[ELI5] How panzers during the time of world war 1 correctly aimed at their targets when technology was not as sophisticated?

Question

[ELI5] How panzers during the time of world war 1 correctly aimed at their targets when technology was not as sophisticated?

In: Physics

Answer 1

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.