else that optical magnification is *essential* for infantry operating on a desert-mountain-steppe-bocage battlefield. (It's literally shocking how, for twenty straight years, the majority of Marine/army units in Afghanistan went on patrol with a single pair of low-end Bushnell 7x35 binos--or no field glasses at all.

That's Hauptmann Walter Gericke (KC) below with one of his guys.

They knew what they were doing...