Dutch (Artillerie Inrichtingen) made No. 32 scope

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Since there is little known on these and it was also a first one for me, I thought I would share pictures of my newest addition which arrived today: a No. 32 Mk.3 scope made by Artillerie Inrichtingen (AI) in the Netherlands. To what I've been able to find out about 600 of these scopes were being made around 1951.

From THIS SOURCE I would want to quote the some paragraphs referring to the Dutch made No. 32 scopes:

Quote:

The former Dutch State Arsenal Artillerie Inrichtingen had an optics division in Delft, which was involved in the production and development of military products. In the late 1960s, this division was acquired by Philips USFA which, in turn, was absorbed by the Holland Signaal conglomerate, which became part of Thalis. There is often confusion with another company, Old Delft, also in Delft, which also produced optics. Old Delft merged in 1990 with Enraf-Nonius, an instrument factory, to become Delft Instruments. This company specializes in optics for camera’s and medical instruments. Old Delft also supplied Optronics (the combination of optics and electronics) to several military organizations, such as night vision equipment for the Dutch armed forces.

However, these are developments of the last 20 years. We are going back to the period shortly after World War II to review the historical items.

We begin in 1957, when the Artillerie Inrichtingen (AI) closed a license agreement with the ArmaLite company for the production of AR-10 rifles. ArmaLite claimed this gun also had excellent abilities as a sniper weapon. It was, therefore, clear that one of the accessories for this new weapon had to be a rifle scope.

In the autumn of 1957 ir. Friederich Jungeling, director of the AI, commissioned the development of such a rifle scope from the head of the optics department, engineer Van der Poest Clement. Van der Poest Clement and his department already had extensive experience in the field of scopes for all kinds of artillery and weapons. In 1951, the Dutch Ministry of War had ordered some 600 scopes for use on the Lee Enfield Mk 4 (T) sniper rifle. The Dutch scopes, called Riflescope No. 32 on a 1950 factory drawing and Riflescope Nr. 32 M3 on an existing specimen from 1951, were copies of the British No. 32 Scope, Mk III. However, they were easily distinguishable because the Dutch production version had the AI logo in a triangle engraved on the tube, and the serial number was followed by a letter H (Holland?). At an unknown time the AI factory even made a lightweight aluminum version. The pictured prototype weighs only 350 grams compared with 710 grams of the original version.

Edit 18.06.2023: re-uploaded gone pictures.

Very interesting Georg, I didn't know about these, I seem to recall past reference to Dutch rebuilt No32's in various places.

I wonder if in fact these were AI manufactured too in retrospect.

The linked website also shows pictures. In background of those pictures you can see dutch blueprints of the No. 32 scope. So I assume they really made it themselves.