Eltro B8-V NV Scope in Detail

[BWilhelm]

All text and images that follow are copyright 2013 and are not to be used without my written permission. This is going to be a long post. In fact, It's going to be several long posts over several nights in order to get it all done. It took me some time to find one of these scopes complete and in working order. While I was looking for one, I was also trying to find out as much information about them as possible and I quickly found out that there is precious little information available online. The Eltro B8V is essentially a product improved Vampir (technical name Zielgerät 1229) which the Germans had designed in late WWII. While no photographic images exist of the Vampir in actual combat use, it is believed to have been issued on a limited basis for combat trials very late in the war. Whatever the case, they were produced and working examples survived the war intact and were tested by the allies. The Eltro works on exactly the same principle as the Vampir is VERY similar in appearance. That fact alone made me want one for a very, very long time....it's just COOL looking!!!! While I know that all functions on this unit work, I don't know how well they work at night in a dark area yet because, while it came with a battery for the IR illuminator (not the original), it is so old that it is completely toast. The proper battery was a 6V 15Ah. 6V 14Ah batteries are dirt cheap, readily available and will work just fine. Once the weather warms up a bit, I'll source one of those and fire it up in the woods somewhere giving it a proper test. I have a Czech NSP-2 (the Warsaw Pact equivalent to the Eltro) and it works just fine out to about 100 meters; the limiting factor being the illuminator. Given a larger illumination source (such as a vehicle mounted IR searchlight) the NSP-2 will work out to a very long range. I have every reason to expect that the Eltro will not only match but exceed the performance of the Czech unit.....time will tell. The B8V scope itself uses a plain ol' 1.5V "C" battery so I was able to try it out immediately. I was impressed to say the least. Image distortion is unnoticeable and there is no noise in the image. On a sunny day, it's VERY clear....probably clearer than a Z51 (the three tier Gen1 unit that replaced the Eltro). At night, it actually has some gain; enough that you can use it in a suburban area with no illuminator and it will work just fine. I would have never expected that out of a Gen0 unit; proof that the Germans built some serious Quality equipment when they were using these back in the day. I still don't know when they actually started building the B8V and I don't even know when this particular one was built because it isn't dated. That surprised me because the Germans are unusually anal about such things. Someone wrote "10./79" on the battery case in red so that might give some indication of age but that is just a guess. Anywho, the whole point of this picture essay is to provide a research point for others and hopefully provide some decent online information, especially of the photographic variety, about these interesting scopes. So let me get down to work. There is a lot of stuff to cover so each post will cover a different bit of the whole kit. First off is the case. It is made of painted fiberglass and is the exact same size as the later Z51 scope case. Script on the case is printed on clear labels which were then attached to the case.

Top of lid (the extra label was put there by UPS):



Bottom:



Rear:



Both sides:





Front:



Detail of label attached on front. It was issued to Jager Battalion 733 what the other information on the label is I don't know yet:



Now we open up the box. The cushion material is foam just like you commonly see in hard rifle cases but they built it up of multiple layers. I guess that was to keep it firm? I don't know for sure. Here's the inside of the lid:



And the lower with all the goodies inside. There is a lot of schtuff in there but I'll go through it bit by bit in a little while:

[BWilhelm]

Next is the scope itself. It's has 4X magnification and it's big but not crazy heavy. According to the manual, the scope and spotlight combined weigh about 5.8 pounds. The scope by itself is about 4 pounds. The ocular lens is adjustable to +/- 5 diopters. The objective lens is about 55mm. Run time on the 1.5V battery with reticle off is approx. 43 hours. When reticle is at full illumination that time drops to 15 hours. Either the tube is crazy efficient or the manual is being crazy optimistic I don't know but that's what it says.

First is the right side of the scope:



Working from the right of the picture to the left we see that the rubber lens cap is in place. Next is a black round thingee with a white center. This is the desiccant container for the objective lens. It unscrews with a special wrench and is placed in the oven to recharge. It has a window in it so that you can see when the silica gel turns red and you know it's time to remove the canister and pop it in the oven for a good drying out. I assume that you need to remove the rubber o-ring first! More on the canister and wrench later. Next is a black rubber ring. This is held in place by a bump molded into the scope tube and is connected to the lens cap by the rubber straps visible on the top and bottom of the scope. It's a bikini cover essentially. Towards the rear of the scope body you can see some funky artsy shapes on top. These are the lugs that the IR light connects to and we'll see them in more detail in just a bit. At the back, we see the knurled adjustment ring for the ocular lens and the rubber eyecup. It has little holes drilled into the left side of it so that you don't suction the thing to your eye and pull it out of its socket.....ouch!

Here's the left side:



The black box in the middle is the reticle unit which is held on by four screw that have a gooey substance over them to keep water out. It has an adjustment for up/down on top of it and another for left/right at the rear of it. The reticle bulb screws into the front of the box. Below the box is the battery compartment. A screw on cover for battery access is at the front and the on/off/reticle intensity adjustment knob is at the rear. I assume that there are electronics in that tube as well but I'm not going to tear it apart to find out. Almost every screw and assembly attached to the scope has green paint on it so that you can tell if some nitwit was messing around with it and taking it apart. All of the paint is intact and I'm not going to be that nitwit unless something quits working! You can also see the information label on the side and another desiccant canister, this one being used for the IR tube.

Here's the front with the lens cover removed. You can see the battery cover to the right of the picture and the lens cover flipped to the side at the left of the picture:



Here's the lens cap in place. Notice that it has a little hole towards the bottom. This is the daylight use hole. That's all you need for a good image on a sunny day. Of course, if you take the cap off while the unit is on during the day...POOF...you just blew your tube out!! I don't think that this thing has an automatic shutdown safety. The little rubber thing hanging from the metal circle is a plug for the daylight use hole.



Here's the ocular lens and focus adjustment detail:





Inside of battery cover:



Inside of battery compartment:



Detail of number stamped into right side of rear mounting lug. The Z51's have numbers stamped there as well. They don't match the scope serial number....I don't know what they mean.



Front of reticle box showing base of reticle illuminator bulb. That bulb is way over engineered and we'll see more on that later This picture also does a good job at showing how the battery compartment is molded into the main scope body.



Top of reticle box showing up/down adjustment screw:



Rear of reticle box showing left/right/ adjustment screw and IR tube desiccant canister:



On/Off switch for scope as well as reticle intensity:



"O" = Off. When the white painted bit on the switch and the white painted bit on the battery tube body line up the scope is off. Turn the switch one click clockwise and the scope only is on. Another click clockwise turns the reticle on but you can't see it because it is at minimum intensity. Keep turning clockwise towards the "+" mark and the reticle gets brighter. Pretty simple stuff.

Here's the reticle. It's almost identical to the Z51.



Sorry it's fuzzy. In the flesh, it's crystal clear. Two lines side by side up top are the 200 meter aiming point. Two lines side by side just below are for 400 meters. Six "T"'s forming a box below are for the panzerabwehrbuchse 84/1 (whatever that is, some kind of bazooka/rocket launcher).

Desiccant canister for objective lens:



Here are the lugs on top of the body that the IR illuminator clamps onto:



And here's the identification label showing the part numbers, manufacturer, model identification and serial number. To the left is the military acceptance label.



That's it for tonight. There's a lot more boring stuff to come!

[Guardian 5]

Wow!

Excellent work - thanks so much for taking the time to do this.

I bought one of these at a gun show a couple of years back and haven't done anything with it.

Sir, you are an inspiration.

Thanks again for shining a light (no pun intended) on this little known piece of gear.

All the best,
TJ

[Klaus1989]

Interesting find! This device supposedly used in 1960s and 70s by Bw, but hard to find much information about it. Apparently Switzerland had it also. Found diagramm with entire setup, as mounted on the G3 - resemblence to Vampir is very clear:



Regards
Klaus

[BWilhelm]

It IS exceedingly hard to find any in depth information about these units and I've always hated that. That's my motivation for doing this. I appreciate the kind words!

Next up is the IR spotlight. The main body parts are stamped, cast, and machined (depending on which part you're looking at) out of what seems to be aluminum. The reflector is glass as is the IR filter. The flip up filter protector is cloth sewn around a steel hoop frame that is attached to the spotlight body in such a way as to give it spring tension. This keeps it from flopping around and stays put where you position it. First some general pictures of it.

Front:



Rear:



Left side with filter protector closed. You can see a black wire coming out of the side of the spotlight and disappearing out of frame. This wire it NOT the power feed; it goes to a pressure switch. More on this switch later:



Right side:



Bottom of base:



This black base is aluminum and is removable using the large slotted screw (and disconnecting a few other things). Different bases can be attached so that this same spotlight can be used for various applications. There is a base for the Z51 night vision binoculars and another for the Fero Z51 rifle scope. There may be other bases for other uses too but these are the only ones I'm aware of.

Here's the identification decal for the spotlight. The serial number is handwritten and you can see the inspectors decal affixed to the left:



Detail of the right side of the pedestal. The star shaped thingee is a nut that you loosen in order to allow the spotlight to swivel up and down so that the beam illuminates your target instead of falling short or shining high. This is a problem with the NSP-2 (Warsaw Pact equivalent) at 100 yards....your target is not fully illuminated because the spotlight is not exactly indexed with the IR tube in the scope. The hole seen at towards the front of the base is a hex screw that you use to move the spotlight aim left or right. There is another hex screw on the other side of the base. Loosening the left screw while tightening the right screw aims the spotlight left and vice versa.



Left side of pedestal. The chrome connection point held on by four screws is where the plug from the power pack attaches. It's a quick detach bayonet mount setup. You just line up the two slots in the plug with the two lugs on the connector and twist clockwise until it clicks into place. To remove, you simply turn the plug counterclockwise until it clicks and pull. Below this is the up/down adjustment lever. After loosening the star shaped nut on the other side of the pedestal, pushing down on this lever aims the spotlight up and lifting up on the lever aims the light down. After you get it where you want it, you just tighten the star nut and it's locked in place. The chrome round thing with the "E" clip in front of the adjustment lever is the axle that the spotlight pivots on for up/down adjustment. You can also see the other hex screw for lateral adjustment towards the front of the base. The round knurled knob sticking out the rear of the base is used to screw the whole assembly to the top of the scope tube. First, you engage the front of the base with the corresponding lugs on top of the scope body. Then you tighten screw the knob down. As you do, it pushes the base forward into positive engagement with the scope body lugs, tightens the rear down and locks the whole thing up rock solid.



Here's the pressure switch I mentioned earlier:



This switch turns the spotlight on so long as there is pressure on the switch. If you remove pressure, the spotlight turns off, so there is no way to permanently turn the light on. The strap is made out of rubber and is length adjustable so that you can mount this switch wherever you want on the rifle. The manual shows it mounted around the receiver in front of the mag well in one picture and mounted to the smallest part of the stock in another.

Here's the bottom of the switch:

[BWilhelm]

Here's the release lever for the clamp that you remove to disassemble the spotlight for bulb and filter replacement. It's shown in the locked position.



And in the unlocked position:



After unlocking the clamp the it all just falls apart. Here we see the clamp, glass IR filter and front body of the spotlight with filter protector:



Here's the inside of the spotlight. The bulb is a 6V 35W and the reflector mirror is glass as far as I can tell. The front of the bulb is chromed so that the light is reflected back on the mirror before being redirected out the front of the spotlight. There are three lugs holding the bulb to its base and according the manual, you push in on the bulb and turn in order to remove it. I can't get it to budge and I'm not going to risk breaking it so I'll wait until it burns out before messing with it. Spare bulbs are available but they are expensive. Besides, there is a spare bulb that came with this so we'll look at that later. I tested this lamp using a 6V 4W battery and you could feel the heat. It's got to be crazy hot when using the proper 15Ah battery!

[BWilhelm]

Next up is the power supply for the IR illuminator. According to the manual, the original battery setup weighed 10.36 pounds! Unfortunately, that original battery is long gone but whoever hooked up the replacement battery did it right and didn't mangle or eliminate the connector. Here's how it came to me:



And here's the plug that connects to the socket on the pedestal of the IR spotlight. The other end is identical and plugged into a socket on the battery. The battery socket was preserved and leads were added so that it will plug in to any common battery terminals such as those found in a child's ride on toy.





Here's the battery carrying pouch that is hung on your belt.

Front:



Rear:



Left and right sides. Notice that both sides have a hole for the connector to protrude through. This is so that it can be worn on either the left or right side of the body.





Inside the top of the lid we see the part number and an unreadable ink stamp that I assume is an inspector's stamp or manufacturer's mark:



Here's a look at the inside rear of the pouch. There is a clear piece of thick vinyl sewn into the rear and leather reinforcements on the sides in order for it to keep its shape with over ten pounds rammed into it.



In addition to being hung from the belt, there is a shoulder strap that is used as well. It's a typical canvas strap the same as seen on lots of German gear from the era. Both ends have a quick connect metal clasp thingee that attach to D rings on the pouch. Here's what one of the clasp thingees looks like:

[BWilhelm]

Today, I'll finish this up by posting the accessories that were included in the box and a few comparison photos to show the size of the unit compared to the rifle and a couple other optics.

First up we have the papers that came with it. In the center of the picture is the manifest. This is a folder that has a picture of the unit packed and a part number of each item in the case. Above it is the plastic sleeve that it fits into. To the left is a modified manifest. If I understand it correctly, it is a modified manifest for units issued after February 28, 1968. Apparently, they changed some of the accessories. This would make sense because this scope does not match exactly with the scope pictured in the manual (the reticle box is different. Perhaps this is a late model?) and it is packed slightly differently than is pictured as well. To the right is the manual in German. I didn't scan any of it but I can if anyone wants me to. This manual has 12 fold out illustrations in addition to 29 pages of text. The cover is green vinyl. I also have a copy of the manual from what was apparently a Belgian contract showing the scope mounted on a Belgian army variant of the FAL. It's surprising just how different the layout of the manual is even though they both share a January 1966 publication date.



Next is the spare IR filter removed from its bag. It's made of glass and has both the part number and an inspection eagle stamped on it in white paint. It also has a spare rubber gasket (made by Bosch) and a warning paper that instructs you not to touch the filter. If you've ever messed with an old Gen0 unit, you know that the filter gets so hot that it will blister your skin in a jiffy. You can feel the heat generated by these things several feet away.











Here's the mount for the PzB84 anti-tank weapon. It has the Bundeswehr equivalent of a Waffenamt on it....old habits die hard I guess.





The mount for the MG1 (MG42 in .308). It has a weaver rail added to it so that you can use the quick dismount option if you have it affixed to the scope:



It has a little eagle stamped on it as well:



Here's the quick dismount thingee and another weaver rail that it slips onto. It has a throw lever that essentially clamps the mount to the rail, locking it in place. The problem with this thing is that it raises the already crazy high mount scope up another inch.



Lens cleaning cloth folded up in its bag and the wrench that is used to remove the desiccant canisters and battery cover. It's nothing more than a little steel plate.



The unit comes with two spare desiccant canisters. One is larger capacity and is used for the IR tube. The other is smaller capacity and is used for the objective lens block. Either will screw into the others position though. When dismounted from the scope, they screw into either end of a machined aluminum tube. This seals them off from outside air and keeps them fresh.

Here's the tube with both canisters assembled to it:



Disassembled:

View inside the tube showing that it is not hollow all the way through:



Both ends of a canister:



Spare 35W bulb.









Screwdriver and allen wrenches:



Two spare reticle bulbs were also included. Just like the desiccant canisters, they came mounted in either end of an aluminum tube (this time hollow all the way through) in order to protect them.

Entire assembly:



Bulbs removed from tube:



The bulbs are tiny and the glass is frosted. Instead of replacing the whole base that screws into the reticle box and bulb as one unit, it is capable of being disassembled. It's way over engineered in my opinion. Why not just make the whole bulb/base as one disposable unit? Here's a picture showing an assembled bulb on the left and a disassemble one on the right:



And here we see (from left to right) storage tube, back end of bulb assembly slotted for screwdriver, front end of base with contact for base of bulb, base of bulb showing its contact and brass threaded collar that holds the bulb assembly together. WAY over complicated but that's German engineering for you!!



And finally, I want to show you a few pictures so that you get an idea of just how ginormous this thing is mounted to a rifle.

Here's a Cetme with a standard Hensoldt 4X scope mounted:



And here's that same Cetme with a Gen1 Zeiss Orion 4x scope (which is itself crazy big):



Now we have the 4x Eltro scope. No longer do we have a Cetme with an old obsolete scope attached. Magically, it now becomes the STG46 with second generation Vampir Zielgerät.
Die Waffe des Nachtjäger!! :-p




That pretty mush wraps it up I think. I hope you guys find this rambling useful in some respect. I know sure had fun doing it. If anyone ever needs more detailed pictures or pictures of something I didn't cover, please do not hesitate to ask. This old stuff is useless sitting and gathering dust. Better that it be enjoyed, shared and used. It's often hard (and frustrating) when you're trying to find information about this old stuff so I'll help in any way I can. I hope I didn't bore anyone to death. Thanks for your time and God bless!

[BWilhelm]

Here's one more as a joke. It was never designed for this of course:

[BWilhelm]

I finally got this thing out to the range today. It looks more classic on the Cetme but I mounted it on the HK91 for actual use because the Cetme has no saddle on the receiver to keep the scope from sliding forward under recoil. Anywho, it was surprisingly easy to get decent results even though resolution at 100 yards is understandably less than in a normal optic. After zeroing, I had 21 rounds of NATO surplus ammo left so I put up a new target and had at it. The black target is 8" across and all 21 shots fell within a 5" group. Of those, 5 were within the 10 ring and a sixth fell on the line between the 10 and 9 ring. Now, the HK is capable of better but you have to remember that this scope was made for war not precision shooting. At 100 yards, the black round target looks more like a black blob. The edges of it are fuzzy and blend in with the white background. So, there is no such thing as placing the aiming point EXACTLY in the center or on the edge. So, there is a certain amount of guesswork involved. However, I is plenty capable of doing what it was designed to do. In short, I was very pleased with the results.

First, the hardware:



And the target:




A fun, fun day!!

[Gene]

That is really cool! Well done, and nice CETME too by the way