Finnish snipers of the Second World War. Finnish cuckoos

Finnish cuckoos.

According to the legends composed about Finnish cuckoo snipers These are magnificent masters of their craft, unsurpassed by anyone. These cuckoos, sitting on a tree, single-handedly stopped entire battalions. Some of them, already at that distant time, were armed with real machine guns with optical sights. Not only professional soldiers and militia members served in the cuckoo units, but even decrepit old women who were not much inferior to African macaques in climbing trees. These old women ate exclusively crackers. Each old woman, climbing trees, had with her a whole bag of crackers and a whole bag of cartridges. With her last sack she destroyed entire units of the Red Army. To fight the cuckoos, Siberian hunters were mobilized (apparently hunters from other regions were not capable of this.) along with their dogs. The dogs were looking for these snipers: deftly avoiding the bullets with which the snipers tried to hit them (apparently dogs quickly dodge bullets), they pointed out the tree on which the cuckoo was sitting. Afterwards, the tree with the cuckoo was shot from two to three light machine guns (a common weapon for Siberian hunters). All this seems funny if you forget that all this was hammered into the heads of ordinary people by the Soviet and Russian press, which presented all this as truth. In our country, legends have long been replacing history and it’s unlikely that anything will change in the near future.

Below are excerpts from the text of my book “The Finnish Gambit or the role of the Soviet-Finnish war in the world revolution.” The book was published in Abakan in 2008 by the book publishing house "Brigantine". The volume of the book is 260 pages. The book is sold in local history museum Abakan st. Pushkina 96. Copyright for the book is reserved. Using the text for commercial purposes without the consent of the author is punishable by law. Use of the text is permissible with a link to the source.

The most famous legend of the Finnish war is the legend of the Finnish cuckoo snipers. I will not describe the exploits of Finnish cuckoos myself. I will just quote some authors who described their actions very colorfully.
“The forest, the ally of the Finnish warrior, gave rise to a feeling of horror among the Russians. The “white death” was rampant there - a Finnish “cuckoo” dressed in a white camouflage suit. (“Trud-7”, December 2, 1999).
“In pre-designated places, in the pine crowns around the forest clearings, there were hammocks, from which Finnish machine gunners shot at the clearly visible columns of Red Army soldiers.” (Magazine “Smena”, 1989, quotation from Taras’s anthology “The Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940” p. 53).
“We had to deal with Finnish snipers, who caused significant damage to the infantry, from the very first days of hostilities. Because of their favorite way of firing from trees, our soldiers dubbed them “cuckoos.” Sometimes, having started to “cuckoo,” such a cuckoo forced an entire company to lie down in the snow. Go figure, guess where the sniper is shooting from - the forest is large, and the echo of the shot rushing among the rocks and pines only confuses the path to the “nest” even more. In the Soviet infantry there were taiga hunters - Siberians, who came up with effective way fight against forest snipers. The dogs came to the rescue. Sent in front of the rifle chain, the Siberian husky, fearlessly maneuvering between the snow fountains of bullets, rested its front paws on the barrel and barked loudly. This meant: the enemy is at the top. The pine tree was immediately taken into the crosshairs by two or three light machine guns and the thick crown was pierced down to a centimeter, leaving its inhabitant no chance…” (“Requiem of the Karelian Swamps”, Komsomolskaya Pravda, November 14, 1989, A. Chudakov).
The same article says that the Russians launched attacks against machine gun fire in full height over the corpses of their comrades and fell to the ground only dead. Described as Finnish machine guns they mowed down one chain, and another went on the attack, and none of them Soviet soldiers, did not lie down on the ground to save himself from Finnish bullets. And here it is written how one sniper forced an entire company to lie down. But a sniper cannot inflict the same losses on an advancing group of soldiers as a group of machine gunners inflicts. If dense machine-gun fire cannot force chains of Russian soldiers to lie down on the ground, then a single sniper will certainly not be able to do this. The author simply contradicts another description with one of his descriptions. In one place in the text, he wrote that groups of machine guns, mowing down entire chains of Soviet soldiers as if with a scythe, could not force them to lie down on the ground. Elsewhere in the same text, Chudakov wrote that a lone Finnish sniper forced an entire company to lie down in the snow. It turns out that massive losses could not frighten Soviet soldiers, but isolated ones drove entire units into panic. This couldn't happen! A natural question arises: where did the author lie?
“The Finns amazed us with the accuracy of their shooting. Those who fought in this terrible war remember the “cuckoos” for the rest of their lives - Finnish snipers, usually from among civilian population- hiding at the top of trees and not allowing entire battalions to raise their heads. For shooting down a “cuckoo” they were given the Order of the Red Banner, or even a Hero, without further ado. Siberian professional hunters with their huskies were urgently mobilized into the army, with whom they hunted squirrel and sable. Their main task was to fight the “cuckoos”.
They hit the “cuckoos” with guns, bombed the forest, set it on fire, because the “cuckoo” did not allow anyone to even lean out of cover. When it was possible to destroy the “cuckoo,” it very often turned out to be an old Finnish woman sitting on a tree with a bag of crackers and a bag of cartridges.” (Bunich “Operation Thunderstorm.” Error in the third character.” p. 117).
There were such old women in Finland, not enough to sit on the stove, they climb trees, and even carry bags of crackers and cartridges with them. A sort of super-granny Amazon - the Finnish version! In other countries, grandmothers sit on semolina porridge, but give Finnish grandmothers crackers. Do you find it funny? I really like it! Just imagine how old grandma with a sniper rifle and two bags, he climbs a tree to sit on it, chew crackers and shoot at Russian soldiers. I have the impression that this text was written for comedians, but it ended up in a historical book.
I just don’t know who’s “cuckoo” is cooler, Bunich’s or Chudakov’s? For Chudakov, the “cuckoo” is a professional soldier who holds an entire company lying on the ground. Bunich’s “cuckoo” is an old woman who managed to force an entire battalion to lie down. Moreover, Bunich, just like Chudakov, describes how the Russian infantry marched chest to machine guns, not paying attention to big losses. According to Bunich, our soldiers, attacking machine-gun positions, literally went to the slaughter and no losses could force them to crawl or lie down in the snow. And again, according to him, lone Finnish snipers kept entire battalions in a prone position. This seems like an ill-conceived lie. Here either our soldiers are crazy and therefore face bullets with their chests. Either our soldiers are cowardly and therefore even lone Finnish snipers manage to stop entire Soviet units. Bunich apparently decided not to choose one of these opposites, but to write both of them in his text. He is ready to choose for his book everything that can disgrace the Red Army.
Some writers describe Finnish cuckoos as using machine guns.
"69th rifle regiment all day on March 12 I was engaged in eliminating snipers and machine gunners in the depths of the Musta-Saari forest.” (P. Aptekar “Soviet-Finnish Wars.” p. 261). How hard was it for our soldiers to shoot down snipers and machine gunners from trees all day long?!! It’s a pity that the Pharmacist doesn’t specify whether among them were women with bags of crackers and cartridges, or were they professional soldiers without any crackers?!
“In the coastal forest, swarming on every tree with snipers - this secret, hidden, invisible enemy - now direct fire shrapnel whistled between the branches. The gun brought by Savkin hit the forest point-blank. Shrapnel shook off layers of snow from spruce trees, cut down branches, knocked down like apples wrapped in white people with machine guns." (L. Sobolev “Sea Soul”, p. 300). Sobolev's Finnish snipers are already armed with machine guns!!! It turns out that the Finns already had machine guns with optical sights. And entire units were armed with just such weapons. It’s not like Bunich has an old woman with a rifle and two bags, one of which is for crackers, the other is for cartridges! For a sniper assault rifle, one bag of cartridges will not be enough! Probably Finnish snipers-machine gunners were climbing trees, carrying with them several bags of ammunition. And apparently they didn’t take old women into such units, since even Finnish old women wouldn’t be able to jump through trees with several bags of cartridges on them.
Perhaps I’ll have enough of citing myths about “cuckoo warriors” consisting of old women who deftly climb trees with two bags and a machine gun at the ready; it’s time to give examples of serious statements.
“...stories about Finnish snipers - “cuckoos” - perched in trees have no basis.” (Magazine “Motherland”, No. 12, 1995. Juutilainen, article “White Finns”, quotation from Taras’s anthology “The Soviet-Finnish War. 1939-1940” p. 348).
“And not every Finnish sniper or machine gunner in an ambush was a mythical “cuckoo.” For some reason, the Finns themselves still doubt the existence of these shooters sitting on the tree.” (Lipatov “Winter War” quotation from Taras’s anthology, p. 174).
“As O. Manninen wrote, the Finns themselves were surprised by the stories about the cuckoos. “No one has met such [winter war] veterans who would remember how they climbed trees. The Finnish soldier was... a constant individualist. He naturally took advantage of the variety of terrain, but it seems unlikely that a soldier could be forced to climb a tree, since he must always have had the opportunity to retreat. It would take too long to get down from the tree.”
According to Finnish historians, “Finnish “cuckoos” existed mainly... in Soviet official army documents and instructions, and from there they “flew” to the pages of newspapers and books. The fact is that warnings regarding “cuckoos” in Soviet military instructions appeared back in October 1939, before the Red Army invaded Finland. Perhaps the idea of ​​placing Finnish snipers in the trees of the Red commanders was suggested by the observation posts of the Finnish border guards, who were sometimes located in the trees. One way or another, “no one has yet seen a Finnish cuckoo that would actually sit on a tree,” the Finns themselves emphasize.” (Kozlov “The Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940. A look from the other side.” Riga, 1995. Quote from Taras’s anthology “The Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940” p. 249).
Of course, the Finns used snipers. It is now difficult to know how successfully they did this. “But of course, not snipers - single individuals decided the fate of battles.” (Ibid., p. 250).

The Finns taught the Soviet troops a terrible lesson during the winter campaign of 1939-40. The Finnish leadership prepared well for the war and took into account a lot in order to resist large forces with small forces. Soviet armies, they also counted on the competent use of well-aimed shooters, that is, snipers.

During the Finnish War, arrogant Soviet commanders were faced with the inexplicable and terrible phenomenon- cuckoo snipers. Their actions were unusually effective and are recognized as a particularly effective sniper practice of all times and peoples. The combat cunning of the cuckoo snipers was incomprehensible due to its non-standard nature, lack of regulations and deceit. The Finns were the first to point out that there are no prohibited techniques in sniper practice. These techniques were countless, and they rarely repeated each other.

Finnish snipers got the term “cuckoo” because they first shot from trees and spoke in bird voices. Deftly perched on the mighty branches of a century-old pine tree, the Finn waited for a more important target to appear and “filmed” it. In the tree where the sniper's nest was located, the Russians opened heavy fire from all the trunks, but the sniper was no longer there - the insidious Finn on a rope instantly descended under the cover of a thick pine trunk into a pre-dug dugout, where he waited out the shelling. Occasionally, depending on the circumstances, in order to calm the enemy, the Finn pulled the rope and pulled from the sniper’s nest a stuffed animal in a camouflage suit with a rifle, which very artistically fell, rolling from branch to branch, and sometimes even got stuck between the branches in the most unnatural position. After the shelling, the sniper climbed out of the dugout, climbed a tree and again began his work.

They started shooting at the tree again. As a rule, machine guns were used to shoot a tree up and down until it fell. But while the machine gunners, carried away by the shooting and deaf from it, were “sawing” the tree, the second Finn from the side shot everyone who was behind the machine gunners, and later took on them themselves. The machine gunners did an excellent job of suppressing the Finnish sniper’s shots, which was exactly what they needed.

Finnish “cuckoos” sat in the trees taking turns - while one was looking out for prey, the other was peacefully sleeping below, in an insulated dugout. In this way, round-the-clock duty was ensured on forest paths, which prevented the penetration of Russian reconnaissance and sabotage groups behind the front line.

For Finnish snipers, it made no difference which side to shoot on - their own or the neighboring one. During the large-scale offensive of the Soviet troops, many Finnish snipers remained camouflaged in insulated Finnish snowdrifts, not far from the predicted location of strategically important objects of the Red Army: airfields (on ice-covered lakes), artillery battery locations, headquarters, communication centers, communications, transport interchanges, concentration manpower, etc. As a rule, these were flat places in the forests, protected along the perimeter by folds of the terrain, which were quite easy to decipher.

Finnish snipers, having waited their time, began to work at the most unexpected moment. The consequences of their work were terrifying. The reconnaissance units, thrown to capture and seize the “cuckoos,” were blown up by mines with which the Finn had previously surrounded the position. But even the survivors returned with nothing. The Finnish shooter got on his skis and went to his own. For a Finn who grew up in the north, traveling 100-120 kilometers in winter on skis and spending the night in the snow at a temperature of minus 40° and trained in military affairs was a common thing.

Undoubtedly, martial art The high Soviet leadership did not recognize the “cuckoo” snipers and blamed junior commanders for failures (who were afraid to take the initiative and take a step right or left from Stalin’s regulations). High leadership I became thoughtful only when the “cuckoos” shot several staff vehicles with representatives of the command along with their retinue accompanying them. The executions took place in different places, but according to one scenario: a Finnish shooter shot out the rear wheel, immobilizing the car, and cold-bloodedly shot everyone who was in it. Only after this did the high authorities begin to understand that it was necessary to create counter ambushes along the advance routes of the Finnish snipers. But it was too late. Finnish War ended in victory despite terrible losses. Of the Finnish snipers, few were killed and none were captured alive.

“Cuckoo” snipers, moving freely in the forests, caused the advancing Red Army units a lot of trouble in terms of sabotage. Pilots who were in that war told how “cuckoos” opened the floodgates of the lake, on the ice of which the Russians established an airfield. In the moonlight, more than two dozen warplanes began to collapse into the ice. The sight was terrible. By fire sniper rifles The Finns did not allow us to approach the locks and close them.

The tactics of snipers developed by the Finns winter time turned out to be so successful that it was later used Soviet troops, and German. And even now there is practically nothing to add to it.

The ideal weapon for Simo was the Finnish modification of the Mosin rifle M/28 or M28/30. The sniper killed most of the soldiers from it. He also masterfully wielded the Suomi submachine gun and the Lahti Saloranta M-26 assault rifle, with which he eliminated almost 200 opponents.
A distinctive feature of the Finnish sniper was that he did not use a sniper scope. This was due to the fact that, firstly, the glare from the sight revealed dislocation, and secondly, the glass of the sight tended to freeze. In harsh winter conditions, the sight thus lost its functionality.

At his location, Simo rolled the snow crust, sometimes even filling it with water, so that the shot would not scatter the snow, giving away the location of the ambush. In order to avoid detection while hiding in a snowdrift, the Finnish sniper constantly chewed snow. This technique is still successfully used by Spentsaz players - due to the equalization of temperatures, steam does not come out of the shooter’s mouth.

snipers who received such nicknames are included in the top 20 best snipers World War II Simo Häyhä and Tulegali Abdybekov

Simo Häyhä

Born in 1905 in a small village near the modern border between Russia and Finland. The main occupation in the family was fishing and hunting. Upon reaching the age of 17, Simo Häyhä took part in several sniper competitions and won prizes. This was followed by service in the Finnish army.

With the outbreak of the Soviet-Finnish War in 1939, Simo Häyhä became a sniper. On the first day alone, Simo scored 25 victories, and two days later the score exceeded fifty. As a result of active propaganda, the fame of the invincible Finn spread far beyond the front line. The Soviet government placed a bounty on Simo's head, and the sniper himself was dubbed the “White Death.”

Simo Häyhä's height is 161 cm, which was an advantage in his craft. The sniper dressed all in white, which made him practically invisible against the background of snow. Simo could remain in position for several hours, waiting for the enemy. And this is at temperatures from -20 ° C to -40 ° C. When preparing the ambush site, Simo compacted the snow so that it would not fly apart during shots, giving away his location. The sniper kept snow in his mouth so that there would be no steam when exhaling. Simo was in a better position because he knew the area like the back of his hand.

But the most surprising thing is that the marksman did not use optical sight. Firstly, Simo believed that the glare from the sun could give him away, and secondly, with very low temperatures The sight glass froze. The weapon used by the sniper was a Finnish modification of the Mosin M/28-30 rifle under No. 60974. It killed 219 enemies. He also used the Lahti Saloranta M-26 machine gun, with which he killed at least 300 enemy soldiers.

In the first 100 days of the war, the Finnish sniper killed more than 500 enemies. A squad of elite Soviet snipers was sent to capture Simo Häyhä. On March 6, 1940, the bullet finally caught the Finn.
The sniper was evacuated. An explosive bullet hit him in the left side of his face. The lower part of his face was disfigured and his jaw was crushed. Häyhä was evacuated in an unconscious state to the rear, and he woke up only on March 13, 1940, the day the war ended. After Häyhä was wounded, rumors spread among the troops that he had died from his wounds. He received treatment in Jyväskylä and Helsinki. The wound required long-term care and frequent operations after the war. The jaw was restored using bone taken from Häyuha's thigh. As a result of a serious injury, Häyhä was not taken into service in the war of 1941-1944, despite his petitions.
Häyhä lived until 2002 and died at 96 years old

sniper Abdybekov in a combat position, 1944

native of the Kazakh SSR
senior sergeant
sniper of the 8th Guards rifle division, personal combat count of 397 fascists, including 20 Wehrmacht snipers
participant in the Battle of Stalingrad
Awarded the Order of Lenin, Patriotic War 1st degree, Red Star and Red Banner.

Tuleugali Abdybekov

Most often, people became snipers at the front this way: the commander noticed that the soldier was shooting accurately, and sent him to the regimental school for two weeks, where a seasoned sniper taught the basics of the craft. Then the marksman received a rifle with optics and was placed 200 meters in front of the trenches to perform the function of a sniper: defeating enemy command and communications personnel, destroying important emerging, moving, open and camouflaged single targets (enemy snipers, officers, etc.). The mortality rate among young snipers was especially high. If the enemy spots a sniper, he starts firing mortars at the square...

Enemies hated snipers most of all; they did not take prisoners. And although the Germans had incomparably better training in schools, ours were superior in numbers of shooters. If the sniper did not die after the first battle, then on average the sniper won three victories. Ten - you are already a good shooter, thirty - an ace. There were units who accounted for more than a hundred enemies, they were proud of them, the arrival of such a seasoned warrior on the front line inspired the fighters much more than the presence of a dozen commissars and political officers...

The best snipers were those who were hunters in civilian life. This is how Tuleugali Abdybekov ended up among the snipers. He was born in the Semipalatinsk region, and since childhood he went hunting with his father. Times were hard, hungry, and any small booty was a great help for the family. In his youth he moved to the village of Pakhta-Aral near Chimkent, where he worked as a cotton grower. From here he was drafted into the army, served in Far East. Dexterous, savvy, he amazed his colleagues and commanders with his accurate shooting, all ten bullets were exactly on target. He constantly took prizes at regional competitions.

He became famous after one battle, when he was thrown in front of our positions on a high-rise building, and 25 Germans went to it. In a few minutes he shot almost all the enemies, only two managed to escape. But it is a mistake to think that snipers shot at everyone. They had their own unspoken rules, which both the Germans and ours tried to observe, a kind of etiquette of honor. It was not good to shoot at orderlies picking up the wounded, at soldiers collecting the dead. But shooting a machine gunner or an officer was considered honorable. And the coolest thing is to destroy the enemy sniper. Sometimes snipers were given specific instructions - for example, to stop an enemy attack. Then experienced shooters tried not to kill, but to injure the attackers. And in painful places - in the kidneys or liver. Then the man screamed heart-rendingly, demoralizing his comrades.

The fame of Tuleugali Abdybekov grew from battle to battle. In the battles for the city of Kholm, he sat down in a damaged tank and thwarted several enemy counterattacks, shooting 58 enemy soldiers and officers. German soldiers gave him the nickname "Black Death". Enemy counter-snipers were hunting for him, artillery and mortars fired at suspicious places with heavy fire, but luck did not leave the fighter. He was the first to use a trick that became popular among snipers. At night, a captured cigarette was lit, raised on a wire over the top of the trench, a rubber tube was attached to the filter, through which a partner puffed, and a white sheet of paper rose behind the cigarette. In the darkness it looked like someone was smoking. The enemy sniper fired, the shot was detected, the rest was a matter of technique.
Died on January 23, 1944 best friend and Tuleugali’s partner, Grigory Postolnikov, who closed the pillbox embrasure in the battle. Over the grave of a friend, the sniper swore an oath to take revenge on his enemies. At that time, Abdybekov already had 393 victories in his combat account. But without a trusted partner it was difficult. Moreover, the Germans called in their best counter-snipers to destroy the Black Death. Exactly a month later, on February 23, a sniper duel took place near the Nasva station. That day Tuleugali was not feeling well; he caught a cold and sneezed. This is what let him down. The enemy was ahead by a moment and sent the first bullet. The wounded Abdybekov was dragged to the medical battalion, where he died without regaining consciousness. The sniper count stopped at 397.
Today, many say that the Germans’ sniper scoring system was more truthful - the sniper’s victory had to be confirmed by either an officer or two soldiers. But our snipers were also required to confirm victory. And considering special departments and the number of informers, there was no point in making notes - you could end up in a penal battalion. Abdybekov, by his nature, could not lie at all, even for his own benefit. He was nominated several times for the title of Hero Soviet Union, but he honestly wrote in the questionnaires that he had a repressed relative - an uncle. He never received the Hero's Star, despite the fact that all the best shooters from the first hundred received it...

Abdybekov’s sniper rifle No. 2916 was handed to his student, a young aspiring sniper Ashirali Osmanaliev, who vowed to avenge the death of his mentor. He fulfilled his oath, destroying 127 enemy soldiers and officers and becoming one of the 100 best snipers in the world...