The back of the photograph reads, ""A German snipers nest armored inside with steel. At the top, a machine gun is camouflaged to represent a limb."" ""When the First World War began, Germany started equipping some of their marksmen with scoped rifles, allowing them to fire accurately over extremely long distances. Although sniper regiments were not entirely new, the addition of the long-distance scopes put German sharpshooters at an advantage. These were the first snipers to use them in the conflict, and their enemies were caught off guard. The Allies were not aware of this sniping innovation, so when the German sharpshooters began claiming lives across seemingly impossible distances, the French and British soldiers just assumed it was pure potluck. It wasn�t until Allied forces moving through German positions stumbled upon rifles equipped with scopes that they realized what was really going on. Although after this the British quickly began to emulate this new tactic, the German sharpshooters would always hold a certain notoriety."" (https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/five-facts-deadly-snipers-first-world-war.html) ""Soldiers in front-line trenches suffered from enemy snipers. These men were usually specially trained marksmen that had rifles with telescopic sights. German snipers did not normally work from their own trenches. The main strategy was to creep out at dawn into no-man's land and remain there all day. Wearing camouflaged clothing and using the cover of a fake tree, they waited for a British soldier to pop his head above the parapet. A common trick was to send up a kite with English writing on it. Anyone who raised his head to read it was shot."" (http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWsnipers.htm)