German snipers

[jeeplover]

i seen this on face book thought wat a cool topic i want your opinions or documented facts if they exist

Looking for some further information, any help to photographic resources would be appreciated.
Looking through photos I've noticed that the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS did not wrap their DMR/Sniper configured firearms. Why was this the case? Even in the video footage from their Sniper training no rifles were wrapped in any cloth.
The Soviets and some Brits from what I've seen wrapped theirs and it appeared to be common. But for the Germans not so much and im curious to know why.

[rbminis]

Even in the video footage from their Sniper training no rifles were wrapped in any cloth.

Just curious, why would you expect them to have their rifles wrapped during training?
Ralph.

[Willmore]

I would guess that a lot of the sniper pictures that show camouflaged rifles would be for propaganda or news purposes. In reality a soldier at the front would camouflage their rifle so it matched the terrain at that time, along with this they would rarely have someone taking pictures of them.

[Seafox]

As a subject enthousiast myself I can only say that indeed most common WW2 German sniper pictures lack any rifle camouflage on the contrary to some British and Russian pictures.
IMHO it is mainly era related. The Germans started to use camouflage smocks and helmet covers for some units and that was already seen as very progressive. I think that camouflaging equipment and rifles just wasn’t a common thing yet. There were already lots of traditions broken in a very traditional Army.

Of course there are pictures of Germans snipers covered in more or less complete camouflage but even then, compared to today’s sniper camouflaging skills and habits, it is not 100% covering all parts, especially not weapons.

I remember this story from German sniper Odo Willscher (quite an extraordinary warrior and sniper) that they used to paint their weapons, but that’s about it I guess.

[reneblacky]

Here's a pic