Soviet gunsights

[sturmkraehe]

Shouldn't the glass of the gunsight of the La5 and the Yak be rectangular as suggests the pictures on following website?

 

http://www.gunsight.jp/b/english/data/sight-e-s.htm

 

 

Edited May 29, 2014 by sturmkraehe

[Brano]

I dont know how reliable is that japanese site.On photos in my book about yak 1 and 3 there is rounded reflection glass,not rectangular.PBP1-a should have rounded shape and PBP-1b more rectangular.Which plane gets which was most probably depending on availability in given time.

[Sternjaeger]

The PBP-1 series had a rounded glass like we have, the PAK-1 gunsight glass on the other hand had a squared shape

 

 

the information about Russian gunsights is quite fragmented and difficult to reconstruct, mainly because there was a lot of "field mods", with equipment being moved around/recycled according to the needs, and for the record, I have seen pics of Yaks mounting both the PAK and PBP gunsights.

 

Brano is right though, a lot of information on gunsight.jp/b is wrong. In any case the one you posted is a late war version, it differs from the early PBP mainly for the slightly larger lens, and its design has been kept in use even with later versions, installed upside down even on the MiG-21 as fixed gunsight!