U.S. Army and Navy planes telescopic gunsights

[Maxrobot1]

A very prominent feature of U.S. military aviation of the late '30' and early '40s was the long tube-like telescopic gun sights that P-26s, F4Bs, TBDs and more had sticking out of the front of the windshield.
Was their view limited? Was there any compensation involved for the aircraft's movements? was there a different type for each plane?

 

[bobbysocks]

i always thought that site was used for bombs or torpedos....

 

[Jenisch]

A very prominent feature of U.S. military aviation of the late '30' and early '40s was the long tube-like telescopic gun sights

Not US prominent. Tendency of the time.

 

[CobberKane]

Some japanese aircraft used telescopics as well, including early KI-43 Oscars. The sights must have had some prety significant drawbacks because they were always a footnote to reflector sights and plain iron sights, both of which with they co-existed

 

[Jenisch]

A telescopic sight was used in the A5M and the Ki-27. While the I-15, I-16 and I-153 also used telescopic sights.

 

[CobberKane]

I did a little reading on this. Were these sights we have been talking about telescopic, or were they Aldis Sights? If the latter, there was little or no magnification. The main advantage of the sight was that the pilot did not have to align his eye with the sighting point, as with iron sights. Rather, he could view the image on his end of the sight much like a display, rather than having to put his eye to an eyepiece, as with a telescope. Does this make sense?

 

[Jenisch]

I think they were Aldis sights...

 

[CobberKane]

Here is a good explanation of the kind of sight we are talking about and how it was used

Collimator sight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

it would seem that asisde from superficial resemblense there was little in common between an Aldis sight and a telescopic sight. In practice it would seem to be much more like the more compact reflector sight that replaced it. In short, you look THROUGH a telescopic sight, but you look AT an Aldis/colimator sight, just as you would a reflector sight.