322 Grupp—A New Collimating- Telescope Gun-Sight for large and small Ordnance. 
Let us consider first the principle of the ordinary sighting of a rifle, and see 
where the faults exist, and how they can be remedied. In the ordinary system, 
it is necessary for correct aiming that the eye of the observer, the object, and 
the fore- and back-sights of the gun, be all brought accurately into line. This 
can only be effected by viewing simultaneously the back-sight, fore-sight, and 
object superposed on one another, and centring them, so to speak, over each other 
with as great accuracy as is possible. 
Now the human eye has wonderful power of judgment in matters of symmetry, 
and if it were possible to see these three objects (back-sight, fore-sight, and 
target) distinctly and simultaneously, there is no reason why this system should 
aot give very fairly accurate results; but everyone knows that if we direct our 
attention to the distant object, in which case our eye will automatically focus 
itself on that object, the fore-sight will be indistinct and blurred, while if we 
focus our eye on the fore-sight, the object will appear indistinct, and the same 
reasoning applies to the back-sight, with even greater force, as it is so much 
closer to the eye. 
The process of aiming or sighting with ordinary gun-sights, therefore, involves 
the centring, or matching, of three objects on each other, of which only one 
can ever be distinctly seen at any one time, and therefore the operation is most 
unsatisfactory and unscientific. 
It is quite true that many possessing abnormally keen sight, and much 
perseverance, have done marvellous work with the present arrangements, but 
these are the exceptions, and that they do make excellent shooting, by no means 
disposes of what is said above, as to the defects of the present system.* 
It will naturally occur to the reader that the attachment of a small telescope 
to a gun would solve the problem. In this case, the object could be viewed 
simultaneously with a pair of cross lines or other device in the eye-piece, and the 
arrangement would be free from the defects mentioned as inherent to the old 
sights. [There would be only two objects to match, and these could be seen 
simultaneously and perfectly sharply. 
No doubt, with telescopic sights, any desired accuracy of aiming can be 
obtained, but that the ordinary telescopic sight does not meet all the requirements 
of the case is sufficiently evident from the fact that, although such sights have 
been before the public for many years, they have not to any great extent replaced 
* Tt is likely, so far as military interests are concerned, and more particularly so long as our army is 
recruited as it is at present, that the most suitable system will not be that which will enable a few keen- 
eyed men, with determined perseverance, to attain to a wonderful pitch of perfection, but, on the 
contrary, the more useful system will be, that which will enable the average man, with very little 
training, and very little practice, to shoot practically as well as the best. 
