Product Details
A RARE LATE WORLD WAR ONE 'PUFF SHOOT' MKI ELECTRONIC SIMULATOR, made of oak with 18 internal connection points plus two for connection to a battery, central switching gear, with lift-off oak lid and leather securing strap, with instructions and inspection history dated to 1923
Provenance: Puff shoots were a way of training gunnery cadets without using ammunition. At that time the word shoot was used generically to describe an artillery firing practice. Puff ranges were devised as a simple form of simulation to practice correcting ‘the fall of shot'. They were created by building a wooden frame above a rectangular pit set inside a large hut. Over the frame's top was stretched chicken wire that was then shaped to represent a piece of ground taken from an ordnance survey map, usually covering a rectangular area of grid squares covering a few square miles with a slightly upwards slope. Over the shaped chicken wire, which was reinforced underneath to hold its shape, was stretched wet hessian (sacking) that was then painted to represent the ground and roads/tracks, any buildings and woods, copses, hedgerows and waterways. At the lower end of this simulated piece of ground, an elevated wooden platform of banked rows was constructed with a single seat at its most forward point and a few rows of seats behind that. The former was for the student being practised and those behind for other students to observe. Under the simulated ground, inside the pit entered by a door and some steps, was the clever part. The floor of the pit was painted with numbered and lettered grid squares matching those of the ordnance survey map concerned and conforming to its precise layout. In this area, that was dimly lit sufficient to see, operated two men. One received and repeated back the morse code orders of the student sat in the single seat above who was acting as an aerial observer. The other man operated a solid brass ‘puff gun', which looked rather like a syringe with a bulbous rubber puffer at one end, a cylindrical chamber in the middle and a thin spigot tube at the top. Inside the chamber was a low voltage electrical coil and some oil soaked flannelette. The cylinder was filled with smoke when the coil became hot, which former could then be emitted via the spigot through the hessian above by standing on the floor coordinates and squeezing the rubber bulb. Thus the observer above saw a puff of smoke simulating his fall of shot, to which he could apply corrections, in response to which the process in the pit beneath the frame was repeated. The puff range principle was cheap and simple to develop and continued in use for many decades. There were a variety of different designs for these puff ranges, culminating with the electronic device presented here, which did away with the need for the 'puff-gun'.
Please click HERE to view Terms & Conditions. Please note all Lots are listed in accordance with UK Law, for overseas buyers, please ensure you are familiar with your relevant local firearms and customs regulations before bidding.
Estimate £60-80