A German WWII sniper I spoke to and shot with in the mid 1970's in Germany said these were generally not used by school trained snipers, but simply given to some of the best shots of an Infantry company, with little or no special training. He described a system something like the Designated Marksman program. When possible a school trained sniper took a day or two to work with these young men, He said that in western Europe these youth were generally guys that had been through the Nazi school system and had a lot of training with air rifles and KKW that made them excellent shots....and frequently die hard Nazis. They lacked field skills however and convinced in the moral superiority of German blood frequently failed to appreciate that other Armies might have decent soldiers in them.
He said large numbers of these rifle/scope combos were lost because despite the efforts of folks like him these youth were convinced they could squeeze a third shot out of a hide and certain that laying a good escape route in advance bordered on cowardice.
This guy was a school trained sniper from before the war and shot in Poland al the way through to the end. When I asked who he had shot he said "Poles, Russians, Frenchmen, Canadians, British and maybe your Uncle." We did say he hated shooting Americans. When I asked if it were because we were so like the Germans he laughed and said, "No, you shoot at Americans and they shoot everyplace they think a sniper might be a lot and in one minute mortars start falling in those places and in three real artillery!"
He loathed the G43 with any scope as he hated the ejection. He said issuing that rifle with a scope gave the soldier the impression that he was an instant sniper with poor results.
He did on occasion use the ZF41 and K98 on occasion and thought it a good system for most shooting under 300 meters and that the thick post was excellent for early morning and late evening shots and under flares and such.
He compalmented my shooting skill ( with a K98 on a German range with pop ups) and said I had the makings of a shooter and appeared to be interested in learning.
It was interesting that at the time a military non bubba-ed or non commercially sporterized K98 was forbidden in civilian hands in West Germany,(evil military weapon with bayonet lug don'tcha know) but no one seemed interested in harassing that owner about his. He tossed his last issued scoped K98 in a bomb crater along with a bunch of pistols other folks were divesting them selves of in late April of 1945 because he was told that US forces were simply shooting folks found with such a rifle or pistol.
That was the sort of day that made tooth brushing the floor tile grout in the barracks and painting rocks worth while.
-kBob
