Public domain World War II pictures

Germany even had an award for shooting down enemy planes with infantry weapons: http://www.ww2awards.com/award/146

At June 1942 the sniper of 796th Rifle Div. starshina Antonov Vasily Antonovich shot-down Ju-88 by 4 shots from sniper's rifle near Voronezh (Воронеж).

Eh :-) one more time :-) [URL=http://radikal.ru/F/s54.radikal.ru/i144/0902/20/bb95dcbc0f18.jpg.html][IMG]http://s54.radikal.ru/i144/0902/20/bb95dcbc0f18t.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

The sniper frrom 82nd Rifle Division Михаил Лысов (Mikhail Lijsov) in october 1941 shut down Ju87 by the AVS-36 sniper version (АВС-36). Sniper Vasily Kurka from 726th Rifle regiment has 1 warplane.

Funny or not but russians shot down numerous low flying aeroplanes with rifle fire.

Low-flying reconnaissance aircraft, but altogether pointless unless a weapon of a heavier calibre was available...

But instead, they gave away their positions and wasted ammunition whenever a German plane circled somewhere in their vicinity...

This was done more to boost moral then to counter the german planes. At least the soldiers didn't feel completely helpless against german air superiority.

Anyone who has used a telescopic sight knows you would hit nothing like this.

This was serious training, up till 1942. The chance of downing an aircraft, unlikley, chance of nailing a crewman and/or pilot, probable, depending on altitude, speed, and so on...note, most of these men are snipersusing PU scopes.