Snipers in the Red Army of Workers and Peasants achieved something of a “cult” status.
STAVKA had, early on, made the call for talented shots to come forward. Men (and women) were trained for this work, but here, the “cult” of sniperism got in the way, as any Ivan with a passion for elimination of Germans could and did make a habit of practicing this style of warfare. The downside for the Red’s was the very profusion of amatuers…these “johnnys” would, by their very activity in hot areas, spoil the region for the professionally trained snipers of the Army…at Stalingrad, this cult following actually got in the way of operations of the “officially recognized” snipers; giving away the positions of the experts, the amatuers got many of the pros killed when they came back to positions that had been unmasked to the Germans by the activities of the “unofficial” snipers.
The problem became such a nuisance that orders preventing this cult from being practiced by anyone other than officially recognized and trained individuals had to be given…
For their known cunning in urban warfare, I would certainly believe the claims.
Don’t, however, fool yourself into thinking that claims for kills by the Luftwaffe are fudged…the GAF had the toughest claims recognition/registration process in WW2 (much more efficient than the Allied system), and jealous German pilots would most certainly not get away with cooking their own claims for very long at all.
You’ll just have to accept the fact that many of Stalin’s “Falcons” were not as well prepared, and suffered accordingly…Sorry!