Tank Registration- calibration?

[Becstar]

Just wondering if someone could please clarify what ‘tank registration’ was and the importance of it being done on tanks?  I’m guessing it would be calibration of some sort?

If tank registration wasn’t completed before a battle, would that cause (shell) drop shorts?

 

Thanks 😀

 

 

 

 

[Keith Woodland]

If a tank gun is aimed at targets by use of a sight as opposed to looking along the barrel then it is necessary to align the site and gun so that the gun is pointed at what the gunner is looking at through the sight. Registration is I believe more of an Artillery term but may well have been in use at the time.

later it was referred to as bore sighting and a special instrument, the bore sight, was placed in the muzzle end and laid onto an agreed point at a range of 1000 yards. The sight aiming point was then adjusted to be on the same point by way of adjusters built into the sight. I now believe this has been surpassed by the use of lasers but I am not up to date on this. 

It was essential to remove the bore sight before a round was fired and I am aware of at least one occasion when this happened on a Centurion and the result was on display at Hohne in West Germany as it was, there as a warning to all who saw it.

Hope that helps.

[Gareth Davies]

17 hours ago, Becstar said:

Just wondering if someone could please clarify what ‘tank registration’ was and the importance of it being done on tanks?  I’m guessing it would be calibration of some sort?

If tank registration wasn’t completed before a battle, would that cause (shell) drop shorts?

 

Thanks 😀

 

 

 

 

 

What's the context of the phrase?  Where did you read it please.

[MikB]

15 hours ago, Keith Woodland said:

If a tank gun is aimed at targets by use of a sight as opposed to looking along the barrel then it is necessary to align the site and gun so that the gun is pointed at what the gunner is looking at through the sight. Registration is I believe more of an Artillery term but may well have been in use at the time.

later it was referred to as bore sighting and a special instrument, the bore sight, was placed in the muzzle end and laid onto an agreed point at a range of 1000 yards. The sight aiming point was then adjusted to be on the same point by way of adjusters built into the sight. I now believe this has been surpassed by the use of lasers but I am not up to date on this. 

It was essential to remove the bore sight before a round was fired and I am aware of at least one occasion when this happened on a Centurion and the result was on display at Hohne in West Germany as it was, there as a warning to all who saw it.

Hope that helps.

Ken Tout mentions bore sighting a tank gun in the field in WW2. Then it was done by the much cruder means of sticking a couple of (literally!) crossed hairs across the muzzle and squinting through the open breech, before adjusting the scope sight to aim at the same mark. May have been done the same way in WW1.

 

Probably didn't matter too much if you forgot to take out that one... 

[Keith Woodland]

The crossed hairs technique was mentioned in my time and would no doubt have been acceptable when HE was being fired. However once specialist armour piercing rounds were developed then the more accurate method would have come into their own. No doubt on 6 pdr WW1 tanks crossed hairs would have been more than adequate. On tanks equipped only with machine guns I doubt they used any method but just observed the fall of shot and corrected their aim as necessary.

[Becstar]

Thanks!! I’ve come across the term a few times now in different unit diaries and could only take a guess as to what it meant.  

I’ll find the relevant pages and post them on here - it might put it into context 😀

It was regarding the Mark V tank (with machine guns) and the creeping barrage alongside infantry, so many casualties from drop shorts so I think you might be spot on there Keith, observe the fall of short and correct aim.

I’ll look for the documents now and post 😀

[Becstar]

Apologies for the pics being large! 

[Becstar]

There’s a bit more information I found too which you might find interesting. 

My Great-Great Uncle was killed by a drop short, having died from his wounds (shrapnel wound to abdomen). I’ve been trying to understand the term ‘registration’ for some time. Appreciate your help, thanks 😀👍🏻

[Gareth Davies]

Aha. So it's not about tank registration, it's about artillery registration. Have a look here:

 

https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/how-the-british-artillery-developed-and-became-a-war-winning-factor-in-1914-1918/

[Becstar]

Would that be tank guns?

[Michelle Young]

Sound like Artillery rather than tanks I would say.

[MikB]

2 minutes ago, Becstar said:

Would that be tank guns?

 

No, everything else!

The tanks were to go forward behind an artillery barrage in which the very smallest guns were probably 18-pounders by that time. The tanks had 6-pounders, really only practical for direct fire at targets in easy visual range - say up to several hundred yards. The artillery was firing largely indirectly - there might have been forward observers to report fall of shot, but it would be mostly or entirely out of sight of gun crews. Registration was to establish that each gun was shooting on a correct range setting, to prevent our barrage fire landing on our own tanks. Friendly fire isn't.

[Richard2]

When I was in the Artillery (1970s), we used both boresighting and registration, but they were different things.  Boresighting was done with crossed strings over the muzzle.  Cannons had four small notches at the muzzle to insure the strings were crossed correctly.  Boresighting is defined in FM6-40, Field Artillery Cannon Gunnery, Department of the Army, October 1967, paragraph 5-5b as "the process by which the optical axes of the panoramic and elbow telescopes are made parallel, both vertically and horizontally, with the axis of the bore..."

Registration was done by conducting observed fire on a permanent or semipermanent , readily identifiable registration point.  The observer would adjust the fire onto the registration point. According to FM6-40, paragraph 19-2 "Registration data is [sic] used to determine corrections which, when applied, will compensate for the cumulative errors contained in the survey, the firing chart, material, and nonstandard atmospheric conditions"