JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

 There are a number of posts on this blog that have no real category, though they are joined by one simple principle–they look “straight” onto something, like straight up,  straight down, and straight through.  It isn’t necessarily obvious, but these points of view are really pretty scarce in the history of antique prints. (Since there is no category you can search “straight” int he Google search box at left for other poss.)  In this case, above, we have the gunner’s eye view of the working of a machine gun, a great image published by The Illustrated London News in 1916.  

The machine gun type isn’t stated but I figured that it must be a water-cooled Vickers .303–from this vantage point your face wouldn’t be more than a foot from the sight; the curved bits at front are hand grips, and the “trigger” (an oval button that you press in to activate the gun) would be between those two curved elements and just below–I think that you could’ve seen the trigger if it was drawn in, though for whatever reason it is not there. In any event those hand grips are less than 9 inches apart, so you can tell now that the view of the machine gun is from very close proximity. 

Here’s an unexpected find: a video of shooting a Vickers (without sighting mechanism) at nearly this exact perspective,  found on youtube: