SHOOTING MADE EASY.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1915, Page 5

SHOOTING MADE EASY.

Until lately the British artillery experts would have nothing to do with telescopic sights for military rifles; an officer pronounced the device as "simply unthinkable"; but the extraordinary effectiveness o f German sniping with tho aid of telescopic sights—and it is this that accounts for the high percentage of casualties amongst the British officers—has converted the War Office, and they have placed urgent orders with the American tirrn of Warner and Swasey, who specialise in this device. It is a simple matter to shoot your man with a rifle fitted with this form of sight. The Germans use a very fine needle in front of the lens; in the American sight the needle is replaced by crossed lines etched on the lens. All that is necessary is to bring the needle, or else the point of intersection of the lines, over the object to be shot at, and then press the trigger. Moreover, the sights can be used as a range-iinder, for if it is a man that is being aimed at the space that he will occupy in relation to the whole "image" will give a fair idea of the distance that he is away The visual effect in aiming may be compared with looking at an object through a fine low-power telescope, giving a magnitude of six times. Therefore, apart from the greater ease of aiming, the rifleman is able to pick out defects that would be invisible with the ordinary metallic sights. These telescopic sights have another advantage in that they enable a marksman to distinguish objects in the dusk. The American sights look like a steel box about 7in. long, with a tube protruding from either end. One of these tubes contains the object glass and the other tho eye-piece. A rubber cup keeps out extraneous rays of light, and regulates the distance between the eye and the eyepiece. In order to avoid a blow due to the recoil of the rifle this distance is from 2in. to 3in.