[ELI5] How panzers during the time of world war 1 correctly aimed at their targets when technology was not as sophisticated?
In: Physics
The main take production in WWI is 20 [A7V](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A7V) in total so not a lot. The used more captured tanks as around 50 British Mark IV tanks was used.
The answer how to aim and hit targets was to manually turn them and fire. The guns that they The A7V used [5.7_cm_Maxim-Nordenfelt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.7_cm_Maxim-Nordenfelt) was not new and used in fortification and as field guns before the usage in tanks. So they dud ut exactly the same way. You have optical sight and move it by hand or by turning handles
But as all tanks even in WWII hitting anything at any distance when you move was almost impossible so you stoped the tank to fire. It is with electronic stabilization in 1970 you had an efficient fire on the move. There was a hydraulic system before that but not as good. Some were even used back in WWII like in the Sherman but it was more one of the aim behind cover and you then drive forward and stop and the gunpoint int the same direction.
There was quite an advanced optical system for artillery back in the day with the most advanced use on battleships.
I remember hearing that panzer started to be used in the interwar period and they were called tanks even in german during WWI and the early interwar period but I can’t find a source now.
They fired when stationary not when moving as portrayed in some films, panzers were in WW2 and often they missed their target, they had rudimentary devices for estimating the range and angles of fire and hoped to hit their target. Some tanks had machine guns mounted alongside the main gun and these were fired at the target, when the machine gun bullets struck the target they knew that the main gun was aimed in about the right direction and fired the main gun.
You don’t need sophisticated tech. You know a human is around 1.7 meter high. So if you measure the height that human look like in your sight and do some trigonometry you can have a really good estimation of the distance and adjust your fire. Usually on the sight you have marks to indicate how much you need to compensate for the distance. This is similar to how sniper work.
If you can ambush an ennemy, you can do the same with object you can see or measure in place before the ennemy reach you. You make a little drawing of different point of reference with the distance to them. Like we are 100 meter away from that barn and 200 meter away from that lake sort of things. So when the ennemy show up, you can quickly estimate the range.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oraJW4-7Vj0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oraJW4-7Vj0)
Here is a good video on the subject.
I presume that you mean WW2. The “panzer” did not exist in WW1, although the first tanks entered service at that time.
They used a purely visual targeting optic. The gunner estimates the distance to the target and then applies this estimate to the targeting reticle to account for drop over the distance. If they missed, they would look at whether they shot long or short and adjust accordingly.
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