A translation question - UZO?

[Xaron]

Dear all,

working on a submarine game and German by myself I'd just want to kindly ask how you (especially americans) would translate the UZO (Überwasserzieloptik) which is some kind of a binocular which you have on the bridge of a submarine to target enemy ships?

So in German we tell it UZO and it looks like this is a common thing worldwide?

Here a shot, where you can see it on the right side of the bride:

[Herr-Berbunch]

I don't know if US boats had an equivalent. As always, I could be wrong, US boats aren't by usual bag, baby. So it'd still be a UZO on a U-boat.

[Stealhead]

All WWII subs had an UZO that simply is the acronym for the German word which you already mentioned.In the US Navy it was called TBT Target Bearing Transmitter.Pretty much they all worked about the same way and where always high power binoculars.Now the scaling would of course differ depending on the navy.I know for certain the most US Navy subs had two mount locations one fore and one aft.This was not an original design feature but was found useful and was a war time overhaul upgrade.

Of course the mount itself was part of the system with any "UZO" it provided a stable platform and also had bearing marks.

In the US Navy during WWII the last T in TBT Transmitter that was the person operating the TBT he called out (transmitted) the data.

I might be mixing up the TBT with another tool used on US Navy subs but anyway they did have a UZO of course with a different name.

Ok I looked it up in the US Navy the tool was called TBT Mark 8 but a German submariner would be able to work one fairly easily once he was informed of the scaling differences and vice versa.

http://maritime.org/doc/fleetsub/elect/chap14.htm#14A
about half way down the webpage section 205 top left photo.

the US Navy had a much more capable target data computer for subs than any other navy during WWII so it may have been more complex to operate the TBT than it was the UZO.

[Skybird]

A British gentleman named Pyton once advised me that the British refer to the UZO as the Bang-Bang-thing.

[Oberon]

I'd call them Target Optics, personally.

Originally Posted by Skybird

A British gentleman named Pyton once advised me that the British refer to the UZO as the Bang-Bang-thing.

That's supposed to be classified information...

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I might be mixing up the TBT with another tool used on US Navy subs but anyway they did have a UZO of course with a different name.

You have it exactly right, but you already pointed that out. US subs had two, one at each end of the bridge. This was needed because of the high periscope fairings. Early in the war the TBT was exactly like the UZO in that it had to be taken below for protection when the boat dived. Sometime around 1944 the US Navy developed a watertight case which allowed the TBT to remain on its stand at all times.

[TorpX]

I'm reading UNDERSEA WARRIOR, by Don Keith. In it, he mentions that O'Kane and another man had to "cobble together" a TBT on the Wahoo. So it is possible, even likely, that many US boats lacked this item on their first patrols. I thought this was kind of interesting.

[Xaron]

Thanks guys, that was an interesting discussion.

We will call it TBT then as it's an american submarine.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by TorpX

I'm reading UNDERSEA WARRIOR, by Don Keith. In it, he mentions that O'Kane and another man had to "cobble together" a TBT on the Wahoo. So it is possible, even likely, that many US boats lacked this item on their first patrols. I thought this was kind of interesting.

that could also be in reference to how each CO did things.On some boats the CO manned the TBT or scope for targeting others like O'Kane allowed the XO to man the scope during the attack and allowed them to choose when to fire as they felt this method allowed the CO to have a better grasp of what the boat was doing.Kind depended on the skipper and how well he trusted the TDC data and his reports and his crew.On the scope your kind of deaf to other important and less focused on data form your crew inside the boat.Have the XO man the scope to keep better control of a fulid situation then he can have tunnel vision and the CO can focus on command and control.

The guys that thought outside the box like O'Kane did not think that the CO had the complete picture of what was going both on inside and outside the boat while manning the scopes during an attack.So they preferred to stand often time on the ladder between the control room and the attack room.Some even sat on the floor with their feet hanging down into the control room.

Also they had to develop tactics which is what I cobbled together to mean.The TDC had never been used in actual battle so you have that to consider how things "work" and how they really work.

Anyway having typed all of that I see that meant you make a working TBT to replace one not available or damaged that would be true early war I'm sure that they had fewer spares.

[Viktor_Prien]

Sorry to revive this but the correct designation of UZO is " U-BOOT-ZIEL-OPTIK " not " ÜBERWASSERZIELOPTIK ".

[vienna]

2013?...


...wow, the Thread of the Walkies Dead...




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