German Tank Gunsight

[Crank_GS]

Hey, check out what I saw today:

I was at a guy's house, getting ready to list it for sale for him, and what do I see on his mantle - a real live German Tank Gunsight.

Here is it's story:

The guy's dad was stationed in Germany during the last part of the War. He was a late-comer. This I know because he had sent a Christmas card home from Christmas 45. Didn't all the guys that had been there a while go home fairly quickly?

Anyway, this guy never told his kids any stories about his fighting in WWII, so info is scanty. Apparently, he and his tank (Don't know what model) had a real rough battle with this particular German "tank", and the guy entered it after the battle and removed the sight. Also had a tripod that went with it, but the tripod never made it through the mail. Amazingly, the sight did. It is a binocular sight. The rubber hood is in OK shape, but it is weird: one looks at a downward angle to sight a target. In other words, one does not look co-linear with the line of sight, almost as if the sight were mounted low in the console. I thought that for that reason, as well as the fact that it came with a tripod - and that because (I think) most pure tanks had monocular sights by the war's end - this might be a sight from a TD. Here are the markings on it that I wrote down. There are no other markings anywhere on the unit.

D.F. 10 X 80

CXN

K.F.

25276

13720

Any ideas out there of what this might have come off of?

[Moon]

Well, the code CXN indicates that it's been manufactured by Emil Busch AG in Rathenow. D.F probably stands for Doppelfernrohr (binocular scope). The specs of 10x80 seem to confirm this, as that magnification is too high for an actual gun sight. So it's most likely a ragefinder. Could be from an assault gun, but could also be one used by artillery observers (the tripod would indicate that).

Martin

[jwxspoon]

Moon, we need to get you on that antique show on tv, where they identify items people bring in.

jw