I gave the tale quite a lot of thought. My conclusions:
#1 no doubt that sniper duels have taken place in Stalingrad
#2 no doubt that Vassili Zaitsev was a great soldier and a great shooter
#3 no doubt that CCCP needed a hero at the time, and lucky for Zaitsev he was the right man, in the right time, and in the right place to get the job
#4 the number of kills some people claim to be eighter impossible or they treat Soviet snipers as human-sniper-gods. I'm no sniper but I would just say he had a whole lot of German troops to pick of so he didn't need to be Delta Force to kill a lot of Germans in a besieged city. The Soviets had the advantige over the Germans and that helped him in the fight.
#5 no doubed that the German high command would like to take out Zaitsev for propaganda reasones - logical move
#6 would the Germans send a high ranking officer to take out ONE MAN ? I mena com on, it's the Germans we are talking here. The blew a whistle at the time when a grunt missplaced a sock and all sudden there is no mention of a high ranking German officer going to Stalingrad to kill one man, a private by that matter.
#7 even IF the Germans would do it, why send a CO od a sniper school ? why not a NCO whos "been there, done that"? The "Juba" carracter was on the news for some time, did the USMC send the CO of their Scout/Sniper School to Iraq to kill him ? I'm no sniper but that would be a mistake....
#8 what's more, the whole duel climax differes every time. Vassili Zaitsev sad he raised his glove, others say his spotter fooled the German sniper so Zaitsev could get a shot at him. IF that was the German "super-sniper" how could he be fooled by such simple tricks ?
#9 last but not least, as mentioned time and time again, only the Soviet propaganda claimes that there was anything. Nothing from the German side. And don;t start with the whole "save face" thing. The Germans knew where every can of beanes was kept and how many socks every soldier had with him. So I find it hard to belive that they just "forgot" about reporting that a Sniper School CO, high ranking officer, went to Stalingrad to kill a Soviet sniper....
As stated before it's how I see it. I'm no soldier nor am I a trained sniper. Just using my common sence. But then again I just as well might be full of shit - so now you can ban me
