Early optical sights for the Lee Enfield

[Surpmil]

Zeiss was no doubt keeping a close eye on developments abroad and pursuing them in the usual systematic fashion. For service use the Grubb design would be much preferable I suspect, especially as it could have been made much more robust and fully sealed.

As for Voigtlander, is the Kontur bifocal viewfinder not a post-WWII product? I can't see it playing any role in a design from 45 years earlier.

Sir Howard Grubb was mostly a designer and builder of larger astronomical instruments, as was Dr. Ainslie Common IIRC. Both were drawn into the design of military sights, but neither that nor cameras seems to have been an interest of theirs before the military need arose.

Both of course would have had an excellent understanding of theoretical and practical optics.

Another example of how the "outsider" taking a fresh view of a problem looks at it without the preconceptions of the so-called experts and often finds solutions that have eluded the latter.

Sadly, the reflexive obstinacy of the War Office and the dullness of most of the senior officer corps meant innovations like this were ignored.

The Anglo-Saxon weakness is not in the invention of technology, but in pursuing its development, protection and marketing with the national purpose and military focus found for example, in Germany. "Economics is war by other means", as Bismarck said.

Reminds me of how the Japanese used to proclaim "this war last one hundred years!"

Who's winning?