kBob
Member
The recently closed thread on German WWII marksmanship drifted away and down the drain before I could get onto this subject that is not political or off topic.
A couple of Germans I spoke to spoke of shooting from the tripod or the stand or the box. Shooting from the box was what we also called the excercise in the US. Early in marksmanship trianing "shooting from the box" was an excerise something like dry firing done to establish whether the student could recognize good sight alignment and good sight picture.
In our case the rifle was dropped into the top of a heavy wooden box further weighed down by sand bags. The box had two V shaped slots opposite one another and the rifle was set in these. The idea was for the rifle to be "fixed" in position and the sights "on a second box some ten to 25 yards away. The student was to look through the sights, without touching the rifle so as to insure it did not move from "shot to shot".
A second trooper is by the second box which is also weighted down and has white paper affixed to the face towards the rifle. He is equiped with a stick mounted small target with a small hole in the center and a pencil. He places the target against the paper and moves it as directed by the rifleman. When the rifleman announces he has a good sight picture the second trooper marks with the pencil through the hole in the target.
Assuming neither the first box, rifle, or second box have moved their will be a set of penciled dots showing a shot group. A half inch group at ten meters subtences to a five inch group at 100 meters and a fifteen inch group ( and so a hit on a kneeling man target) at 300 meters.
Before a rifle is given a single round of live ammuition the box excercise is repeated with three to five shot groups several times succesfully preferably on two or more days.
This ecercise was I was told repeated often when the German trooper did not have access to a range.
Many of the German constructed barracks used by US troops during the cold war were constructed from the 1890's to the 1930's. My last had what was called a race track and stables by the GIs. The race track was used by GIs for stock car and motorcycle racing on dirt tracks (this was in Hanau) Oddly there was a huge berm at the north end of it which was where most spectators sat during the races. If one took and e-tool and moved a few shovels of dirt one would almost surely run across spent 8mm rifle bullets....it had been a rifle range. We also had a number of "stables" north of the berm. I was assured by other officers that these were stables. Using a pocket knife I dug a few 9mm pistol slugs from the brick work (bet some german private got grilled over not hitting the back stop!) and pacing off 25 meters I kicked up the dirt and rather quickly turned up a few 9x19 mm pistol cases and a .32acp case. Horse stables?
When I became a regular we did not use the box in Basic or Infantry AIT, but before a trainee could be issued ammunition at the firing line he had to demonstrate an understanding of sight alaignment and sight picture using a Graphic training aid that consisted of a paper sleeve with a representation of the rear sight on the card and two other cards that could be slid into it that could be moved up and down and left and right. One was the front sight post and the other a target. Whe all were correctly aligned a spot was visable on the back of the card to tell the alignment and picture were both correct. When I described that to a German vet he commented that they had a large repesentation of a rear sight and a pointed stick representing the front sight and they aligned them with a target on the wall by holding them against the wall to show they knew what they were doing before even using the Box, stand, or tripod.
The stand or tripod was just using a sandbag on three sticks tied into a tripod to hold the rifle at near shoulder height rather than shooting from the prone as with the box. This method was also used in th elate 1850s in British rifle training and recommended in the US.
There are reports of ACW snipers actually shooting from such tripods.
HJ Hitler Youth practiced Marksmanship skills from early in the organizations founding.
My point was the Germans certainly seemed to be using techneques that could produce proficient marksmen rather quickly. While there is more to being combat ready than marksmanship, marksmanship skill were not likely something lacking even towards the last among german troops.
-kBob
A couple of Germans I spoke to spoke of shooting from the tripod or the stand or the box. Shooting from the box was what we also called the excercise in the US. Early in marksmanship trianing "shooting from the box" was an excerise something like dry firing done to establish whether the student could recognize good sight alignment and good sight picture.
In our case the rifle was dropped into the top of a heavy wooden box further weighed down by sand bags. The box had two V shaped slots opposite one another and the rifle was set in these. The idea was for the rifle to be "fixed" in position and the sights "on a second box some ten to 25 yards away. The student was to look through the sights, without touching the rifle so as to insure it did not move from "shot to shot".
A second trooper is by the second box which is also weighted down and has white paper affixed to the face towards the rifle. He is equiped with a stick mounted small target with a small hole in the center and a pencil. He places the target against the paper and moves it as directed by the rifleman. When the rifleman announces he has a good sight picture the second trooper marks with the pencil through the hole in the target.
Assuming neither the first box, rifle, or second box have moved their will be a set of penciled dots showing a shot group. A half inch group at ten meters subtences to a five inch group at 100 meters and a fifteen inch group ( and so a hit on a kneeling man target) at 300 meters.
Before a rifle is given a single round of live ammuition the box excercise is repeated with three to five shot groups several times succesfully preferably on two or more days.
This ecercise was I was told repeated often when the German trooper did not have access to a range.
Many of the German constructed barracks used by US troops during the cold war were constructed from the 1890's to the 1930's. My last had what was called a race track and stables by the GIs. The race track was used by GIs for stock car and motorcycle racing on dirt tracks (this was in Hanau) Oddly there was a huge berm at the north end of it which was where most spectators sat during the races. If one took and e-tool and moved a few shovels of dirt one would almost surely run across spent 8mm rifle bullets....it had been a rifle range. We also had a number of "stables" north of the berm. I was assured by other officers that these were stables. Using a pocket knife I dug a few 9mm pistol slugs from the brick work (bet some german private got grilled over not hitting the back stop!) and pacing off 25 meters I kicked up the dirt and rather quickly turned up a few 9x19 mm pistol cases and a .32acp case. Horse stables?
When I became a regular we did not use the box in Basic or Infantry AIT, but before a trainee could be issued ammunition at the firing line he had to demonstrate an understanding of sight alaignment and sight picture using a Graphic training aid that consisted of a paper sleeve with a representation of the rear sight on the card and two other cards that could be slid into it that could be moved up and down and left and right. One was the front sight post and the other a target. Whe all were correctly aligned a spot was visable on the back of the card to tell the alignment and picture were both correct. When I described that to a German vet he commented that they had a large repesentation of a rear sight and a pointed stick representing the front sight and they aligned them with a target on the wall by holding them against the wall to show they knew what they were doing before even using the Box, stand, or tripod.
The stand or tripod was just using a sandbag on three sticks tied into a tripod to hold the rifle at near shoulder height rather than shooting from the prone as with the box. This method was also used in th elate 1850s in British rifle training and recommended in the US.
There are reports of ACW snipers actually shooting from such tripods.
HJ Hitler Youth practiced Marksmanship skills from early in the organizations founding.
My point was the Germans certainly seemed to be using techneques that could produce proficient marksmen rather quickly. While there is more to being combat ready than marksmanship, marksmanship skill were not likely something lacking even towards the last among german troops.
-kBob
