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Captured British field gun at Viljoen's Drift

This gun, one of those captured at Colenso, was being sent down to be used around Bloemfontein. The coloured gentlemen are mine bots, going home to Basutoland.

Source: www.angloboerwar.com/forum/19-ephemera/3...l-1900?start=0#89968

Marked with broad arrow and: "SCOTT'S PATENT / III / 1897 / SIGHT B.L. / TELESCOPIC / No 236 / TROUGHTON & SIMMS / LONDON".
On scope body, next to deflection nut: "MAX DEFLN / FOR WIND / 30 MIN".
Micrometer drum inscribed: "B.L. 12PR 6CWT I T&S".
With later 1901 leather case, blocked: "SIGHT B.L. TELESCOPIC / 19/|\01 / BEFORE STRAPPING DOWN SET VERNIER TO 5º"

The Priced Vocabulary of Stores, 1898 (p.727) lists Mark III telescopic sights for 15-pdr and 12-pdr 6-cwt guns at £17 10s each. Mark I and II sights cost £15 2s 6d each, but, in 1898, were only available for 12-pdr guns.

Each sight was furnished with a micrometer drum which was specific to the type and mark of gun it was to be issued with. The example above is loaded with a drum for a 12-pdr 6-cwt Mk I (the gun used by the Royal Horse Artillery in South Africa).

The lower image shows the frame trunnions, one at each end of the longitudinal bar attached to the side of the sight. These rest in the forks of the scope bracket on the gun (see photograph at end of post). When in position, a levelling screw on the top of the bracket engages the “levelling projection”. To correct the transverse level, when one gun carriage wheel is set lower than the other, this screw presses down on the levelling projection, thus rotating the instrument about the axis of the longitudinal bar. This is done with the assistance of an integrated cross-axis spirit level. It was this mechanism that set the Scott Sight apart.


12 and 15-pdr guns were shipped to South Africa with seven telescopic sights per battery.




Below are a few references to the Scott Sight that I have found in period accounts and reports. They are rarely mentioned, perhaps suggesting these sights were not widely used.


Burne 1902, pp. 33 & 106

We had now our telescopic sights on the guns, and very good ones on the whole they were, although we found the cross wires too thick and therefore hid an object such as a trench which at long range looks no more than a line.

Telescopic sights, the patent, I believe, of Lieutenant-Colonel L. K. Scott, R.E., were sent out and used by us with the 12-pounders to fire on the trenches at Spion Kop and Brakfontein, when fine shooting was required. These sights had the cross wires much too thick, so we substituted cobwebs picked off the bushes and stuck on with torpedo composition, and these did admirably. Still this sight was not altogether a success. The power of the telescope, especially in the rays of the sun, was poor, and it took a man a long time to lay his gun with it, thus further reducing the quick-firing power of the 12-pounder reduced already by the recoiling field carriage.


Morrison 1901, p.149

The General pointed out a white speck on a kopje 3,600 yards away, only visible through glasses or Scott's (telescopic) sight, and told us to range on it. Owing to the clearness of the atmosphere at this height (6,000 feet above the sea), distance is very deceiving. My first shell burst fully 1,000 yards short, and the General smiled. About the third shot we got on to the spot and dropped our shells all around it and occasionally right on the target. It was not what I would call good target shooting, but if the enemy had been on that kopje they would have been rather uncomfortable.


Supplementary Report of the Department of Militia and Defence. Organization, Equipment, Despatch and Service of the Canadian Contingents during the War in South Africa, 1899 – 1900, p. 127

Following is my report on the relief of Mafeking.
Colonel Plumer’s column consisted of the following corps: –
Artillery: – B.S.A. Police: 1 12 pr. B.L. and 3 7 pr. M.L. guns under Captain Llewellyn, B.S.A.P.
Four 12 pr. B.L. guns of “C” Battery, R.C.F.A.
….. Scott’s sights were used throughout the operations.








MARK I GUN.

The gun is fitted with a steel bracket for carrying the telescopic sight. The bracket is firmly attached to the face of the right trunnion by a dovetail and two fixing screws. A bronze adjusting screw is provided in the upper part of the bracket, to alter the position of the telescope, so as to correct for difference of level of the wheels. A leather cover for the bracket is provided, shaped to suit the bracket, and secured in position by a 5/8-in. strap.

MARKS II AND IV GUNS.

The guns are fitted with a steel bracket for carrying the telescopic sight, Mark II guns on the right trunnion, Mark IV guns on the left trunnion. The bracket is firmly attached by a dovetail and two fixing screws. A bronze adjusting screw is provided in the upper part of the bracket to alter the position of the telescope so as to correct the difference of level of the wheels. A leather cover for the bracket is provided, shaped to suit the bracket, and secured in position by a 5/8-in. strap.
Mark III guns are not at present fitted with telescopic sights.
Description and instructions for using, &c., are published in a separate handbook.




Detail from a photograph of one of Rimmington's 15-pdr guns, showing the sight bracket attached to the right trunnion. Despite this gun being in action, Scott's sight is not fitted, suggesting these scopes were only used rarely. I have yet to find an ABW photograph of a 12 or 15-pdr with telescopic sight in use.











A steel bracket was attached to the left-hand [or right-hand] trunnion by a dove-tail and two fixing screws. The bracket had two V bearings in which rested the frame trunnions. Between the frame trunnions was a projection which located at the lower end of the levelling screw and served to level the sight when the gun was sited on uneven ground, a transverse level being provided on the frame for this purpose.

The sight consisted of a telescope, the front end being secured by a pivot at the centre of the vertical arc. The rear end was held to the arc circumference by a vernier piece, attached to the telescope and overlapping the arc inner edge.

The elevation angle was set by turning the micrometer head of the elevating worm spindle, this in turn moving the telescope along the vertical arc. The vernier of the vertical arc read to two minutes, as did the spindle micrometer head. One revolution of the spindle equalled one degree on the vertical arc.

Deflection was set with the deflection nut. Turning the nut moved a diaphragm, within the telescope, laterally along a graduated scale. There were two pointers within the telescope – a horizontal pointer used for laying and a vertical pointer, which registered on the graduated scale the amount of deflection given to the horizontal pointer. Both pointers moved together. The smallest division on the deflection scale read three minutes. The maximum deflection, required for a hurricane across the range, was thirty minutes – this was graduated on the sight together with a drift scale.

The field of the telescope was 1 in 20, at 1,000 yards the view circle diameter being 50 yards.

The telescope was an ordinary inverting type with an achromatic object glass and astronomical eyepiece. This reduced the telescope length to a minimum, gave a large field and standardised the deflection method with that of the service sight.

In use the horizontal pointer would be focused with the eyepiece, then the target object focused onto the horizontal pointer with the object glass.

The sight was provided with a strap for carrying purposes, fastened loosely around the vertical part of the frame away from the trunnions. The bracket was provided with a shaped leather cover secured by a strap.

Seven sights were issued to each battery, one being reserved for instructional purposes only. One other was fitted with a longitudinal level to be used as a clinometer.




The 15-pdr Mk IV on display at Fort Nelson, Portsmouth, showing a telescopic sight mounted on its left trunnion. The siting of the bracket on the left side was a unique feature of the later Mk IV guns, which did not see service in South Africa. Nearly all the guns used during the ABW were of the Mk I type.
Note how the sight is attached to the gun, with the frame trunnions resting in the forks, or v-bearings, of the steel bracket. The sight itself appears to be a Mk I scope. Photograph courtesy of Ian Tong.






With the exception of the addition of a pin-hole to the tangent sight and cross wires to the fore-sight, and of minor improvements, and of the introduction of French's crossbar sight and the reciprocating sight, of which later, no great advance was made until the introduction of Scott's telescopic sight. This sight consists of a telescope mounted in a steel frame, provided with longitudinal trunnions fitting into V's in the gun. These V's are so arranged that the axis of the sight frame is always parallel to that of the gun. By means of a cross-level the frame can be so adjusted that the cross axis on which the telescope is mounted is always truly horizontal. Major L. K. Scott, R.E., thus described how he was led to think of the sight:
"I had read in the Daily News an account of some experimental firing carried out by H.M.S. 'Hotspur' against the turret of H.M.S. 'Glatton'. At a range of 200 yds on a perfectly calm day the 'Hotspur' fired several rounds at the 'Glatton's' turret and missed it".
Major Scott attributed this to tilt in the sights due to want of level of mounting (R.A.I. Proceedings, vol. xiii.). Tilt of sights in field guns owing to the sinking of one wheel had long been recognized as a source of error, and allowed for by a rule-of-thumb correction, depending on the fact that the track of the wheels of British field artillery gun-carriages is 60", so that, for every inch one wheel is lower than the other, the whole system is turned through one degree.


Referring to the calculations given above, this is equivalent to 1' deflection for every degree of elevation, which amount had to be given towards the higher wheel. This complication is eliminated in Scott's sight by simply levelling the cross axis of the telescope.
Other advantages are those common to all telescopic sights. Personal error is to a great extent eliminated, power of vision extended, the sight is self-contained, there is no fore-sight, a fine pointer in the telescope being aligned on the target. It can be equally well used for direct or indirect, forward or back laying. A micrometer drum reads to 2', while the vernier reads to single minutes so that very fine adjustments can be made.
Disadvantages of earlier patterns were, the telescope was inverting, the drum was not graduated in yards, and drift not allowed for. These defects were all overcome in later patterns and an important addition made, viz. means of measuring the angle of sight. In speaking of quadrant elevation a brief reference was made to the necessity for making an allowance for difference of level of gun and target. Figs. 10 to 13 explain this more fully, and show that for indirect laying the angle of sight must be added to the angle of elevation if the target is above the gun, and subtracted if vice versa.


In Scott's sight, Mark IV, there is a longitudinal level pivoted at one end and provided with a degree scale up to 4°; the level is moved by a spindle and micrometer screw reading to 2'. If now the telescope be directed on the target and this level be brought to the centre of its run, the angle of sight can be read - if afterwards any range ordered is put on the sight and the gun truly layed, this bubble will be found in the centre of its run - so that if thereafter the target becomes obscured the gun can be relayed by elevating till the bubble is in the centre of its run, or at a completely concealed target the angle of sight can, if the range and difference of level are known or can be measured from somewhere near the gun, be put on by means of the micrometer screw, and the gun subsequently layed by putting the range in yards or degrees on the sight drum and elevating or depressing till the bubble is central.
The disadvantages that still remain are that the sight has to be removed every time the gun is fired, and the amount of deflection is limited and has to be put on the reverse way to that on a tangent scale. Scott's sight, though no longer used with quick-firing guns, is the precursor of all modern sights.




Edinburgh Evening News, 4th February 1886

A NEW SIGHT FOR FIELD GUNS.
A prominent feature of the new field gun with which our horse artillery is to be armed will be the use of telescopic sights, the invention of a Major Scott, Royal Artillery [sic - Royal Engineers]. In our present field weapon although the gun is sighted up to over 3,000 yards, yet it is extremely difficult with the ordinary sights to fire with precision at the higher ranges. Major Scott’s invention is intended to obviate this difficulty, and the first three or four batteries receiving the new gun will give the new sights a thoroughly practical testing prior to their final introduction into the service.




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A fantastic article, Neville!

The book "With Roberts to the Transvaal" has some good pictures and this one in particular stands out. I wish I'd had a better copy to start with but the image is too good not to pass on. Churchill was on site at the time and one wonders if he might have instigated it. Probably not, but Jeninie's hospital ship 'Maine' was in SA at the time.


“ My Lady’s Carriage Stops the Way.”
4.7 gun named Lady Randolph Churchill in action towards, Hlawange Hill.
Link to book on Hathi Trust Site: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008642931?type%5B%5D=title&lookfor%5B%5D=Pictorial%20History%20of%20South%20Africa%20and%20the%20Transvaal&ft=



The Hospital Ship “Maine” America’s Contribution to the Red Cross in South Africa. Navy & Army Vol 10 9 (May 19th, 1900)
The Maine sailed for South Africa on 23 December 1899, with Jennie Churchill aboard, and arrived at Durban on 23 January 1900. One of the earliest beneficiaries was Jennie's younger son Jack, wounded during the Relief of Ladysmith. After only four months, she returned to UK and then went to China for the Boxer Rebellion.
She was awarded the decoration of the Royal Red Cross (RRC) in the South Africa Honours list published on 26 June 1902. She received the decoration in person from King Edward VII on 2 October that year, during a visit to Balmoral Castle." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Maine_(1887)

The "With Roberts" book has a pretty detailed chronology but it is almost illegible in the scanned copy I found online.

A view of the Woolwich shell arsenal


Packing ammunition at Woolwich Arsenal


Lyddite shells

Source: www.angloboerwar.com/forum/19-ephemera/3...n-jack?start=0#90162

I picked up this 1899-dated brass plaque a while ago.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what it is off ..... Any ideas? The wooden cases for lyddite shells were normally stencilled.




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