Everything Wrong with the Sniper Rifles in 'Enemy at the Gates”

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One of the very few blockbuster American movies about the Eastern Front in World War Two is Enemy at the Gates, a film about the Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev. The movie is based around a duel between Zaitsev and the fictional German sniper Erwin König during the Battle of Stalingrad. There are lots of points of contention surrounding the historical accuracy of the film overall, but today I want to look at specifically the small arms.

Enemy at the Gates really has just one problem when it comes to guns: it portrays a lot of things before they would have actually existed. However, it portrays them quite accurately besides the chronological issues. The Soviet snipers are all shown with M91/30 PU rifles - which were not in production until just after the film's events take place. Zaitsev actually used a PEM model of Mosin sniper, dating from before the war. Major König is similarly shown with a single-claw Mauser K98k sniper, which was only introduced in mid/late 1943.

Overall, I would give the film a pretty solid grade for its small arms. The PU was the most common and recognizable Soviet sniper rifle of the war, and it really doesn't have a noticeable impact on the story of the film unless you are really obsessive about historical details.

[jimdowdall]

I was the stunt coordinator and military adviser on 'Enemy at the Gates ' I was also the feldwebel shot in the head when Jude is firing from the fountain after the charge across the square. As an ex movie armourer and WW2 military history buff, I went to quite a lot of trouble to get it as 'right' as possible but I certainly didn't know about the dates that the Nagant sights came out. When we shot the movie in 2000, the internet information was still in its infancy and not the amazing source of information it is today so I apologise that I failed on the rivet counting field. However, I did take Jude and Ed out on a range outside Berlin and got them to fire 80 rounds of ball ammo with their respective rifles to get the feel of proper recoil and got Jude used to carrying his rifle across his chest thus protecting the sight at all times. I'd told Ed to keep his head back from the sight but it was very cold on that day in January and after about 70 rounds, they were both pretty tired. Ed got too close to his sight and the recoil bit him and opened up his eyebrow which needed a couple of stitches which you can see if you look closely in some of the earlier scenes. I certainly wasn't aware of the Finnish converted Nagants as at that stage, the production was crazy busy and I think we all had bigger fish to fry! Hope people enjoyed the movie as it was one of the coldest and miserable locations I've had to experience as we shot from January to end of March. Jim Dowdall

[Movingfrag]

Ok, as far as my grandpa said (he was in USSR marines during the WW2) they wore maxim belts not to use with maxim guns - they had not enough of these - but to hold additional rounds for their Mosin-Nagant rifles. They preferred belts over ammo pouches because 1. it makes it easier to top off couple of rounds when you are on the go and 2. it is easier to swim with these belts if you happen to get in water. They loaded every other hole because it makes it easier to get round out of the belt - especially at winter or in wet weather where hands gets cold and because it makes it more flexible and more wearable. So here is my $0.02.

[cphrpunk]

“I’m not an expert in German sniper rifles”.

My soul has been crushed, I just naturally assumed Ian had it all memorized, down to the serial number blocks of the screws used to attach the scope. “And to hold the screws in they used a German version of Loc-Tite, made in Dresden in 1940, on a Tuesday by a gentleman named Hans who ironically skipped breakfast that morning which is why the scope didn’t hold that day. If only Hans had a couple eggs, the war might have turned out differently”.

[adamcichon]

I'm passing it as fun curiosity.
Retired lieutenant colonel of Polish Army, Marek Czerwiński wrote a book "Sniper duels". It's a collection of short stories, which plot of some is placed at eastern front of WW2. I don't know how much these are influenced by real events, but it's quite good reading.
In one story, soviet sniper Achmetianov is using DIY modified M91/30 PU. It is described, that he chopped off whole front of the stock right after the first barrelband in front of the rear sight (because upper handguard kept cracking), polished trigger mechanism to lighten it up a little, fastened buttstock leather boot filled with felt, improvised rised cheek rest with several layers of thick leather, mounted piece of tube on the front of the scope as anti reflection measure. He was experienced pre war hunter, so he basicaly "sporterized" his rifle.
Other story is about other pre war hunter, now sniper, Pchelintsev, that climbed onto the pylon of the blown up bridge, over the Neva river, near the Leningrad. Mostly he was scouting and noting spotted German positions on the other riverbank, but when the german artillery was firing he was popping some accurate shots with his 91/30 PE. As this story goes, he survived only because enemies didn't suspected someone insane enough to climb onto the blown up bridge.

[Fugettaboutit]

In 'Back To The Future', when Marty is onstage playing guitar at the dance, he is playing a guitar that technically shouldn't exist for another three years.

[widehotep]

Awesome! Next, please do "Raiders of the Lost Ark", where MP-40's, Walther P-38's and Soviet RPG-2's time travel back to 1933!

[andrewdenzov]

About ‘marines’. Sailors was a big part of revolution in 1917 but they don’t have any kind of webbing to carry rifle ammo. But they have loads of Maxim MG and belts on ships. So they use it to carry rifle ammo. Since cross belted sailor become iconic image of revolution. And during WW2 many sailors were transferred to infantry units and they still didn’t have webbing for rifle ammo so they again use MG belts to carry it

[joshchu]

Random fact: In Platoon, Tom Berenger was carrying a cold steel defender push dagger, which cold steel as a company wasn't even founded until 1980.

[fredbloggs]

My dad used to take great delight in pointing out the errors in films, one example being the Spitfire in ‘Battle of Britain’ (1969) that had too many blades on the propeller for that time of the war (4 vs 3).

[velociraptor]

Hello Ian,
I've seen a lot of your videos and first I have to say: Thank you very much, I was always impressed. Very good work every time. Your detailed knowledge is really impressive!

Now to Enemy... Hard to believe, but as luck would have it, I was one of the German weapon masters for this film. I was very fresh on film sets and just a newbie, a beginner, but I learned a lot there. I often gave the gun to Jude Law, Ed Harris, Rachel Weisz and also Ron Perlman. Not to forget the many extras. We arrived with the weapons by truck, I was the driver for a while, there was so much stuff and of course, how could it be otherwise, I even got into a police check once. Stopped by police in Germany with a truck full of weapons. Not a nice feeling... But everything was fine, papers were good, no problems.
Nice little story by the way. Of course the policeman wanted to look in the back when he knew what I had loaded. I showed him a few things, opened a few boxes and some steel cabinets. But he didn't check any weapon numbers or any other details. A cabinet MP38/40, a cabinet PpSh, MG42 & 34, boxes Mosin Nagant, K98k's. some pistols and not forgetting the 4 Maxim machine guns... he just "looked at" everything, didn't "check" anything. As it turned out later, he knew the truck because we parked it at a police station at night and it was from that station. Everyone there knew about this film shoot, it was a big deal, and he was just curious to see with his own eyes this truckload of weapons, these weapons from this film. Police officers are curious people too...

I wasn't the one responsible, but I know that a lot of research was done beforehand, that we determined the sniper weapons for each role and handpicked them. Of course, the director had the final word, and then they were not exchanged for the entire shoot.
I can only confirm Jim Dowdall, who also wrote here. Everyone tried their best to make everything as precise as possible, every detail was taken into account. The fact that such a mistake happened can only be because we simply didn't have this detailed information and the Internet at the time was nowhere near what it is today. You can perhaps see this in the fact that it took almost 25 years for anyone to notice. If I understood correctly, the time difference is not that big. And I also faintly remember that there was once talk of a museum. Not what or how, but that might explain things. Shouldn't be an excuse, a mistake is a mistake.
Your detailed expertise here is simply unbeatable. I suspect that such an error would be easily possible and perhaps even likely with today's Internet.
Two quick things: You're right, Tanja's weapon was actually intentionally not intended to be a military weapon and the fact that Volodya had it later was also intentional. Unfortunately I can't remember the reasons, but I do remember that it was intended that way. And the Marines were dressed by the costume people. They had our weapons, but the straps were from the costume. As far as I know, they only had the Maxim straps on because it looked good.

An example of our work on the details: under no circumstances were we allowed to change anything about the fabric wrapped around the weapons. (Except for the intentional changes over the course of the story) The sniper weapons were always treated and stored separately. When we had to remove it once, I don't remember why, we photographed the thing from all sides beforehand and restored it exactly. And take a few quick photos with your smartphone, not possible, it didn't exist back then...
And something else remarkable by the way: When we needed Russian weapons from that time a few years ago, around 20 years after the filming, this Vazili sniper weapon came out of a gun case. Unchanged, the fabric still wrapped around it! Nobody used this weapon again for “normal” film shooting. Nobody wanted to put this special weapon among the others again. This shows you how special this film was for us.
Even with the extras, we made sure that, if possible, they always got the same weapons so that there were no continuity errors. There are some and I know the reason why, but that stays with me.

My English isn't that perfect, but if I understood it correctly, there were some words of praise. So in the end, thank you very much for that.
I also hope that most people enjoyed the film and that we did a good job overall.

[fearthehoneybadger]

I remember a set designer for a movie saying that they worked to achieve a feel for the time and place rather than for total accuracy. Sometimes, they just couldn't get the exact props, so they just came as close as they could.

[romgl]

The hunting "rifle" used is, if I am not mistaken (and I probably not), a Frolov conversion of a Mosin rifle, these were made since 1920 by converting Mosin rifles into a single-shot, smooth-bore weapons intended for civilian use, hunting and guard duty. Called a Frolovka, this conversion was very popular and the name became generalized for all smooth-bore conversions, even the guns from before the revolution, Berdan, Krnka and Arisaka. The front bead sight and the checkering are a common attributes of the Frolov conversion.

[craigbolton]

I build vintage road-race cars. This is why no one wants to watch period motorsports movies with me.

[blackvod]

Maxim belts were used as expedient bandoliers. Either due to shortages of ammo pouches or to look like iconic revolutionary sailors of 1917. Or both.

In general all troops in naval infantry brigades were wearing regular army khakis and only kept striped shirt and naval peakless cap with them. But in this case naval uniforms are correct as sailors of Volga flotilla were pressed into infantry roles as their riverine ships were massacred by Stukas.

[SamuraiAkechi]

4:16 PE and PEM used to come in two varieties, with the Geco style side rail mount and with Smirnsky top mount
10:26 in his memoirs Zaitsev wrote that he had a Berdan - most likely a shotgun conversion, a super affordable civilian firearm back in 1900-1920. After that the bottom line of affordable guns was replaced with Frolov Mosin shotgun conversions and break action shotguns based on Iver Johnson design.

[gillesmatheronpro]

As a former shooting instructor in the Army, some years ago, and currently working in the cinema/TV industry, I can go for the most plausible reason : cost.
Among other experiences, I had to advise for a film about the Algerian independance war (roughly from 1954 to 1962), and also acted in the film. Our worst enemy was the lack of money. I had to ask many extras to carry ther weaponry while trying to hide it from the camera. This is even more complicated when filming is done with 4K or 6K (or even 8K sometimes) resolution cameras. As an exemple, I can certify all make-up artists had to switch to new products from 2010 on : cameras were so precise that all "patches" of cosmetics were visible on srceen, event to the non-trained eye.
So... imagine what it means for the producer, when telling the director a choice must be made : either you get those 20 extras you need for 2 days, OR you get all the rifles you need in the exact versions to cope with the historical truth.
Art, whatever field you consider, is made of choices AND concessions. In film production, you shall never be able to get exactly what you need to get your film to the zero-default level it should be. In a perfect world. That does not exist. In this galaxy, at least.
On that filming I mentionned, we were working with an historian specialized in the Algerian independance war. I spoke to him right during the first production reunion, to tell him we'd have to deal with real production conditions and that would probably take us some steps away from the truth. He said that, in his research, he found so many hard-to-believe things that we most certainly be closer to the truth than we think and at any given moment. He found things he never published, although he witnessed them, because he could not back those elements with hard-proofs, yet they were true.
Other exemples many people have witnessed, with hardly someone complaining... the video game "Assassin's creed Unity". It takes place during the French revolution of 1789 (there were many actually, not just one !).
In the game you can see a blue-white-red flag, supposedly a French flag... but it's not. Because the triple-colour one we have now did not exist. It was the "Marine Royale" flag from 1794, then the "Armée de terre" flag from 1812 (with 2 exceptions around 1815/1820), but became the official flag of the country in 1830... a 41 years difference ! During the revolution lots of flags were flown, many of them with the red and blue (colours of Paris) but barely any white (colour of the King).
Also in the game, on the Cathédrale Notre-Dame the famous arrow-tip shaped spike is visible on its roof. Of course, everyone knows this piece of architecture, because everyone saw it burn then collapse in April 2019 during the huge fire destroying the whole roof and a part of the cathedral.
Yes, but... this roof-spike is a late add-on to the original cathedral, and is was designed then installed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, a more-than-famous XIX th century French architect who specialized in restoring monuments all over Europe. But also had a "weakness" of placing little extras here and there, so his signature would remain forever. In Carcassonne, he added rooftops to all the towers of the (sublime !) Medieval City when restoring it... when none of the original towers had a roof ! In New-York, he was supposed to build the inside support of "Liberty enlightening the World" in stones, because he loved stones and thought it was the only way to do a proper job for this statue. But, of course, it was also a way to leave his imprint on the monument. Unfortunately (or not) he passed away before construction began, and Bartholdi (the sculptor) was clever enough to sollicitate Gustave Eiffel (yes, THAT very one) and ask him to do the "skeleton" we can see today. And he did it with puddled iron because it was his material of choice and the only one, according to him, able to withstand the strong winds of the New-York bay... how clever !
So, what we see in the video game - dated in the period in 1789/1794 - is a cathedral roof-spike from 1860... weird, wrong, inaccurate, etc. But (because there is a "but" to this) this is no mistake, but a choice on purpose. The person in charge of the historical coherence and accuracy clearly said she wanted to keep the player (or viewer) in a familiar environment. Designing a spikeless cathedral or one with the medieval iteration of the roof-spike (demolishes around 1793, after remaining in very a bad condition for years and about to collapse) was a bad idea, according to her.
I rather am your typical science-driven picky and rigorous type of guy. When advising on a film set, this is even more strict at times (I have dozens of exemples). But I understand the choice of this artist, to give a tiny twist to reality so she would have more people engaged in the game. This is also how you sometimes get more people involved than you ever thought you could.
The real tasty twist is Ubisoft (the French company behind this game, whose Montréal branch designed it for its majority) donated Euro for restoring/reconstructing the Cathédral and launched a temporary free-donwload for the game after the fire. And guess what will be back atop the roof... yes, just that !
You are legitimate with your analysis, but we must be careful not depriving our spectators from enjoying our creations. And we showed no disrespect to those who fought for our freedom in intentionnaly "sowing" some errors here and there. Thanks to these, we managed to create art pieces, not only for art itself, also as a hommage to their work and sacrifices. Without cutting some corners, there would be no nothing.

[highjumpstudios]

With the belt thing I can almost guarantee what the situation was.
"Hey props says they don't have enough demilled ammo for the belts they want the marines to wear."

"Eh, just load every other link, the audience won't notice. It's not like Ian from forgotten weapons is gonna pick over our film."

[heimvar]

9:44 I think the German iron cross night be a more apt description of what those sight hairs look like imo

[Hybris]

Overall considering the realities of movie production I think they did a great job as far as arms go. Personally this is one reason why if I could ever get into producing media besides the written word I would choose animation so I could go to that extreme degree of getting the right arms, uniforms, vehicles, etc... without having to deal with real world issues that will crop up whenever do you start to try and source these things.

[MauldtheMan]

Prop department canonicity issues are something I first saw in ZULU, where during the final Zulu charge there are very clearly Lee-Enfield rifles with their bolts removed to look *enough* like Martini-Henrys, likely because they just didn't have enough Martinis around for so many guys!