Description
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Designed for use both as a fixed gunsight for fighters and flexible gunnery gunsight for hand-held guns and turrets, the N-8A gunsight design departed from other AAF sights in that it employed a reflecting instead of a refracting collimator and used a Mangin mirror instead of a conventional lens. Light from the lamp, mounted in a removable holder at the bottom of the sight, pass through a reticle fixed directly above it, then through the reflector plate to the Mangin collimating mirror at the top of the sight. After collimation, the light returns to the reflector plate from which it is reflected to the gunner’s eye. Early N-8 were fitted with a 70 mil single ring with central dot reticle soon replaced by 100 mil three-ring orange reticle. As for the N-6, the N-8 sights were also fitted with a flipping sun filter (plain green on early ones replaced a by a Polaroid variable density later on) and an attachable ring and bead sight in case of failure of the sight. The N-8 finally saw limited use: mostly in the waist and tail gun installations of late B-25, B-26 Marauders and B-17’s. As a fixed gunsight, it was only used in some late B-26 Marauders.
Made of aluminum, bakelite, and steel and dating later in the war, this is a decent example. It is in used condition but still retains most of its original black crackle finish! The data label is intact. Not |
