#3272619 - 04/17/11 11:55 PM
Re: Aldis gunsight. How did it work?
[Re: Scoobe]
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totalspoon
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The Aldis was a 80cm long, 5cm wide 1x (No magnification) Collimated Gunsight. Internally, it featured a series of lenses in a sealed tube filed with an inert gas which stopped it fogging up. The Aldis's major advantage over a normal ring and bead sight is that its a collimated sight. Collimated means that the shooters eye position is not important in using the sight. On a ring and bead sight, the shooters eye must be exactly behind the rear sight, which needs to be exactly in line with the front sight which needs to be over the target (if its a no deflection shot). As your head is being thrown around by g-forces as you manouver, this can be really hard to do which makes accurate shooting difficult. With the Aldis collimated sight, as long as you place the aiming rings on the target, you'll hit. It doesn't matter if your eye is too high/low or too right/left, the aiming rings will appear where the bullets will hit. The biggest disadvantage of the Aldis was that the big metal tube in fornt of the pilot tended to block his view. For this reason, it was generally mounted lower than the pilots normal head position so he was looking over the top of it. The pilot would then lean forward to use it, naturally lowering his head to the approximate height of the sight. Red-dot, Acog, and Reflector Gunsight are modern examples of collimated sights. On a side note, all early German attempts to make copies of the aldis, or even to repair captured ones were useless as they kept fogging up. It wasn't till late in the war that the Germans discovered that the secret of the Aldis was replacing the air inside with inert gas. Spoon
Last edited by totalspoon; 04/18/11 12:03 AM.
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#3272631 - 04/18/11 12:14 AM
Re: Aldis gunsight. How did it work?
[Re: Scoobe]
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Scoobe
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Thanks spoon, Good information.
Rob
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#3272885 - 04/18/11 09:19 AM
Re: Aldis gunsight. How did it work?
[Re: Scoobe]
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lubey
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Actually, I don't think the Aldis was a collimated sight. Well at least not in the same way as something like a red dot sight/WWII gunsight etc.
In a collimated sight, there is a reticle at infinte distance superimposed over the target. So if you move your head to the left, both the reticle and target move to the left relative to objects in the near field (i.e. the gunsight glass)
The aldis sight had a bunch of lenses inside it as well as the the reticle engraved on a glass plate, so that the target and reticle both always appeared in the middle of the sight even if you looked through it from a angle slightly off-centre.
So its definately not quite as good as the WWII gunsights.
Last edited by lubey; 04/18/11 09:21 AM.
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#3272891 - 04/18/11 09:42 AM
Re: Aldis gunsight. How did it work?
[Re: Scoobe]
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Bandy
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When well executed in a sim, the Aldis is very effective especially at longer ranges. A distinct advantage since it indicates exactly (for the most part) where the bullets will go. From the little reading I've done on the subject, the captured Aldis sights were damaged and leaked their inert gas, thus the Germans couldn't figure out why the British were using them since they fogged or frosted up inside. Thus they did not copy the technology. I wonder if that will be modelled?
Last edited by Bandy; 04/18/11 09:45 AM.
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#3272926 - 04/18/11 11:16 AM
Re: Aldis gunsight. How did it work?
[Re: Scoobe]
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Mogster
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The main advantage of the Aldis is that you don't have to line up a fore and aft sight as you would do with iron sights. I wonder if we're getting Aldis for all the Entente planes? I thought there was a direct German Aldis copy, they appear to have used it on flexi mgs as well as as a pilot sight. Without purging any moisture inside condensation would have been a problem once it got cold though, I suppose just how bad that was would depend how damp the air was on the day you made the sight ...maybe. Edit............... http://cgi.ebay.com/Oigee-Imperial-German-Aircraft-Gun-sight-WWI-/320674546618
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#3272945 - 04/18/11 12:08 PM
Re: Aldis gunsight. How did it work?
[Re: Scoobe]
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totalspoon
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Hi Lubey, Yes it was a collimated sight. From "British Aircraft Armament Vol 2: Guns and Gunsights", R Wallace Clarke. "The sight tube contained four hermetically sealed collimating lenses, with a graticule in the form of two concentric circles engraved on a plain glass screen. The outer circle gave the deflection needed for a target plane crossing at 161 km/hr (100 mph), and a small circle gave the gun alignment point. On some later models the outer ring was modified to indicate the wingspan of a Gotha bomber at 183 m (200 yds), and with practice pilots found how to use the circle for other aircraft. The lens system gave unity (no) magnification, and ensured that the ring was always centred on the axis of the sight no matter where the eye was placed. The ideal eye distance from the rubber eyepiece was 127 mm (5 in), which gave a FOV (field of view) of 20 degrees. The anti-oil flap was operated by a cable to the cockpit, where a ring was hooked to a small bracket; when unhooked, the shutter sprang open, giving a clear view. If the shutter was left open, oil fouling would occur, so it became standard practice to fit both Aldis and ring and bead sights. In the first installations the windscreen was cut away in the top right-hand corner, but factory-installed sights passed through a hole drilled in the screen." Spoon
Last edited by totalspoon; 04/18/11 12:11 PM. Reason: Added pic
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#3272960 - 04/18/11 12:36 PM
Re: Aldis gunsight. How did it work?
[Re: Scoobe]
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Mogster
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Interesting, I had wondered how they kept the oil off the front optics.
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#3273924 - 04/19/11 08:05 AM
Re: Aldis gunsight. How did it work?
[Re: catch]
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sp00k
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