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Subject: Italian Gun Sight
Carl S    1/27/2007 10:38:34 AM
Posted here: http://www.comandosupremo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4467 (comandosupremo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4467) Are photographs of a gunsight of Italian manufactor, possibly made in 1918. If anyone can identify how the scales on it are operated it would be appreciated. While I can tentatively ID the upper lens , eyepiece, & prmary direction scale the photos are not clear enough to guess at the rest of it.
 
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Yimmy       1/27/2007 12:47:37 PM
Reminds me of our C2 sight, as used on our GPMG's and mortars.  Try searching for "C2 sight", and you will get the same principle I assume.

If you like I could give a description.


 
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Carl S       1/27/2007 6:43:46 PM
 I know the principle.  I hope to fill in the finer details.  For one those photos are too grainy on my screen to read the indices on the scales.  If you can ID the specific scale used on that sight I'd be gratefull.  Mils, degrees, radians? Also there is that knob on thhe lower part of the sight, with some sort of spiral scale wraped around it.  

Where did you have your experince on the C2 sight?  I spent a decade of my career in the USMC artillery. 
 
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neutralizer       1/27/2007 10:48:18 PM
Looks like a standard dial sight / panoramic telescope to me.   However:
 
The cowl can be elevated / depressed.
 
Normal main and shooting scales with their micrometers, the scales are a bit unusual being widely separated, but you could argue that would help poorly trained gunners not to make mistakes.  There's also a sight levelling bubble in one axis, so it may be that cross levelling was not possible, which wouldn't help accurate shooting it the trunnions were tilted (sloping ground)
 
At the bottom is a clinometer scale.  The tricky bit is the 'screw' scale (?) that projects out from the sight.  The key question is, is this graduated in angular units or distance units.  If the former then it might be used in conjunction with the clinometer scale - possibly one is a micrometer.  However, if its range then the sight would be gun specific (but conceivably the scale can be changed).  Brit arty sights in WW1 and earlier used similar 'range drums', including with multi-charge 4.5-in How (where they were set for ch 4, but false ranges allowed the other charges), although these were quite a bit bigger than the one on the sight in the picture.  
 
I'd need to handle the sight and see the scales and gearing properly before passing final judgement.
 
However, any resemblance to a C2 sight is purely coincidental! And I have played with one - a simple little instrument well within the mental capabilities of the average infantryman :-) and totally unsuited to artillery purposes (which is why panoramic sights like this Italian one were developed).
 
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Carl S       1/28/2007 8:46:03 AM
 
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Carl S       1/28/2007 8:56:32 AM
Looks like a standard dial sight / panoramic telescope to me.   However:
 
The cowl can be elevated / depressed.

***Cowl, exactly which part is refered to here?
 
Normal main and shooting scales with their micrometers, the scales are a bit unusual being widely separated, but you could argue that would help poorly trained gunners not to make mistakes.  There's also a sight levelling bubble in one axis, so it may be that cross levelling was not possible, which wouldn't help accurate shooting it the trunnions were tilted (sloping ground)

***I thought so to.  It occured to me the large uppermost scale or dial is for gross setting & the next knob set at right angles to it is for the fine settting.  I've worked with other measuring devices that were laid out that way.
 
At the bottom is a clinometer scale.  The tricky bit is the 'screw' scale (?) that projects out from the sight.  The key question is, is this graduated in angular units or distance units.  If the former then it might be used in conjunction with the clinometer scale - possibly one is a micrometer.  However, if its range then the sight would be gun specific (but conceivably the scale can be changed).  Brit arty sights in WW1 and earlier used similar 'range drums', including with multi-charge 4.5-in How (where they were set for ch 4, but false ranges allowed the other charges), although these were quite a bit bigger than the one on the sight in the picture.  
 
*
 
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Yimmy       1/28/2007 11:36:40 AM

Where did you have your experince on the C2 sight?  I spent a decade of my career in the USMC artillery. 


My old infantry platoon was an SF platoon, and my new one has an SF kit also. (For GPMG's).

 
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Carl S       1/28/2007 12:56:08 PM
Thats whay I couldnt recall it.  I kept trying to think of a mortar sight with that designation.
 
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Yimmy       1/28/2007 1:47:44 PM
We use the same sight for our mortars as we do our GPMG's.


 
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neutralizer       1/29/2007 3:04:09 AM
The cowl is the cover and head around the prism at the top.  Mounted on the cowl in this case is a scale which measures vertical angles, ie crests.
 
There are a couple of interesting points, the clip/catch thing set into the sight stem, it appears in the second photo.  Possibly related to the other point that was bugging me.  The eyepiece is between the upper and lower scales and has only limited lateral movement. Depending on which scale is which, the eyepiece means that either the AP has to be relatively close to the zero line (assuming they were using this type of sight and not a bearing one, in which case it would be centre of arc not zero line), or if the AP can be in any direction then the target has to be relatively close to the AP line.  The clip thing might mean that the tubular body of the sight can be rotated between the upper and lower scale taking the eyepiece with it.
 
The other interesting point is that this sight combines both the dial sight and the sight mount into a single unit.  UK used to do this before they adopted proper sights (German of course) a few years before WW1.  See this page  http://members.tripod.com/~nigelef/fc_laying.htm
 
Let me play with the sight and I'll write you a handbook (in English)!
 
 
 
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Carl S       1/29/2007 7:47:31 AM
The cowl is the cover and head around the prism at the top.  Mounted on the cowl in this case is a scale which measures vertical angles, ie crests.

***I'd think that knob/scale for fine setting the prisim & upper scale in direction.  I'd first think the lower mystery lnob & spiral scale for crest or vertical interval measurement.
 
There are a couple of interesting points, the clip/catch thing set into the sight stem, it appears in the second photo.  Possibly related to the other point that was bugging me.  The eyepiece is between the upper and lower scales and has only limited lateral movement. Depending on which scale is which, the eyepiece means that either the AP has to be relatively close to the zero line (assuming they were using this type of sight and not a bearing one, in which case it would be centre of arc not zero line), or if the AP can be in any direction then the target has to be relatively close to the AP line.  The clip thing might mean that the tubular body of the sight can be rotated between the upper and lower scale taking the eyepiece with it.
 
***Thats my thought too.  (You also drifted off into obscure artilleryman jargon.  Will Babelfish translate it for our friends reading this?  : )

The other interesting point is that this sight combines both the dial sight and the sight mount into a single unit.  UK used to do this before they adopted proper sights (German of course) a few years before WW1.  See this page  http://members.tripod.com/~nigelef/fc_laying.htm
" target="_blank">link

***The frequent failure of the "link" function on this web site is more than anoying.  I acess this site with a variety of computers & OS & error codes are common. Paste this to your address bar.   http://members.tripod.com/~nigelef/fc_laying.htm%3C/font%3E%3C/div%3E
 
Let me play with the sight and I'll write you a handbook (in English)!

**** No me! Send it to me I wanna play with it!    : )
 
 
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