Useless, why? 1 simple shot, no matter the rate of fire, will kill the german sniper and viceversa.
With a slower rate of fire, the german sniper will have a huge advantage.
EDIT: I don't really know if the slower rate of fire applies before shooting
(the set up of the sniper) or after
(reloading the rifle). If it's before shooting, axis sniper has all the advantage. If it's after shooting then is somewhat balanced.
And as has been told several times in this forum, snipers are different because they have different roles. They aren't meant to fight each other as they were in vCoH, and I agree with that because sniper metagame in vCoH was absolutely lame.
Soviet snipers should be nerfed or rebalanced, but keeping them as a 2-men squad.