necropimp said:
it was way more common in WW2 to aim off the target to compensate for wind and bullet drop than to even think of touching any of the knobs on the scope
Actually, not true. When a Russian sniper had time, and granted it doesn't take much time, to change the elevation on their scope, they did so, because it was easy.
When a Russian sniper was issued a Mosin Nagant with the PU scope, they were sent out to sight it in, naturally. When the sniper did this, they sighted in at a known distance say, for example, 100 metres. On the top of the PU scope is a small turret numbered from 1 to 13. This is the distances that the scope could be sighted in for. 1 being 100 metres, 13 being 1300.
When the sniper sighted his rifle in for 100 metres, he could then simply move the turret to whatever distance he was shooting at and could be confident that he would hit point of aim. There was no "X amount of clicks for Y distance" that you deal with with modern scopes.
The reason for this is that the crosshairs in the scope are not stationary. They move depending on the distance the scope is marked for.
To show this, and forgive the crap Paint pictures, but my digital camera doesn't work, else I'd show this on my Mosin Nagant sniper.
When the scope is set for 100 metres, the crosshairs appear far up in the scope view. This forces the shooter to aim the muizzle slightly downwards.
100 Metre Setting
However, when the shooter moves the turret to the 13, the crosshairs move downwards in the scope view, forcing the shooter to aim the muzzle upwards, resulting in the compensation for bullet drop.
1300 Metre Setting
This scope design, as horrible as it was to sight in properly, resulted in the sniper being able to extremely quickly adjust his scope for whatever distance he chose to fire at.
While he likely wouldn't have had time to adjust aim if he was found in the open, under fire, it would be under unusual circumstances for a sniper to find themselves under that situation.