GB840256A - Improvements in and relating to an aiming device for mortars - Google Patents

Abstract

840,256. Sighting apparatus. HOTCHKISSBRANDT. July 14, 1958 [July 18, 1957], No. 22449/58. Class 92. An aiming device for a weapon with barrel A on a mount C and pivotable in azimulti on a baseplate B comprises in combination a sighting apparatus E with telescopic sight and a reference device X with a flat reflecting surface or equivalent means, which when observed through the sight, indicates if the line of sight W-W is perpendicular to it; the apparatus E being slidable on a slideway D fixed on the mount C and orientable to permit reduction of the plan distance between the line of sight W-W and the axis of the weapon V-V to a length equal or less than that of the reference device X when the firing direction is changed. The barrel, pivoted on a ball a to the base-plate B is clamped at c to a yoke e with traversing screw f on a tripod b. Slideway D is a hexagonal bar 2 connected to yoke e through a ball-andspring device 3 which absorbs firing and transit shocks whilst maintaining the bar rigidly in position at an angle u to the weapons axis and at 10-20 degrees to the horizontal to provide best conditions for mean elevation and to avoid obscuration of the reference device. The sight held in a socket on a bracket 4 releasably clamped astride the bar 2. The device X is a paralleloscope having elongated mirrors 47 and 48 inclined at 90 degrees to each other in a vertical plane and mounted so that parallel rays arriving along W-W remain parallel when reflected. The device is levelled on its stand 44 by a bubble 45 and is correctly oriented when a finger 49 that is perpendicular to the mirrors is directed towards the pivot a. The weapon is aimed by aligning graticules in the field of view of the telescope with the reflection of the flap 38 on the front of the telescope seen in the mirrors of the device X; or at night, the reflection of an electric lamp situated inside the sighting telescope (Figs. 6-8 not shown). As an alternative to the flaps, lamp and mirrors, the stand 44 may carry an array of rectangular plates all parallel to the finger 49 and fixed along the length of the support 46. When these plates are viewed exactly end-on from the telescope (Figs. 10 and 11 not shown), so that their sides are not seen, the line W-W is parallel to the finger 49.