On page 34 of my book, I show a picture from inside the central sight of a Swedish armored ship. The binocular in use is a Carl Zeiss 8x60H. I have tried to find more facts about these central sights and where they were situated in the ships. Unfortunately I have not found anyone who has personal experience with this installation. There has also been some doubt if the picture shows a central sight for the main artillery. The low magnification of the binocular and the fact that the binocular seems to point slightly upwards has been the reasons for this doubt. It has been suggested that the picture shows a central sight for the secondary or the AA artillery.
Old ship drawings tell us that the central sight was installed in a round armored tower on the highest position in the main mast. Underneath the central sight was the artillery officer´s fighting stand, also including the AO range finder.
I have now found a picture of the central sight of the Swedish cruiser “Tre Kronor”.
The picture shows an officer using a Carl Zeiss 8×60 Deck mounted. The binocular is one of the 16 (or perhaps 18) binoculars of this type bought for the Swedish navy in 1940. See page 36 of my book.
The cruiser “Tre Kronor” and its sister ship “Göta Lejon” were commissioned in 1947. The fact that the cruisers used an 8×60 binocular in the central sight for the main artillery makes it very likely that 8x60H binoculars could have been used for the same purpose in armored ships a decade earlier.
As I wrote the book in 2009 I only had some indications that Carl Zeiss 8x60H binoculars were sold to Sweden. Now I know for sure that the following 8x60H binoculars saw service in Sweden:
177 52 19, 177 52 22, 177 52 29, 177 52 31, 177 52 35
This leads me to the conclusion that the whole series, 177 52 01- 177 52 50, in the Zeiss works list dated 19.06.1937 (Dr. Seeger), was probably sold to Sweden.
