Page 42 - History of War - Issue 25-16

10 DEADLIEST SNIPERS

The most famous Soviet
sniper immortalised in
07.Vasily Zaytsev ‘Enemy At The Gates’

Zaytsev originally joined the Soviet navy as an casualties from a newly arrived German
Red Army scout snipers
infantryman but was transferred to the Red marksman, allegedly an SS sniper instructor cautiously entering a destroyed
Army in September 1942 after his pre-war dispatched from Berlin. So began an epic stalk house in Stalingrad
experience as a hunter in the inhospitable that was recounted in Zaytsev’s autobiography
Urals became known. Sent to the hellhole and the ilm and book Enemy At The Gates.
of Stalingrad, he immediately killed his irst The German sniper was cautious and an even
30 Germans with his standard-issue Mosin match for Zaytsev. Eventually, after stalking
Nagant, winning the Order of Lenin. each other for several days through the rubble,
Recognising his skill, the 27-year-old was the German, named as Major Erwin Konig,
equipped with a scoped Mosin Nagant M91/30 made a mistake and paid for it with his life.
and began to stalk the ruined city, hunting Sunshine glinted off the German’s scope and
Germans. By the end of 1942, Zaytsev had Zaytsev won the duel with a single shot.
killed 225 enemy. His most famous mission Some controversy surrounds the account questioning whether or not it actually occurred,
occurred after the Red Army began suffering of the duel with a number of historians or at least as Zaytsev relates it (his was
apparently the basis for the account in the
“SENTTOTHEHELLHOLEOFSTALINGRAD,HEIMMEDIATELYKILLED original Enemy At The Gates book). No record
of a Major Konig has ever been found, for
HISFIRST30GERMANSWITHHISSTANDARD-ISSUEMOSIN instance. Whether all of the exact details are
true or not, Zaytsev certainly went on to kill at
NAGANT,WINNINGTHEORDEROFLENIN” least ten German snipers.
The young soldier was eventually wounded
and forced to retire after losing much of the
sight from his right eye, however, he then
Right: The deadly 7.92x57mm Mauser
98K sniper rile used in the duel against became an instructor and something of a folk
Vasily Zaytsev in Stalingrad hero with some 400 kills to his name.

Below: Zaytsev (left) in a staged propaganda shot
wearing Soviet-issue snow suits and carrying his
Mosin Nagant M91/30 sniper ril e

Confirmed kills: 242
unConfirmed kills: 150

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