Interesting Great War Era Marksmanship Aid.

[Roger Payne]

This item recently turned up when a good friend purchased a WW1 British scope. I gather the item shown here came with it. It certainly seems to fit snugly on an Aldis & looks to be designed to hold a coloured filter; perhaps for use when there was snow/ice on the ground &/or a lot of reflected light? I must say I have never seen any other examples of filter holders for WW1 British scopes, & this one is very well made out of brass, not, in my view anyway, the work of a garage enthusiast. Of course it may not have been specifically made to fit the Aldis, but it certainly DOES fit it perfectly. Unfortunately there are no markings on it to give us a further clue about who when & where it was made. I hope people find it interesting, & maybe some of you chaps out there can shed some more light on it.

ATB.

Information

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[Peter Laidler]

I saw a small sleeve that fitted inside the front shade of a No42/53 and by default, the No32's too. This had a yellow filter fitted. It was retained in place internally in much the same way as the rear shade slides on snugly, externally - if that makes sense. This sleeve was clearly something official as the telescope was still in its Ordnance wrapping but not new. Clearly it was an official(?) 'thing' for the No42's and 53's and made from optical glass to prevent any prism effect of normal glass. Whether it would have stood the opposite force of recoil is another matter.

[Surpmil]

Interesting item, but it doesn't appear to fit that closely in the photo above. The problem would be the refection it would cause, and if this was indeed a filter housing intended for telescopic sights - and presumably it would fit only on the later Aldis scopes with the windage adjustment prism - those scopes appeared in 1916/17 and the dangers of reflection were well-known by that time.

A glass filter or screen to protect the objective lens from dirt, moisture and harsh cleaning would have been a good idea, but only the French APX scopes had this feature AFAIK, and they were not 'user-removable' like this item.

The scope caps could not be fitted with this 'filter' in place, and there is no loop or hole to attach it and prevent loss. The 'levers' look like they would catch on anything that passed by, nor do they look at all robust!

If the authorities had cared to improve these Aldis scopes they could have added a small housing with a glass filter, rubber seals and a rubber sunshade that would have screwed onto the objective using the threads for the existing cap. Needless to say, they didn't care to do so!

Sorry to say, but I think this is much more likely to be a vintage camera accessory. Something like this: Rare Vintage British 25-35mm clip on Camera Lens hood 3 | eBay

[In a hurry Roger and didn't notice it was your post - sorry, my reply was written for "general consumption" ]

[Roger Payne]

You could be right Rob, I've never seen anything quite like it before & I really don't know, but it's certainly nicely made. Fragile? Yes, but so are Winchester A5 scopes, & we still bought 907 of them. I don't think that the lens caps not fitting with it in place really matters so much, does it - one generally takes them off before using the scope for its deadly purpose! The owner certainly maintains that it well fits his modified 3rd pattern Aldis.

As I said above I don't know what the gizmo is, but it certainly came with a WW1 scope & seems to fit. Perhaps it was originally intended for a camera & was subsequently found to be suitable for use on a scope by some enterprising individual?? I wasn't at any point necessarily suggesting it must be a military contract item. I'm still open to suggestions.

[Surpmil]

You could be right Rob, I've never seen anything quite like it before & I really don't know, but it's certainly nicely made. Fragile? Yes, but so are Winchester A5 scopes, & we still bought 907 of them. I don't think that the lens caps not fitting with it in place really matters so much, does it - one generally takes them off before using the scope for its deadly purpose! The owner certainly maintains that it well fits his modified 3rd pattern Aldis.

As I said above I don't know what the gizmo is, but it certainly came with a WW1 scope & seems to fit. Perhaps it was originally intended for a camera & was subsequently found to be suitable for use on a scope by some enterprising individual?? I wasn't at any point necessarily suggesting it must be a military contract item. I'm still open to suggestions.

That is a possibility I hadn't considered Roger. I hope he made it back alive!

The A5s do strike us as pretty flimsy don't they? Although Frank Iriam who used them for a couple of years or more at the front stated in his memoir as follows:

we....adopted the Ross MkIII with a Winchester A5 telescope as standard equipment. We never found anything to equal this combination on the ranges or in the front lines. The sights would stand a remarkable amount of rough useage giving very little trouble once mounted and adjusted to zero. If we could have had marking scales of yards [instead of vernier scales] on these sights they would have been almost ideal for all round work. All sights of whatever make should have a plain scale of yards adapted to the cartridge used. All other arrangements of degree markings etc. are pure humbug for practical or active service use. The same thing applies to sporting rifles, or should, by all means.

Put a little more in than necessary there for interest value!

The A5 has the sliding-in-the-mounts feature, which while a PITA in some ways, must have saved them from many a blow that would have damaged them otherwise, to say nothing of recoil of course.

[Promo]

Rob, it does fit correctly. The "claws" might appear to do not fit properly, but it's mainly because it's lying on the floor and pressed a bit upwards. That it is correct for the tube is more clearly shown by the fact that the circles are concentrict, if you look at it from the front.

The "claws" are extremely strong held in place. I am pretty sure that it would hold recoil of a rifle, but will try to somewhen have that proofed.

It of course might be something which originally was not military used - but as mentioned in the starting post, it did came with a scope, and it also fits a scope very nicely. Unless there is more documentation turning up, it cannot be proofed anyway. But I believe it to be a nice piece, the USMC also had yellow lenses for the Winchester A5 telescope - so why not the British aswell?

[Surpmil]

Never say never Georg - I hope I didn't - but I see no sign in your photo of any wear on the objective cover such as would have been caused by the clamps if they had been there since WWI, or even a bit later. The jaws are unlined, and yet they show almost no wear either.

Nor would it seem likely for such a thing to have been left in place when the SMLE rifles were scrapped and the scopes sold off after WWI. Someone might have fitted it afterwards, but is there any sign the scope was used again? If not, why bother?

We can see that at least some kind of sunshade was fitted to some Canadian issue A5 scopes on the ocular end, so who knows, but I think if you watch ebay a while or research early camera filters you will probably find exactly the same one sooner or later.