Sniper III.

This is coolbert:

Achtung! Sniper.

Hans Wagemueller, the purported commander of the German SS battalion in the first Indo-China war, makes mention of the use of snipers in the counter-insurgency environment. How Han's German battalion incorporated snipers in all operations and did so successfully.

The German SS battalion in Indo-China is perhaps the model for the U.S. concept of the hunter/killer battalion that is so useful in combating insurgents. A specially organized, trained, and equipped battalion, of which snipers are an integral part.

That snipers, specially equipped and trained, were a part of the German battalion in Indo-China is for certain. This unit of snipers, called abwehrkommando, was evidently a sub-element of the reconnaissance platoon, called gruppe drei.

Hans makes particular mention of the effectiveness of abwehrkommando snipers, using silenced rifles. I have always thought that a drawback to the silenced weapon was that the weapons effectiveness in range and stopping power was negated significantly. Perhaps Hans and his snipers had a way around this?

Excerpts from the "Devil's Guard" are an indication of how snipers can play a crucial role in counter-insurgency operations:

"We had some routine precautionary measures that we always took, "the rules of survival." If we passed by some rice paddies, for instance, where a few dozen peasants were at work, Eisner would give the word: "Abwehrmannschaft abtreten!" and six of our sharpshooters would quietly drop into the roadside underbrush, carrying telescopic rifles with silencers attached - - a formidable weapon against guerrillas. The column would march on as thought nothing had happened. Sometimes, and as soon as the army was out of sight, some peasants would turn into armed terrorists, taking of after the column head over heels. Our sharpshooters dropped them before they reached the jungle.

It was also one of our tricks to pass a Viet Minh-controlled village without bothering a soul. The column would vanish into the hills, except for the sharpshooters, who would drop back to cover every exit. In ninety percent of all cases, Viet Minh messengers or even groups of guerrillas would emerge from the village and depart in a hurry. The silencer-equipped guns were excellent for dropping them quickly and quietly. . . . We had used the same ruse in occupied Russia and invariably it worked."

And:

"The villagers watched us leave, then they slowly disappeared and began to work as if nothing had happened. Our trial number one ended. Now came number two . . . At a quiet command of Krebitz our sharpshooters dropped in the roadside shrubs; from the moisture-proof holsters emerged their precision rifles with their telescopic sights, silencers, and hair-trigger mechanism. . . ,. "A terre!", someone yelled. "Take cover!" From the paddies came the vicious clatter of a heavy machine gun. . . . Focusing my field glasses I spotted a half dozen shapes scurrying across the ponds. Three of them staggered and fell, then a fourth one spun about and dropped out of sight. Our marksmen were still at work . . . . We backtracked on the road to meet our Abwehrkommando and by the time we arrived the men had already cleaned their weapons; the sensitive scopes were capped and the muzzles plugged with small rubber corks."

And.

"our sharpshooters went into action with their telescopic, silencer-equipped rifles. Within seconds the twelve Viet Minh were dead; their bodies fell into the abyss to be swept away by the swift current. . . . Our sharpshooters exterminated three groups before one mortally wounded guerilla entangled himself in the supporting ropes and remained hanging over the precipice in plain sight . . . Our sharpshooters were quite capable of hitting a man in the head from five hundred yards."

Well, if Hans the SS officer says it is useful in the extreme to have snipers as an integral part of a hunter/killer battalion, it is probably so!! Do I speak skeptically here?? Yes and no! Is there embellishment in the accounts of Hans as he speaks of his German SS battalion? Undoubtedly. But I would assume there is a large degree of truth in what he says. In this instance, the use of the sniper.

coolbert.