Unknown Pak Z.F. Site WASS Marked

[Paul Carter]

This is kind of a interesting optical site which I would like to find out a bit more about. When I first picked it up, I thought it was part of a broken set of binoculars. When I had time to sit down with it, I realized it is a type of gun site with a dove tail mount. The optics are clear and there is a type of aiming grid with the words Pgr & Spgr. It is externally marked Pak Z.F. ccx Wa SS. As you can see it is painted a ordinance tan color. Any help would be appreciated. I am a SS collector, but this is out of my element and not really my thing.

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[pzo]

Pak sight

My feelings are bad about this one. It looks strange, like something that does not fit to Germans. Red Army used optical sights of this type for their 45mm cannons. Mount in Your sight seems to be too delicate for use on the cannon in the field. Every collector of German optics knows how fragile is that bridge that connects two parts of binocular. It is made of poor quality metal and often breaks in regular use. If it is period item, than You are lucky twice. It is one of the strangest and rarest and SS marked. I attach picture of my Red Army 45 mm cannon sight.

[mlespaul]

I agree the bottom pin configuration is pretty flimsy, but the rest of the markings look somewhat okay. Additionally the V --- V markings are in reference to actual ZF 3 x 8 zielpunkt markings that would be present in the strichplatte when you looked through it against a target. each V would be 8 mils apart for the distance estimation.
Also there is an attachement for the illumination bulb to light up the strichplatte when using it in dusk or evening, which is in keeping with the application. CCX is a legitimate manufacturer code for Pak and Stug optical sights.

It could have been a late/end-of-war optic cobbled together as the supplies of optical equipment started evaporating.

Paul can you post a shot of the crosshairs inside so I can verify? I can help you if you have difficulty doing this.

M

[Paul Carter]

I agree the bottom pin configuration is pretty flimsy, but the rest of the markings look somewhat okay. Additionally the V --- V markings are in reference to actual ZF 3 x 8 zielpunkt markings that would be present in the strichplatte when you looked through it against a target. each V would be 8 mils apart for the distance estimation.
Also there is an attachement for the illumination bulb to light up the strichplatte when using it in dusk or evening, which is in keeping with the application. CCX is a legitimate manufacturer code for Pak and Stug optical sights.

It could have been a late/end-of-war optic cobbled together as the supplies of optical equipment started evaporating.

Paul can you post a shot of the crosshairs inside so I can verify? I can help you if you have difficulty doing this.

M

You have very good eyes, as I didn't even notice the small "window" illumination area on the dovetail mount. I put a small flashlight to this area and just as you expected it lit up like a night-site which I must say it very neat as I have never seen anything like this.
Forgive the quality of the next photos but these were taken at night under less than ideal conditions.

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[mlespaul]

This is tremendous! You have something special there, my friend. I have never seen this before. You have what appears to be a specialized PAK sight for most likely a 7,5 cm gun, might have been vehicle/motorized application ( a Mot. Z. unit).

If possible try and get a daylight blank view of the reticle if you can get a full view. The range markings go from only 8 to 1000 m for the AP ammunition and from 300 to 1500 for the Sprengranaten (High explosive)

As you can see on the outside, the crosshair guide is advising that the distance between each triangle is 8 mils which is instrumental in gauging the distance to the target

From this crosshair, I am able to tell a couple things.

1) this is a combination of the indirect artillery rundblickfernrohr panoramic sight style and the 3 x 8 ZF style used for the Pak 40 and Pak 41s.

2) There is an additional elevation/height scale added to this configuration which is highly unusual, the upper vertical line with the small upper line is also unique.

3) There are only two markings for elevation for the Pzgr while many more markings made available for the high explosive, telling me that the weapon this was for was primarily against "softer" targets like infantry or very light armour or emplacements. The actual marking numbers would need to be matched against existing records for the distance capabilities for the the two types of ammunition and then try to determine which weapons carried that kind of round.

4) The existence of range markings on the graticule itself tells me that the weapon this was mounted on did not have a manually operated external range drum that was operated by hand to elevate the barrel. The range drum device itself would have had these markings, and so having the range numbers in the optic would be unnecessary, therefore, the weapon relied on this optic for fire control. This, together with 3), above, suggest that this was mounted on a mobile AT gun of at least 7,5 cm, possibly on a halftrack, or armoured car of some type. It may also have been employed on one of the captured French, or Polish, or Czech vehicle variants or even the Italian vehicles or mobile anti tank guns that were pressed into service. Lacking any sort of carriage assembly that could be compatible with already existing native German 3 x 8 telescopes, these captured or Axis guns would need something like this "custom built" to match the guns unique ballistic peculiarities.

5) of course, the other explanation could be this might have been a late-war or end of war "stop-gap" or "last ditch" sighting optic formed from 6 x 30 feldstecher parts that were already in stock as the tooled-steel 3 x 8 telescopes might have become scarce, but that might be stretching a bit.

Obviously Im quite excited by this one, I thing you have something unique there and I'd like to ask more questions of you on this one. Including ANY other markings you can find on the outside.

If you can take another shot in daylight of the graticule, it would be great!

Micah

[Paul Carter]

Here are a couple more photos which several of you have asked for. I have learned that optics are very tough to photograph. Anyway here are the additional photos.

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