Introduction: The imaging principle of military telescopes and ordinary civilian telescopes is the same, but there are many differences between the two due to different usage environments and observation objects.
Many friends who want to buy telescopes must be entangled. If they want to buy a good telescope, the price is not cheap, so they must consider it again and again. They heard that military telescopes are good, but they lack knowledge about telescopes and cannot distinguish between good and bad and true and false, so they are hesitant. In fact, there are many differences between military and civilian telescopes according to the usage environment and observation objects.
First of all, their optical systems are different. Most of the telescopes used by the team have reticle plates, and the reticle plates used at night are also illuminated. The pupil distance of military telescopes is relatively large, so that the observer can wear a gas mask. In order to prevent head collision during shooting, the pupil distance of some sights is as large as 70 to 80 mm, and soft and hard eye masks and forehead protectors are also required.
In terms of optical performance and structural performance, military telescopes are better and more reliable because they are more carefully designed, made of high-quality materials and sophisticated craftsmanship. For example, the image quality is good, the stray light is less, and the magnification is matched with the entrance pupil size to achieve a satisfactory resolution. The shell of the military telescope is made of metal instead of plastic to ensure that it will not crack or deform after long-term use. In comparison, ordinary civilian telescopes are worse in terms of sealing and materials. Some are not only plastic shells, but even the internal lenses are made of plastic.
Due to high quality requirements, military telescopes must undergo environmental tests before leaving the factory, generally including vibration tests, high temperature (+55℃) tests, low temperature (-45℃) tests, rain or immersion tests, and airtight tests. After these tests, the product performance can still be guaranteed to be within the specified range before it can leave the factory. Some products also have a dryer in the mirror body. Before leaving the factory, the air is extracted and then filled with dry air or nitrogen to effectively prevent the internal lenses from growing mold and fogging in the future. Ordinary civilian telescopes generally do not undergo environmental tests, or only do some tests. This is difficult for people to understand from the market, and it cannot be seen from the appearance of the product alone.
Due to these differences, the design and manufacture of military telescopes require much higher costs, so their prices are also higher than ordinary civilian telescopes.
Military telescopes: Most field military optical instruments use telescopes as the basic primary color and have the basic characteristics of telescopes. Usually, what we call military telescopes are limited to handheld, binocular telescopes that are mainly used for observation and search. Their working principles and appearance are not much different from ordinary civilian telescopes. Due to different uses, other military telescopes have different names, such as sights, optical rangefinders, artillery mirrors, steering wheels, periscopes, periscopes, reconnaissance theodolites, etc. These instruments have the function of observing and searching for distant targets, and at the same time have their own special functions.
There are many types of sights, which are used for artillery, tanks, aircraft, ships, etc. Their common feature is that they use the reticle set in the telescope to engrave the corresponding aiming scales or marks on the reticle. Some are engraved with multiple scale marks, which are used to set the ballistic correction amount, the moving target advance amount, and the crosswind correction amount. Some are engraved with distance and height measurement scale marks. With the development of electronic technology, sensors and computers, the scale of the sight is no longer limited to the traditional scale plate. The aiming point will be generated by the computer and then "injected" into the telescope or on the screen, and the setting and correction of the aiming point will be completed automatically. In addition, some sights have image stabilization function, which allows the carrier to aim and shoot while moving.
The optical rangefinder is different from the telescope that uses the scale plate to measure the distance mentioned above. It consists of two telescopes with a large distribution distance on the left and right. Due to the difference in the position of the left and right objective lenses to the target, the image position of the target on the mirror plane of the two objective lenses is also slightly different. Measuring this slight difference can convert the target distance. There are two measurement methods: one is to move the right image to coincide with the left image, which is called a combined image optical rangefinder; the other is to use the stereoscopic vision of the human eye to make the left and right images take a picture together and compare the depth of the stereoscopic image, which is called a stereoscopic optical rangefinder. The ranging accuracy of the optical rangefinder will be significantly reduced as the target distance increases. In order to improve the accuracy, the distance between the left and right objective lenses has to be increased, and the magnification of the telescope has to be increased, which makes the instrument too large and clumsy. Therefore, in recent years, optical rangefinders have gradually been replaced by laser rangefinders.
The artillery telescope is also called a shearing mirror, which is equipped with two telescopes with periscope heights distributed on the left and right. When the two mirrors are closed, a larger periscope height can be obtained to check and measure the distance, height, and azimuth of the target. It is easy to operate and is not affected by rain, fog, and darkness. After separation, the distance between the two entrance pupils is increased, and distance measurement can be performed to increase the stereoscopic magnification of the instrument. It can also pitch and rotate horizontally to measure azimuth. The steering wheel is equipped with a monocular telescope, and is also equipped with a compass, and the telescope can pitch and rotate horizontally. With the help of the steering wheel, the magnetic north azimuth and geographic azimuth of the target can be calibrated. The artillery telescope and the steering wheel are used together to arrange the gun positions of the position, which is a common equipment in towed artillery artillery. The periscope is different from the general folding-axis telescope. The prism or reflector inside it rotates according to a certain rule, leading the target image in different directions to a fixed observation position, while keeping the target image in an upright state, so that the observer can look around 360 degrees without moving.
Generally speaking, there are the following differences between military telescopes and ordinary telescopes
The imaging principle of military telescopes and ordinary civilian telescopes is the same, but there are many differences between the two due to different use environments and observation objects.
1: Strong durability and durability.
The outer shell of the military telescope is made of metal instead of plastic to ensure that it will not crack or deform after long-term use. In comparison, ordinary civilian telescopes are worse in terms of sealing and materials. Some are not only plastic shells, but even the internal lenses are made of plastic.
2: Their optical systems are different.
Most military telescopes have reticle plates, and the reticle plates used at night are also illuminated. The exit pupil distance of military telescopes is relatively large, so that observers can wear gas masks. To prevent head collision during shooting, some sights have an exit pupil distance as large as 70 to 80 mm, and must be equipped with eye masks and forehead protectors of appropriate hardness and softness.
In terms of optical performance and structural performance, military telescopes are relatively excellent and reliable, because their design is more prudent, with excellent materials and sophisticated craftsmanship, such as good image quality, less stray light, and matching magnification with entrance pupil size to achieve satisfactory resolution.
3: There are many inspection items before military telescopes leave the factory, and the inspection process is more stringent.
Due to high quality requirements, military telescopes must undergo environmental tests before leaving the factory, generally including vibration tests, high temperature (+55℃) tests, low temperature (-45℃) tests, rain or immersion tests, and airtight tests. After these tests, the product performance can still be guaranteed to be within the specified range before it can leave the factory. Some products also have a dryer in the mirror body, which extracts air before leaving the factory and then fills in dry air or nitrogen, effectively preventing the internal lens from growing mold and fogging in the future. Ordinary civilian telescopes generally do not undergo environmental tests, or only do some tests. This is difficult for people to understand from the market, and it cannot be seen from the appearance of the product alone.
4: The price of a telescope is relatively high.
Due to these differences, the design and manufacture of military telescopes require much higher costs, so their selling price is also higher than that of ordinary civilian telescopes.