The U.S. Army has very little initiative on the lower levels

Monday, June 3rd, 2019

Dunlap shares this quotation from a captured German field order:

The U.S. Army has very little initiative on the lower levels; gains and advances are almost never exploited immediately, and our forces may counter-attack with good effect in a majority of cases. The enemy (us) is very unimaginative, depends upon weight of equipment for advance and seldom makes any move except as a result of higher order.

Dunlap notes that this is because “men with stripes spent much of their time keeping their noses clean, if they wanted to keep the stripes.” He would prefer a system of advancement through merit and intelligence:

Intelligence tests should carry more importance than anything else, for from here on in, wars are going to depend a lot more on brain than on brawn.

He has such a beautiful chance to bother other people

Sunday, June 2nd, 2019

Dunlap has no desire to be tagged as one of the ex-soldiers griping over grievances real or imagined:

What complaints I make are based more against the system than against the men. When practically the entire young and able-bodied male population is slapped into uniform, the heels go along with the regular people. Many a man personally a louse is an able character otherwise and naturally gets advancement and authority, whether as an enlisted man or officer. The catch is, when he becomes an officer he has such a beautiful chance to bother other people. If a bully or dictator type earns a few stripes and begins to abuse them and the men under him, there are enough decent NCO’s of equal or superior rank around to notice and beat his head off if he does not smarten up fast. At the very least they tell him off pointedly, personally and profanely, not being required to act dignified in their relations with each other.

But no officer ever criticized another officer in any way—that was against the fraternity rules—so the poor guys under bad officers just suffered until they could transfer or possibly help the objectionables die for their country.

Which was worse, the European or Pacific theater?

Saturday, June 1st, 2019

Men were always asking Dunlap which was worse, the European or Pacific theater:

I usually gave a diplomatic answer to the tune that the Germans were better soldiers than Japs but that the country in the Pacific was harder to fight and live in. Which was about the truth. No part of the war was pleasant, but while you stood a better chance of getting killed on the German side, you were sure to suffer some sickness or disease in the South and Southwest Pacific.

Americans readily accepted the no-quarter idea of the Japanese

Friday, May 31st, 2019

Americans readily accepted the no-quarter idea of the Japanese, Dunlap reminds us:

No one ever defended a Jap, the only thing I remember a cavalryman saying in that vein was that we should not squawk about how the Japs treated prisoners, since nothing they did was as bad as the things we did to them. I think he was one of a crew which overran and wiped out a Jap hospital and then used it as an ambush to catch wounded Nips, for a day or so. Americans readily accepted the no-quarter idea of the Japanese, with improved variations, much to the pained surprise of the enemy.

Democracy was just a word

Thursday, May 30th, 2019

American soldiers didn’t fight for especially noble reasons, Dunlap reminds us:

Most soldiers paid little attention to the “moral values” of the war, losing themselves in the anonymity of the uniform so far as political views were concerned. Democracy was just a word, and the enlisted man was either oversold on how noble we were or was double-crossed enough one way or another until he believed nothing in the way of official instruction or information. He came to live only for the day he would be free and in the meantime hated the Army about as much as the enemy.

Courage is strange

Wednesday, May 29th, 2019

Courage is strange, Dunlap reminds us:

A guy can be brave one day and a coward the next, and no soldier ever blamed another man for being afraid. Fear itself cannot be cataloged. I knew one man who was afraid of heights — could not climb a ladder in a training camp tower — but he held a Silver Star for bravery. There are some men to whom fear becomes exhilarating excitement, sharpening their wits and speeding their reflexes. I define courage as mental strength, applicable to either mental or physical danger, strain or injury. If a man did not know he was in danger he could not be afraid. Even when the same man was threatened at different times, he might react differently. It probably depended upon how he felt at the moment, whether or not he had enough sleep and food and what his philosophy was that day. A platoon sergeant I knew went through three campaigns in the Pacific with the cavalry and about a month before the end of the Luzon fight turned in his stripes and transferred to a service outfit as a private. His record was fine, but he claimed he was now afraid to go into the jungle any more.

Even I, who was seldom under pressure, acted screwy at times. A Nip artillery shell passed me once and I lost no time at all leaving the locality for a safer one, plenty worried. The very next night another special delivery came in and while intelligent people ran for cover, my first and only thought was to raid the supplies for a box of prunes to eat while on guard later. Safety was secondary. I have no business talking about psychology.

There is nothing very boyish about a war soldier

Tuesday, May 28th, 2019

Dunlap didn’t like most of the civilians’ names for soldiers:

I do not like the use of that word “boy” in all places, either, for there is nothing very boyish about a war soldier regardless of his age. It used to gripe us to read blurbs about “our boys.” A soldier can call other soldiers boys, the same way a man refers to his lodge poker gang that way, even though there is not a lad under 60 in the bunch, but it irritated us to be called that in print and by civilians, the way it irritated us to be called “Joe” or “Buddy” by outsiders. I always wanted to hit civilians who called me that. No real soldier ever called another “Buddy” anyway. Besides, in the Pacific, only the Filipinos used “Joe” as a name. Privates were sometimes referred to objectively and collectively as “joes” but only replacements thought it a name. Soldiers called other strange ones “Mac” (or in our outfit, “Mate” was popular — the guys had been on ships so often they used sailor lingo). “Doughfoot” and “Doughboy” are more civilian terms. In the army if a soldier belonged to the cavalry he was a trooper, and if to the infantry, an infantryman. He was called foot soldier, or line man, if belonging to a combat unit.

Two battle stars later he was a sergeant

Monday, May 27th, 2019

In our army some units were better than others, Dunlap says, and the reason was not always leadership or training:

Morale meant a lot. I do not mean the condition of the men’s minds regarding the home front or the political aspects of victory, but the mental attitude of the unit concerning combat. If an outfit got through its first engagement successfully, defeating the enemy and not suffering many casualties, that outfit was pretty good from then on. When the boys have been shot at and missed, they begin to realize what the score can be if they do not watch their signals in the next period of the game, and the brain cells start working. So help me, I have known dopes who came out of a campaign with higher I.Q.’s than they started with! Above all, combat soldiers get quiet and thoughtful. They get considerate and understanding, sharing whatever they get with each other and helping each other out all they can as a rule. You can never tell who will turn out to be good and who will not. I remember one of the replacements I took on the beach at Leyte — a little Jewish boy, strictly the bookworm type, who went directly into the cavalry. Two battle stars later he was a sergeant, recognized as an able field leader and decorated. Somehow he had been able to adapt himself rapidly and do the right thing at the right time. A more unlikely trooper was never shipped overseas.

The first man to comprehend and use tanks for full effectiveness was a Scot

Sunday, May 26th, 2019

In spite of our propagandists, Dunlap says, the Germans were the best tank engineers:

We had better armor steel, and our turret mechanism on the later models was very good. The stabilizer was ahead of enemy equipment, but the tanks were heavy, high, noisy and did not last long.

[...]

You could hear a Sherman two miles on a clear night, but a Mark IV could sneak up on you, making less noise than a GMC truck. The Germans had a little the edge in the main tank gun and armor piercing ammunition, but not enough in 75mm to make much difference. Of course in heavy tanks they were ahead of us, although we copied their model and got it out a little late for real use. It is a good thing we had airplanes. It only took us three years to wake up.

There was no excuse for the U.S. and England not being up on panzer stuff. Both countries were rather unsmart about the whole thing. Early in 1943 I read an English news article about their forces, bitterly condemning some of their army practices and bringing out one point worth remembering: The first time in the world that armored vehicles were used in numbers strategically and as a new weapon of war was in Spain, at the battle of the Ebro, during their Civil War. All the nations should have been watching and maybe were, but only the Germans saw anything. The Spanish Republican chief of armor at that battle, who was the first man to comprehend and use tanks for full effectiveness was a Scottish independent soldier name Malcolm Dunbar. His were the tank tactics which made Guderian and Rommel world famous in later years.

In 1943 Malcolm Dunbar was in the British tank troops, in England. He was a corporal.

As commenters Bruce and Kirk pointed out a while back, Ronald Malcolm Lorraine Dunbar was not a stereotypical soldier:

A middle-class, Cambridge-educated, homosexual aesthete, he could hardly have been a less typical volunteer. Yet, like a number of other intellectuals, in Spain he discovered a hitherto undiscovered talent for military life. Ranking only soldado (private) at the Battle of Jarama in February 1937, he rose quickly through the ranks, becoming Chief of Staff of the entire 15th International Brigade at the Battle of the Ebro in July 1938. Unfortunately, the shy, taciturn Dunbar never gave any interviews on his time in Spain and information on him has always been fairly scarce, despite his high rank and illustrious record.

Not much is known about his life after Spain, either. During the Second World War Dunbar served in the British Army, but never rose above the rank of Sergeant, adding fuel to claims that veterans of the Spanish war were being discriminated against. He later worked in the Labour Research Department until, in July 1963, having apparently removed all identification from his clothing, he walked into the sea at Milford-on-Sea, near Bournemouth. A clear case of suicide on the face of it, yet intriguingly, as Vincent Brome pointed out in Legions of Babel, his (now out of print) history of the International Brigades, the coroner declared an open verdict at the inquest, rather than declaring his death to have been suicide. This, and Dunbar’s alleged relationship with the Cambridge spy, Kim Philby, have led to persistent rumours of official cover-ups and Secret Service skulduggery.

Fooling the men is the first principle of life

Saturday, May 25th, 2019

In the army in the United States, Dunlap says, “fooling the men” is the first principle of life:

The official stand is that all enlisted men are morons and must be treated at that level of intelligence, therefore all officers and a lot of non-coms will tell any soldier anything at all, regardless of truth. Consciences are parked with the intelligence. Training for the past war was as a rule conducted on the basis of peacetime training in past decades. A man could not be a good truck driver if he could not march well. He could not hold a rating as a tank mechanic if he did not know his military courtesy. He could not be a platoon sergeant in the line if he was not a whiz on the drill field. The old officers training the armies still believed there was “Nothing like drill to make a soldier.” The snappy, salute-happy lads, commissioned or enlisted, were not much good either in the line or in the shop, until they learned their job on non-union hours, which was often quite late in their lives. In war, only the results pay off, but they were of the tradition which dictated that not the result, but the way it was obtained was of greatest importance.

Toward the end of the war the infantry troops were given more sensible training which gave them a better shake for their money, but did not bring back the guys who died in Tunisia and Sicily and Italy, and the Islands. Even service troops got some realistic night training, mostly useless. I went through a few infiltration courses, crawling under machine gun fire, etc. when I came back from Africa. What irritated me was that our brass-hats were determined not to learn except the hard way — the British made every error we did, two years before, but after Dunkirk they realized it and reorganized.

They had written a lot of books and manuals about modern warfare, but none of our brass read them. Africa was a fine example; what Rommel’s boys did to Patton and his Fort Knox tank tactics was pitiful. For exact details, find a member of the original 1st Armored Division, if any are still alive. General Patton made a great name in Europe, with the Air Corps to knock out German armor ahead of him, but he was sure a chump in Tunisia. The colonels who led his his columns learned how through their own experience, and a lot of guys died before they got experience.

They were veterans before they started

Friday, May 24th, 2019

No ordinary military organization, Dunlap says, whether regular unit or of conscript personnel, can stand against one of the special units of anywhere near equal strength:

Among the special forces themselves, I doubt if any is much better than any other. Germany had Storm Troops or shock troops, England had her Commandos and the U.S. had the Rangers, and Marine Raiders. All had paratroopers. The universal characteristics of these organizations are the physical and mental conditions of the men. Almost all members were young and very good physical specimens. Practically all were volunteer units, appealing to the athletic and adventurous personality. They received incredibly strenuous and dangerous training, learning far more about warfare and weapons than the average combat soldiers. Because they were picked men, knowing they were good, their spirits were always higher than those of comparable ordinary forces. Intensely practical specialized courses of combat training toughened them before they even went into action, so that for all purposes, they were veterans before they started. Had casualties, too — of 500 Commandos who went through a special training range at Benghazi, 17 were killed in that training.

Some of the records these selected-man outfits set in the war are almost unbelievable. A German unit, on foot, in the invasion of Poland in 1939 averaged 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) advance per day for 12 days, with full equipment. I cannot locate the number of the outfit, but remember they were know as the “Foot Panzers” afterward because of that march. In North Africa the U. S. 1st Rangers covered 16 miles in two hours and ten minutes, (including a ten-minute break) with full field equipment, on foot. Parachutists in training were never allowed to walk, even for a few steps between buildings in camps. Had to run.

One of the characteristics of these special units was their ability to fight an action and suffer far fewer casualties than an ordinary unit in similar circumstances. The men were just more alert and better trained, I guess, as well as being better physically. They were tough. The German paratroopers who defended Cassino made a stand that stopped the Allies cold. American bombs knocked the town down; the British could not take what was left, even with Ghurka and American help; The New Zealand Division could not take it; and finally, when it was completely surrounded and cut off, fanatical Poles overwhelmed the survivors. The fighting lasted months. Nobody can tell me that a German regular army unit would not have surrendered early, when the situation became hopeless, but Goering’s boys were ordered to hold up the advance and they held it up. The four U. S. Ranger Battalions were the equivalent of a regular division in infantry power.

Even the Italian selected units, such as the Folgore Parachutist Division, were good soldiers. The rank and file of the Italian army were poor fighters, but it is hard to actually say how poor, because the majority of the men thought they were on the wrong side and did not try very hard! Most of them favored England and America more than Germany, so they did not work hard at the war, even when their side was apparently winning. Some of the Fascist units, hopped up politically, did fair fighting, comparable with good average work anywhere. The closest thing Italy had to special units comparable with other nations’ were the San Marco Marines, a semi-naval force, somewhat like our own Marines.

My opinion of our U.S.M.C. is not very flattering. The prewar permanent Marine was a lot different from the war type, who was essentially only a better physical class of army man. He received somewhat better training as a fighting man, but the best thing about the Marine Corps is its spirit. The men have much higher morale and regard for their organization than either Army or Navy. Their fighting tactics stink. The usual Marine landing operation was a Purple Heart expedition from start to finish. They did not seem to use good sense. Naturally, I was not along on any of their beachheads, but I am satisfied that my information is straight. It comes from individual Marines, sailors and official pictures.

If a cavalryman had acted like they did on an invasion, his own pal would have shot him as being too damn dangerous to have around. Marines went in standing up; they bunched on beaches; charged machine guns; ran up on caves with flame-throwers; threw grenades like rocks; and in general acted like characters in a movie rather than trained soldiers who might do better if they lived longer. I saw countless true combat moving pictures where Marines got themselves knocked off needlessly (I can tell the difference between phony and real “action” pictures pretty well — I was a “German” in a phony war news-reel once in Africa). To anyone who was ever mixed up in the Pacific war, the Marine casualty lists are understandable. The guys were always getting medals for having both hands blown off while saving the general’s lunch or something else just as sensible.

Marines were mixed up in a lot of screwy operations, too. Betio, called “Tarawa” after the atoll it is a part of, was a fine example. To a lot of people besides myself that scrap looked as though the Nips built up a strong point and dared the Marine Corps to try and take it, and the Marines could not take the dare. Just what the hell the importance of taking Tarawa was, no one can really find out. It was not worth a hoot to either the Japs or ourselves for either defense or offense on anything except the smallest possible scale. In the whole Gilbert Islands the only one of importance to us was Makin, the northern key of the chain, which was taken without too much trouble. As an outer-perimeter Japanese seaplane base, Tarawa could have been easily neutralized from Makin by air. According to the Navy grapevine, General MacArthur was against the operation, but as it was a Navy show and they insisted, he could not stop it.

They love the U.S. now

Thursday, May 23rd, 2019

Dunlap had strong opinions about Japan and the American occupation:

Japs always talked, once they were resigned to capture, for in their army, no man was ever supposed to be captured or surrender, hence no instructions regarding security of information could be issued. Our Counter-Intelligence Corps men, the Japanese-Americans, could find out everything the Nips knew — even to persuading them to draw maps for us! Incidentally, those men did a job, and no white American soldier ever said anything against them, or against the magnificent 100th Infantry, who made such a great record against the Germans in Italy, all members of that unit being of Japanese ancestry.

[...]

They love the U.S. now. Sure, they are a hypocritical batch of little monkeys and can bow without straining their honor, but I do not believe they are being so insincere. After all, we went into Tokyo wide open for anything, and met not even mental resistance. The Emperor was head man and his wish was law but even his personal instructions could not have restrained every single individual Japanese who had suffered at our hands had they been disposed to start trouble. Hundreds of thousands of the people of Tokyo had died under our fire bombs — probably the majority of those still alive had lost relatives and friends. In spite of this, they seemed to wash out their feelings and start clean. They wanted our sympathy for damage done to them by ourselves, but leaned over backward assuring us that they did not really blame us and held no hard feelings about it! They could not lick us so they want to join us, and want very much to have the U.S. on their side, in any role we want to play.

I think General MacArthur has been a wonderful administrator for Japan and that he has left little to be desired as a governor. His very name symbolizes American power and determination to the Japs and his aloof, impersonal decisions are just the thing for the Japanese mind to accept. So far as Japan is concerned, he is Mr. United States, in person.

Compared with the German government by the Allied commissions, our Japanese set-up has been 99.44% perfect. Of course, the Nips are easier to deal with — their basic government was not changed — they do as they are told, etc. Ito would like to be honorary American, please.

No nation or race had a sole claim to courage

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019

Dunlap shares some miscellaneous thoughts on men, officers, and war:

Someone a long time ago said that no nation or race had a sole claim to courage, or words to that effect, and how right he was. As to soldiering, the Germans are probably the best, because they seem to enjoy the regimentation and cooperation necessary in most military endeavors. A German soldier remembered his training and used it, while most others kept their thoughts on home or the past until they were in the mill. They were inclined to pretend all military operations were on a high military plane, professionally, you know, and as a rule treated prisoners well enough. Many a wounded Allied soldier received the finest medical care from them. British Eighth Army men told of German medical corps men working side by side with their own during and after battles.

There was a little cruelty in German POW camps. Also, more than one British soldier, wounded badly, was booby-trapped by Afrika Korps men. American and British prisoners were sometimes shot (few soldiers feel angry about this — Americans probably killed more prisoners than all the rst of the others combined). Most of the atrocity stuff was confined to civilians and done more by the Nazi political SS political units than regular army men.

But do not fall for that “Good German-Bad Nazi” line — they were all for Hitler and his plans, whether they belonged to the Nazi party or not. SS men did not fly the bombers over Rotterdam or Coventry. The German leaders were not all screwballs, as our propagandists painted them. Goering was one of the most intelligent organizers and leaders they had, even if he acted like a clown and was not always backed up by the ground forces. Rommel was a top-notch field commander, and Guderian just about as good. Von Runstedt has been called the ablest army commander in the war by nonpartisan observers.

A Britisher once told me that they considered the Scots regiments the best fighting men in the world, because they were not only courageous, intelligent and cold-blooded fighters, but also because they seemed to actually enjoy combat. Next to them he rated the Ghurkas, saying they openly enjoyed fighting but were not as coldly calculating as the Scots. And he thought as a nation, the Germans produced the best armies.

I will go along with him, for with two wars to judge by, even I can see that it has been necessary to outnumber them and outweigh their equipment three to one, giving us the best of it. If they did not mix their military genius with a good percentage of stupidity, we would probably be speaking German now. They win the battles and lose the wars, always failing to see when they could win. Bad sense of timing, I guess. Their equipment and development work was of course very good, and production methods as good as ours in most cases. Item for item, their artillery was the best in use — but they did not have enough of it. Their tanks were better than ours in most respects. Their aircraft were good, but they did not have enough. Spread out and outnumbered in Russia, they lost millions of men, yet it was still a battle to take Germany. I can respect the German Army, but I do not like any part of it. It came so close to winning I hate to think about it.

As for the Japanese, he had just one strong point — he was not afraid to die. He was also patient and had plenty of physical endurance for his size. Many Nips were intelligent, but most were rather backward when it came to heads-up fighting. On a man-to-man basis in jungle work they were pretty good, but when equipment and large-scale teamwork entered the picture they did not have much or know what to do. They considered themselves better hand-to-hand fighters than Americans, which was the motivation behind most of their banzei charges (given up as a basic tactic about the middle of 1944). I will compliment them by saying I think they were about the ablest of all night prowlers, although they did not know enough about efficient exploitation of their training and ability. They seemed to think they could win the war if they could only scare us a little and a good deal of their effort went to that end rather than to real fighting. They were hard up for a lot of equipment. Good as they were at infiltration, they seldom had knives to fight with at night! What jobs of that kind turned up they had to use their long bayonets on. How they cut the grass and vegetation for their ever-present camouflage is beyond me. Once in awhile we would find one with a pocketknife. I saw one hara-kiri knife and one knife so oddly shaped it may have been a special equipment tool of some kind, and that is all the Jap cutting equipment I did see in a year in the Pacific fighting areas, excepting swords. Even in Japan in their army storehouses I found nothing at all in the way of machetes or sheath knives.

[...]

When they began their aggression against the U. S. they mistakenly tried frightfulness as a war tactic, on the childish assumption they could “dishearten” American soldiers. The result was for us to declare them out of bounds as humans and our combat soldiers destroyed Japs as they would vicious animals, exterminating divisions.

The Moisin-Nagant is distinctly third-rate

Tuesday, May 21st, 2019

Dunlap gets around to describing Russian small arms:

In the rifle line, the U.S.S.R. used Moisin-Nagants, and M95 Winchesters in 7.62mm (.30 caliber); Pattern ‘14 Enfields and 1905 Ross rifles in .303 British caliber, and Mauser 98’s and M29’s in 7.9mm. The English arms were taken from Latvia in 1939 (England had given them to Latvia in 1918) and the Mausers were captured when Russia and Germany split Poland in 1939. The Winchester 95’s and a large percentage of the Moisin-Nagants were made in the U.S. during World War I. The Winchester is, I believe, the only lever-action rifle used in either War I or II as a military arm by any of the belligerents.

[...]

The Moisin-Nagant is distinctly third-rate — meaning not as good as the Mauser or Mannlicher systems, but it was apparently a cheap weapon to make, for Europe was flooded with them; also parts of Wisconsin.

[...]

Back in the old days in Russia, the peasant conscripts were usually completely illiterate and ignorant of the metric system, so their weapons were sighted on the old Russian system based on paces. Since the U.S.S.R. has worked up a fair education program in the past 25 years, they began marking their gun sights in the more efficient meters.

[...]

To explain, the Old Russian distance measuring method is based on the “arshin” (meaning “pace,” or step, equaling 28″ or .71 meters). Three arshins make one “sazhen” and 500 sazhens equal one “verst”; now you know what a verst is.

[...]

The Russians really concentrated on the autoloaders and they had some good ones — the Simonev 36 using the curved 15-round magazine, and the Tokarev 38 and 40 models, 10-shot repeaters.

[...]

That carbine is really an infantry weapon — only seven pounds. These guns of course use box magazines and can be clip-loaded as can Mauser and Lee-type rifles. They are gas-operated, as explained in the section of German semi-automatic rifles.

[...]

Several submachine guns, including .45 caliber lend-leased U.S. Reisings were used, the best being the M41 described under German guns. The Models 34 and 38 (Federofs) were simple blowback types, using 25-round straight magazines, and all were for the 7.63mm Russian pistol cartridge which is approximately the same as the Mauser 7.63 pistol cartridge in dimensions and ballistics.

[...]

The Nagant 7.62mm revolver was seven-shot, and used a cartridge case longer than the cylinder, with the bullet seated below the mouth of the case. When the cylinder revolved it moved back and then forward, placing the protruding end of the cartridge case in the rear of the barrel, the idea being to keep gas from escaping. The gun was smallbore and not very effective, but fairly reliable, and, as previously indicated, popular enough to be used by several other nations.

[...]

Personally, I think the diameter too small, though, of course, I would hate to be shot with a .30 caliber pistol.

[...]

The greatest asset of the Degtyarov is its ability to operate with an absolute minimum of lubrication, an important point in a cold country, and a point which caused the Germans to send quite a few of the guns to Africa in an effort to test them in desert conditions, where oil meant picking up sand and grit and dry guns were desirable.

The Norwegians are riflemen

Monday, May 20th, 2019

The Norwegians are riflemen, Dunlap notes:

Both the 1912 and 1895 models [of Norway's service rifle, the Krag-Jorgensen] are very well-built guns, with excellent stocks. The Norwegians are riflemen and know what stocks should be like for accurate shooting. All their rifles excepting the old Remington “Lund” have full pistol grips and high-comb buttstocks.

The payoff comes on the 1930 Model, probably the highest development in European military bolt-action rifles. It corresponds to our old DCM Springfield Sporter, though longer and undoubtedly a target model. This rifle was made for accurate shooting, with its semi-heavy barrel and aperture sights. The stock was true sporter length, with short forend, but it did have finger grooves. A full pistol grip buttstock with scant drop made for ease of sighting and American-type loop slings were used. The rear sight was a receiver aperture type, appearing very like our target sights, and very close to the eye. Elevation was from 100 to 1,100 meters, and provision was made for windage adjustment. Overall length of this 6.5mm deluxe job was 47.5″; barrel 30″; weight 11 pounds. No mention was made of its use with telescopic sights.

This was the only metallic-sighted rifle the Germans rated effective at 600 meters. They considered 400 meters the effective range of all other rifles used against them (including our Springfields), rating the telescopic-sighted sniper rifles good to 600 meters.