WW1 'Periscope Prism company' sniper scope???

[Surpmil]

I've never understood why the S.A.C. was apparently so fascinated by this Hensoldt. As far as I can tell there was nothing to distinguish it from an Oigee, Bock or Goerz etc.; mechanically or optically. Or an Aldis for that matter.

One gets the impression that very little of such stuff ever made it back from France except as closely guarded souvenirs and thus when this piece, in the the third year of the war no less, finally came into their hands they were apparently much struck by the novelty of it and didn't have the knowledge to put it in a proper perspective(?)

The wider front mount is perhaps more stable and robust than the usual claw mounts, but still as inherently unsound as lacking any mechanical provision for windage adjustment, and thus when the usual little capstan screw in the rear leg was turned, the tube and mounts were simply twisted within each other until hopefully the desired position was obtained before any distortion or damage occurred! Except in the example above, there is no dovetail and screw in the rear leg! Resting the "hooks" of the front ring on a bar that runs across the base is certainly an improvement on the little claws and hand-carved notches, but as soon as the windage is adjusted, one ring "hook" or other must begin to part company with its matching bar...

As for ease and cost of manufacture, and interchangeability...what is the attraction over for example the mounts already(? Yes, I know one is a later Aldis No.4) being fitted by makers like Alex Martin and Alex Henry, and even perhaps Geo. Gibbs. (Photos attached) Those had a dovetail block in a mount base, adjustable via a screw, or two, and either a round front peg or a single claw. Certainly the claw is an inherently poor design as to pivot it must have sufficient side clearance to so, and the farther the claw projects forward, the wider the clearance must be, and thus the harder it becomes to keep the front claw from slipping left and right rather than simply pivoting. Chiselling such things out of blocks of softened steel and filing them to a perfect fit would delight the soul of the "feinhandwerkmeister" or whatever the proper term is , but in wartime....??

The round peg (give Purdey at least credit for that) in the front base does allow a proper pivot, and this was belatedly what Goerz tried to achieve with their "Semi-turret" design, thought they ended up with two round pegs, which was easier to manufacture at least.

So at the risk of being repetitive, it's hard to avoid the impression that the S.A.C. having heard stories about the "wonderful German sights" etc. for several years, were all agog at this Hensoldt and assumed that it was some great advance over existing scopes and mounts, and ordained that it was to be the pattern, etc. etc.! But was it? Not as far as I can see. How is it better or cheaper than a H&H fitting for example?

If they wanted a small and light scope, they could have gone back to Dr. Common's, if anyone remembered it from 15 years before?

And is the Patt.18 any better than the Aldis No.3 or 4? Or any much cheaper or easier to make? Not that I can see.

What was wanted was a fully sealed scope with reliable external adjustments, and preferably an etched reticule with the hold-overs for each range marked on the reticule: once zeroed only the point of aim needs to be changed. Warner & Swasey started it* with their ranging stadia lines, and the Japanese perfected it in the Arisaka scopes, but I digress. They could even had added radium illumination via one of those small capsules - Sir Howard Grubb had already suggested illuminated reticules in 1900! A design that would have allowed the base to be machined after fitting to achieve proper collimation as per the No.4(T) and Arisakas would have been preferable as well.

* May precede them actually - seem to recall reading something that referred to a 19th C. American scope maker incorporating several crosshairs for different ranges.