Woman Sniper With A Mosin

[AethelstanAegen]

I just don't even know how to respond to that, henschman. I can certainly understand your hatred of the Soviet Union...Soviet troops killed my relatives and wiped our town off the map during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. That said, things were nowhere near as cut and dry as you like to make them in the 1930s and 40s. I think you're fooling yourself if you reduce World War 2 to the extent you have. No one with a knowledge of history will dispute the Soviets committed numerous atrocities, but so did the Germans and the Japanese. If you think letting them fight each other would have resulted in a better outcome, you've got your head in the sand. Would a fascist controlled Europe and a Japanese eastern Asian empire have been a better outcome? No one was happy when the Soviets decided to hold on to half of Europe and that struggle continued over the next 50 years and was eventually won. Sitting idle while the rest of the world imploded would have been a very shortsighted and cowardly action (and we were bound to sucked into it at some point). Was it an ideal solution? No, but we needed the Soviet's help (as they needed ours) and we did manage to the prevent the further spread of two of three evils, allowing us to focus on the last after that. I will also point out Lyudmilla's trip took place in late 1942, after we had already joined the war.

We can certainly detest the Soviet system and its leadership and the crimes it committed, but we should also recognize the sacrifices made by the Russian people (and numerous other ethnic groups in the USSR), like Lyudmilla, to defend their homes. The Soviets really bore the brunt of the sacrifices to defeat a Nazi led Germany (which you should thank them for since it spared more "American blood and treasure").

To be very on topic, my younger sister seems to enjoy shooting my 91/30 over most of my other rifles and she does darn well with it.

 

[fpgt72]

I can't recall a postwar visit story, but there had been one during the war, a fundraiser so to speak. The one with a press conference exchange about makeup?

That is the one I am thinking about.

 

[4v50 Gary]

It is indisputable that the Soviets used women snipers in combat. One German account talked about taking a dozen out (he was concealed by covering fire from his platoon).

As to their count, just like for fighter pilots, methods of verification/credit/score varies between nations. I'm certain that propaganda had a lot to do with the score too. After all, the modern Soviet man must be superior to his "decadent western facist hitlerite counterpart."

(Hint: I used to read Soviet propaganda for laughs)

 

[itsa pain]

I just don't even know how to respond to that, henschman. I can certainly understand your hatred of the Soviet Union...Soviet troops killed my relatives and wiped our town off the map during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. That said, things were nowhere near as cut and dry as you like to make them in the 1930s and 40s. I think you're fooling yourself if you reduce World War 2 to the extent you have. No one with a knowledge of history will dispute the Soviets committed numerous atrocities, but so did the Germans and the Japanese. If you think letting them fight each other would have resulted in a better outcome, you've got your head in the sand. Would a fascist controlled Europe and a Japanese eastern Asian empire have been a better outcome? No one was happy when the Soviets decided to hold on to half of Europe and that struggle continued over the next 50 years and was eventually won. Sitting idle while the rest of the world imploded would have been a very shortsighted and cowardly action (and we were bound to sucked into it at some point). Was it an ideal solution? No, but we needed the Soviet's help (as they needed ours) and we did manage to the prevent the further spread of two of three evils, allowing us to focus on the last after that. I will also point out Lyudmilla's trip took place in late 1942, after we had already joined the war.

We can certainly detest the Soviet system and its leadership and the crimes it committed, but we should also recognize the sacrifices made by the Russian people (and numerous other ethnic groups in the USSR), like Lyudmilla, to defend their homes. The Soviets really bore the brunt of the sacrifices to defeat a Nazi led Germany (which you should thank them for since it spared more "American blood and treasure").

To be very on topic, my younger sister seems to enjoy shooting my 91/30 over most of my other rifles and she does darn well with it.

that is your version of history and what you want to happen. we were allied with an ideology started by the Russians then went to china and the results were 60 mil killed in Russia and 200 mil in china. you want to talk about cowardly? that was us sitting around doing nothing while it was going on and helping and aiding stalin and mao tse tung. this is a disgrace and very cowardly

 

[YZ]

Aethelstan
The key to understanding where Henchman and the like minded come from, is that the Nazis weren't as bad as people say. Not for America anyway. There is more, but I am not opening that lid, the doc on a bike is watching.

The Russian girl sniper was asked by a reporter which makeup she preferred, or close to that. It was meant perhaps as comic relief... Imagine a question line that today, addressing a female soldier. Fast track out of press corps. Such were the times. Anyway, as I remember the story, she plainly said "No... There is a war on".

 

[EAJ]

Interesting read; thank you.

 

[itsa pain]

Aethelstan
The key to understanding where Henchman and the like minded come from, is that the Nazis weren't as bad as people say. Not for America anyway. There is more, but I am not opening that lid, the doc on a bike is watching.

The Russian girl sniper was asked by a reporter which makeup she preferred, or close to that. It was meant perhaps as comic relief... Imagine a question line that today, addressing a female soldier. Fast track out of press corps. Such were the times. Anyway, as I remember the story, she plainly said "No... There is a war on".

it is amazing when a grown man hides behind a womans dress. would you throw your hotel keys on the stage if she was making a speech lol

 

[Speedo66]

Aethelstan
.... is that the Nazis weren't as bad as people say. Not for America anyway.

Oh really? While my father was busy fighting with the 3rd. Armored Div. armored infantry, every one of his family in Europe, both sides, and my mothers family, both sides, were wiped out by the Nazi regime.

Maybe not so bad for you I guess.

Wish they all would have had Mosins.`

 

[AethelstanAegen]

Oh really? While my father was busy fighting with the 3rd. Armored Div. armored infantry, every one of his family in Europe, both sides, and my mothers family, both sides, were wiped out by the Nazi regime.

Maybe not so bad for you I guess.

Wish they all would have had Mosins.`

YZ was trying to help me understand how anyone could think we should have stayed out of WW2. I feel safe saying that YZ thinks the notion that the "Nazis weren't as bad as people say" is utter nonsense (and he would be absolutely right). Simply put, YZ was distilling the idea down to it's most basic form to point out how absurd it is...ie YZ agrees with you completely.

 

[Speedo66]

Yes, got it, sorry, just saw red haze when I viewed that statement.

 

[YZ]

Correct. Sorry I typed on the go. Will try to phrase better. My grandfather perished in combat, my dad and uncle were wounded, while distant relatives died in the Holocaust.

 

[henschman]

To be very on topic, my younger sister seems to enjoy shooting my 91/30 over most of my other rifles and she does darn well with it.

Very cool. Not a woman, but at an Appleseed a few years back, there was a skinny 11 year old boy who just about started doing backflips when I brought out my 91/30 on the full distance range... he was real into military history and was rattling off all kinds of info on the rifle and the snipers who used it, like Hayha and Zaitsev. I've never seen someone get so excited about a $70 rifle before, but I understand, having been somewhat into that stuff too at that age. It was basically a dream come true to get to shoot one in real life, and he didn't complain about the recoil one bit! He was a pretty fair shot with it too, landing repeated hits on 4 and 500 yard steel torsos.

Now to our little sub-topic... as to whether a fascist Europe and Japanese SE Asia would have been better than the US getting involved, I have to ask worse to who? If a guy really felt for the predicament of the Chinese or the Polish or the Ukranians for that matter, I would be the last one to stop him from picking up a rifle and going to help. What I oppose is the US government forcing its citizens, through embargos, taxation, and the draft, to support a war that wasn't theirs, which many may not agree with, leading to a legacy of massive foreign entanglement and loss of liberty at home. It is my view that things would have been much better off here in the U.S. if our post WWI non-interventionist sentiment had held out and we hadn't gotten involved. BTW, it is far from a foregone conclusion that the Germans and Japanese would have won their respective wars without help from the US. The Russians in particular were already pushing the Germans back by '43, well before any Western front was established. I also have doubts as to whether a Japanese asian empire could have possibly been any worse than most of the governments that sprouted up in its absence... namely the People's Republic of China.

YZ, I don't have a lot to say to you, as you seem to be addressing your comments to some sort of secret motivation you think I must have rather than to what I'm actually saying. It's kind of hard to tell what you think my hidden beliefs must be since you're being so cryptic about it... are you trying to say I am a neo-Nazi, or what?

 

[YZ]

No. Your opinions represent the remnants of America First. If you are serious that FDR, no angel by any standards, was a pinko and a soviet admirer, and that's why he went to World War 2, we are looking at a conspiracy theory. Debating it here is impossible, we will be shut down. But you spoke on this first, so don't be surprised to get negative attention. If that was not your purpose, you can limit your comments to the topic.

 

[Art Eatman]

I really don't think that yakking about good guys/bad guys, Nazis/Communists has diddly-boo to do with lady snipers and Mosins. It's not about who they fought or who they fought for. It's about what they were able to do and the why (as regards training) and the gear they used.

Or else.

 

[AethelstanAegen]

It would be interesting to know more about the numbers of female serving in other combat roles in WW2. I imagine many of the partisan groups must have had large female contingents as well (certainly in Yugoslavia for one instance).

 

[Officers'Wife]

Ludmilla is one of my heroines. When home and hearth were threatened she helped defend. Once the gentler sex dust settles one harsh fact remains. Kipling said it best;

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
’Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

 

[itsa pain]

Ludmilla is one of my heroines. When home and hearth were threatened she helped defend. Once the gentler sex dust settles one harsh fact remains. Kipling said it best;

you are right especially in a divorce case lol