neth

Hi John

This is an early Flak timer used by Artillery Units. I do not think it was used on a U-boat. The red scale is a Telemeter scale. They would have been used on the large ships or perhaps land based units. A similar scale is on the Hanhart single pusher Chrono. These are known as the "U-boat Commanders watch", but in reality these would have also been used by Observers on the 'Big Guns' on large ships. Every instrument in Wartime had a function and this red scale was not there for cosmetics. The telemeter scale was used to determine distance of a target. The chrono/ timer was started on the visible flash of an enemy gun and stopped on hearing the bang. A simple calculation would have given you the distance. This function would have been useless onboard a U-boat. Telemeter scales were used early in the War before they were phased out by the introduction of radar.

'EU' (Entfernungs-Unterschied) the difference in distance. ?hm? (hektometer) = 100 m The measuring unit of the artillery was a hektometer.

These are mine

Cheers

Max

Hi Max,

I have a Hanhart double-pusher chronograph (wristwatch) that had this EU scale and a telemeter scale. I have been looking for the answer to what the EU scale is for and came to this topic. Your explanation is indeed of a telemeterscale but I think the scale on John's is different. It would also not make sense as the EU scale gets smaller the longer the time takes. And I would think the longer the distance between the flash and the bang would mean a bigger distance. I do not have any answers but Entfernungs-Unterschied means something like "Difference in Distance". I hope mabe we can together think up another explanation (or better, I am wrong and this already is the answer)

Regards,

Neth