See? easy.
(Mooncrasher is impressed)
Ha, piece of piss.
Nah, it wasn't really. I had the same '
fuck knows mate' answer the first time I looked at them as reticle recognition isn't my forté. I was about to stop looking when I accidentally noticed the bottom gunsight actually says '17PDR GUN', so that pretty much confirmed the Firefly.
Then, a detail on the middle one caught my eye. APDS ammunition. The
only reason I know Cromwell fires APDS is after the 10 hours of research for that ridiculously long tank comparison post from a few months back (where i did a main gun and ammunition comparison as well) and discovered (to my surprise) that discarding sabot ammo was a thing towards the backend of WWII, which meant later WWII British tanks, which also ruled out the 'infantry' tanks like Matilda cos the Brits didn't do dual purpose back then. That left the shortlist of Cromwell and Comet.. A quick check on google, yep, Cromwell.
Which left contestant number one. And I genuinely hadn't a clue but I was looking at the graticules and idly thinking about how I'd go about hitting that Panther if it was me.
Normally if I've no idea the range to target, target speed or local wind conditions (as it is with me looking at those pictures), I put the zero grat (the top of the ladder where 'zero metres' is shown) on the top of the target and then fire. The amount of enemy target that covers the bullet drop compensator (BDS) ladder is the maximum distance that you'd expect a hit (no other factors like wind or movement considered)
somewhere on the target doing that technique. Hit or miss, you then move the point on the sight picture where the shell
landed onto the place where you want the shell to
land and fire the second shot.
This technique is called 'aiming off for fall of shot' and (provided you're not retarded) means that even if you miss the first, you won't miss the second as that is the correct elevation and aim off for distance and windage. And if you're using the 'tracking' method of firing at moving targets (rather than 'ambush' method), it'll give you the correct lead as well.
Anyway, I was comparing it to the bottom sight picture. The bottom Panther covers out to 2200metres+ where as the top one only 1600m so the top gun must be of a slower velocity to the 17pdr. Then there's the M.G. grat next to it, which shows that a) the tank is fitted with a co-axial .30cal and b) the 30.cal has a flatter (faster) trajectory than the main gun.
Tank with a low velocity gun, fitted with a co-ax. Only APC (a very simple type of armour piercing) ammunition as an option? Smelled like a basic Sherman. So, I asked google.what fired M61APC, the M3 75mm gun fitted to the M4 Sherman.