This gunsight, of German origin, together with the locally produced San Girogio Tipo C were
used in the Macchi C.205V.
A reflector sight or reflex sight is an optical device that allows the user (aircraft,
firearms, navigation) to look through a partially reflecting glass element and see an
illuminated projection of an aiming point or some other image superimposed on the field of
view. These sights work on the optical principle that anything at the focus of a lens or
curved mirror (such as an illuminated reticle) will appear to be sitting in front of the
viewer at infinity. Reflector sights employ some sort of "reflector" to allow the viewer to
see the infinity image and the field of view at the same time, either by bouncing the image
created by lens off a slanted glass plate, or by using a mostly clear curved glass reflector
that images the reticle while the viewer looks through the reflector. Since the reticle is
at infinity it stays in alignment with the device the sight is attached to regardless of the
viewer's eye position, removing most of the parallax and other sighting errors found in
simple sighting devices.
Since their invention in 1900, reflector sights have come to be used as gun sights on all
kinds of weapons. They were used on fighter aircraft in a limited capacity in World War I,
widely used in World War II and still used as the base component in many types of modern
head-up displays. They have been used in other types of (usually large) weapons as well,
such as anti-aircraft gun sights, anti tank gun sights and any other role where the
operator had to engage fast moving targets over a wide field of view and the sight itself
could be supplied with sufficient electrical power to function. There was some limited use
of the sight on small arms after World War II but it came into widespread use after the
late 1970s with the invention of the red dot sight with a red light-emitting diode (LED) as
its reticle, making a dependable sight with durability and extremely long illumination run
time.
Between October 1943 to the end of 1943, the Germans authorised continued production of the
C.205V, however for use for themselves (II/JG 77), albeit with some changes to the original
aircraft, replacing the San Giriogio Tipo C gunsight (which was well liked by Italian pilots) with the Revi unit
as well as other changes such as the orientation of the throttle.
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