Is this Rosa?

[MJ1]

This is a new picture of her for me I have two others but not in profile.



......

[Liam]

In my opinion, yes.

[TomSudz]

I'll agree with Liam. Yes.

[snakehunter]

I'll agree with Liam. Yes.

Who is/was Rosa besides a good lookin' sniper? Is she the one who transferred to the Air Force and became an ace against the Luftwaffe?

[Art]

My favorite pretty Soviet lady sniper was Ziba Ganiyeva who was officially credited with 300 kills. She was regarded as the coolest shot in the entire Soviet sniper corps and that's saying a heck of a lot. It should also be remembered that Soviet soldiers never got kills for shooting common soldiers. The prime targets were officers and senior N.C.O.'s 118 of Ganiyeva's kills were officers, the rest I'm sure made up of the mix of N.C.O's, artillery observers and the occassional German sniper. If the her kill total seems unrealistically high it should be remembered she was one of the very best the Soviets had, fought through the worst of the war and was in an extremely "target rich" environment.

The Soviet snipers had a chilling effect on German morale being both very numerous, very well trained and highly effective. A German captain named Luther Asche wrote the following:

"I was witness to a sniper who hit five of my fellow officers in one day, never (from) closer than 300 meters. One shot, one officer dead...five times. We found out it was a woman because one of our scouts wounded her and we captured her."

The woman I'm sure met a very unpleasant death later but she made it a very bad day for Captain Asche's unit, especially if one happened to be an officer.

[Liam]

Wikipedia Info Link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roza_Shanina

Patriotic Collage: (note the "Prettied Up" photos from the Soviet era)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jrGHiFSox0

[MJ1]

Excellent research Liam.

[Art]

My favorite pretty Soviet lady sniper was Ziba Ganiyeva who was officially credited with 300 kills. She was regarded as the coolest shot in the entire Soviet sniper corps and that's saying a heck of a lot. It should also be remembered that Soviet soldiers never got kills for shooting common soldiers. The prime targets were officers and senior N.C.O.'s 118 of Ganiyeva's kills were officers, the rest I'm sure made up of the mix of N.C.O's, artillery observers and the occassional German sniper. If the her kill total seems unrealistically high it should be remembered she was one of the very best the Soviets had, fought through the worst of the war and was in an extremely "target rich" environment.

The Soviet snipers had a chilling effect on German morale being both very numerous, very well trained and highly effective. A German captain named Luther Asche wrote the following:

"I was witness to a sniper who hit five of my fellow officers in one day, never (from) closer than 300 meters. One shot, one officer dead...five times. We found out it was a woman because one of our scouts wounded her and we captured her."

The woman I'm sure met a very unpleasant death later but she made it a very bad day for Captain Asche's unit, especially if one happened to be an officer.

There was an error in the source I quoted about Ganiyeva, those numbers are for Lyudmilla Pavilichenko. Ganiyeva was a decorated sniper but her kill total was nothing like Pavlichenko's and she was most famous as a scout. After the war she became a famous linguist. Ganiyeva was still way cute and prettier than Pavlichenko, just not as deadly.

Also I found an interesting statistic. It seems there were about 2,000 Soviet lady snipers of whom only about 500 survived the war. it was a very dangerous business, obviously.

[snakehunter]

Thanks guys.

[Ron]

I am going to post this in another section of the forum but since it has a part about Soviet lady snipers in the book I will post it here.
The part dealing with the soviet - Nazi snipers is very thrilling and I had to read it several times , it was very lifle like and gripping.
author Gary Varner from Mo. wrote a wonderful book about an airborne company in the 101st during WWII.
No it is not band of brothers , far better and deals with Normandy in this first book, I suspect the usual suspects will show up in sequels in Holland and Bastogne.
Characters are a Lt. and his plt. in England before and During D-day.
Is about the 501st regiment same on my dad was a Lt. in during the war.
It is a fiction book mostly about the characters names, Gary did years of research in England and Normandy walking the battle fields , airfields and training grounds.
The accounts are true to life.
Also is a savvy eastern front Nazi SS Sergeant that is moved to Normandy with a team of snipers before D-day.
There is training, romance , fighting in Russia and Normandy and the Lt. and the SS sergeant face off together.
Very good book, call The Great Hour Struck.
I am going to list this also in the Garand forum where I have posted some pictures of my dads plt. during WWII
Ron

[Texraid]

Lyudmilla Pavilichenko

[Art]

Nice picture!! I see she is one of the minority of snipers who preferred the SVT 40.

[jon_norstog]

Who is/was Rosa besides a good lookin' sniper? Is she the one who transferred to the Air Force and became an ace against the Luftwaffe?

Rosa was a kindergarten teacher who joined the Red Army after the germans killed her brother. She was active in 1944, MAYBE '43, KIA in 1945. She had 50-some confirmed kills, 12 of them enemy snipers. She was only 22 or 23 when she was killed. She was a beautiful woman ...
jn