Luftzielfernrohr Z.s.E.4 - 5x Carl Zeiss, Kriegsmarine, circa 1938
Z.s.E.4 - 5x14° aiming scope, produced by Carl Zeiss in around 1938, to be used for anti-aircraft positions equipped with 75 mm guns of the Kriegsmarine.
It is completely made of solid bronze and its structure is designed to resist not only indirect water and bad weather, but also the great forces resulting from cannon fire.
It is equipped with 3 colored filters as well as an aiming reticle.
Excellent vision and it is one of the few aiming optics to have focus on the eyepiece.
All mechanisms work correctly and there is the aiming reticle for direct shooting at ships and planes.
A very similar known model can be found in the archive of the Carl Zeiss Museum.
Carl Zeiss Archiv:
The rifle scope is intended for anti-aircraft guns to engage air targets in direct fire. Shooting at sea and land targets is also possible. The viewing port is laterally offset by 90° from the viewing plane. To ensure that the gunner's viewing direction and posture always remain the same when shooting against air targets at all elevation angles up to 90°, the rifle scope has viewing ports arranged on the side. The double-sided eye protection is always kept horizontal by a connection to the fixed mount, while the actual rifle scope is tilted according to the attachment setting and the height movements of the gun barrel. An image erection is not provided, so that the image of the target in the field of view appears tilted by the amount of the target height angle. For this type of use, the scope must be attached to the gun attachment so that the dovetail is on the side. This eliminates the aforementioned tilting of the target image. Finding the target is also easier because the shooter looks sideways towards the target. The magnification is 5x. The eyepiece is tuned for normal visual acuity. The weight of the telescope is 2.2 kg.
Carl Zeiss takes its name from its founder, Carl Zeiss, who on November 17, 1846 chose the small city of Jena, in Thuringia, as the location for his precision optical equipment factory. Thanks to the strict quality control that Carl Zeiss imposed on its products, going so far as to personally destroy the microscopes that did not pass the tests, the newborn Zeiss became the official supplier of the University of Jena and received the gold medal of the industrial exhibition in 1861 of Thuringia as the best research instrument produced in Germany, awarded to the Stand I microscope of 1857.
In 1866 the thousandth microscope was produced and the name Zeiss became known throughout European scientific circles. Thanks to studies on the Porro prism, in 1893 Abbe patented double prism binoculars, which accentuated the perception of depth. The mass production of Zeiss binoculars began in 1894, already at the beginning of the twentieth century more than 30,000 were made, by the beginning of the First World War the figure had risen to 500,000 and, by the end of the Second World War, 2,260,000 were produced binoculars for the civil and military market. Models were made starting from 4x11 mm to 12x40 mm, up to real giants such as the 80 mm and 100 mm. Thanks to studies conducted on the perception of light in low light situations, it was shown that the average dilation of the pupil in an adult is about 7 mm. For this reason, the 7x50 mm model was introduced in 1910 and remained on the market until 1917 with few changes to the materials used.
In 1926, following the post-war crisis of the First World War with the Treaty of Versailles which bankrupted many important German companies, Zeiss bought the "C.P. GOERZ" and founded the Zeiss Ikon in 1926. In 1937 Zeiss had commercial contacts and factories in more than 29 countries around the world. From '33 Zeiss acquired interest from the Nazi regime, which balanced production towards military instruments. It successfully produced binoculars with wide-angle optics for military use, pressure resistant optical systems for U-boats, periscope binoculars for targeting tanks. Furthermore, Zeiss cameras were mounted on the V2s for remote sensing operations of the English coasts.
On November 1, 1935, Zeiss, in the person of Alexander Smakula, patented a process for the treatment of optical glasses with extraordinary results in terms of light transmission. Remained a military secret until 1939, it was adopted on binoculars to reduce ghost images and internal reflections. During the Second World War, there were numerous bombings against the Zeiss factories. Jena was bombed several times by the Allies starting in 1944. Stuttgart was razed to the ground, although the Contessa-Nettel factory suffered little damage. The bombing of Dresden, in addition to devastating the city, also caused considerable damage to the Zeiss Ikon headquarters.
On April 13, 1945, American military forces entered Jena, surprising themselves that the bombing had not caused any significant damage. The main planetarium was in ruins, while the factories remained operational.