The publisher has already released a number of excellent books about snipers and their craft. This is a worthy addition to their list but it should be treated with some circumspection because the biography was originally released during the Soviet Era and includes some manipulation which this English translation does not attempt to challenge in the interests of making this a faithful edition to the Russian language original – Most Highly Recommended.
NAME: Red Army Sniper, a Memoir of the Eastern Front in World War II FILE: R2675 AUTHOR: Yevgeni Nikolaev PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword, Greenhill Books BINDING: hard back PAGES: 208 PRICE: £19.99 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: WWII, World War Two, Second World War, World War 2, Eastern Front, Leningrad, Red Army, sniper, sniper craft, rifle, German Army, war of snipers, NKVD, Smersh, counter intelligence ISBN: 1-78438-236-1 IMAGE: B2675.jpg BUYNOW: http://tinyurl.com/y9uwhpoe LINKS: DESCRIPTION: The publisher has already released a number of excellent books about snipers and their craft. This is a worthy addition to their list but it should be treated with some circumspection because the biography was originally released during the Soviet Era and includes some manipulation which this English translation does not attempt to challenge in the interests of making this a faithful edition to the Russian language original – Most Highly Recommended. The sniper is not a new military construct, but dates back into ancient history. The invention of firearms made it much easier to lie in wait and kill the target from concealment. By the 18th Century North America saw an increasing use of snipers with the famous Kentucky Long Rifle a favoured weapon of trappers and hunters who joined the insurrection against British troops. This was noted and the British adopted the Baker Rifle for its specialist skirmish troops, who were also used to pick off enemy officers and NCOs from beyond the effective range of the military musket that was the main weapon issued to infantry. WWI saw an increase in the numbers of snipers who picked off the unwary in the opposing trench line. However, it was WWII that was to see a significant increase in the numbers of snipers and their importance as a weapon. This was particularly true on the Eastern Front where German and Soviet snipers not only picked off the enemy from concealment, but also engaged in counter-sniper fire with some epic duels between German and Soviet snipers. This book provides many fresh insights from a Soviet sniper who was amongst the top tier of East Front snipers. As a biography of a sniper this would be a very interesting book but has an added twist and value Nikolaev was not a typical Red Army sniper but a member of the NKVD who later transferred to Smersh, then ending the war as a Captain in the artillery. The NKVD were responsible for some of the most serious war crimes during and after WWII. Smersh was established as an assassination bureau and made extensive use of snipers in the killings it carried out. After the war he became a journalist and a librarian, dying in 2002. Apart from several points of obvious Soviet bias in the story, Nikolaev was probably employed against Red Army troops on occasion and Smersh was with the killing of suspected enemies of the Soviets at home and abroad.