During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet snipers had to hone their skills directly at the front. And since this skill consisted of many little things that you do not learn about in training, friendship played a huge role among Soviet shooters.
This is stated in the material of the portal “Russian Seven”.
As the author notes, it was friendship that played an important role in the struggle of Soviet snipers against Nazi riflemen. In particular, because the Wehrmacht could not boast of the same. German soldiers suffered from a sense of their own worth. Even asking a colleague about why the Russians shoot better was shameful.
Josef Ollerberg, Knight of the Iron Cross, admitted in his memoirs that the advantage of Soviet soldiers lies precisely in their unity. However, in those days, speaking about the superiority of the Russians was unacceptable from the point of view of the Aryan ideology.
On the contrary, Soviet shooters took the enemy seriously. German snipers were considered professionals, therefore they carefully prepared for battle, often winning at the expense of ingenuity. Dmitry Kusturov cited one of her examples in his documentary book Sergeant Without Missing.
The greatest danger was posed by the sniper who could sit in position for days without giving himself away. The book described how two Soviet soldiers forced a hidden German rifleman to betray himself with the help of a scarecrow in a camouflage robe on ropes.
As noted in the article, “the shots of Soviet snipers could stop the attacks of entire fascist companies.” Given this, the Germans often preferred powerful shelling to suppress Soviet soldiers, because the fate of even the most experienced Wehrmacht riflemen was unenviable in a sniper duel.