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Message: <blockquote data-quote="OPTIC_NUT" data-source="post: 3285019" data-attributes="member: 121951">Japanese optical quality in WW2 shocked the US, and spurred the US programto capture and research Axis optics:From the Wiki reference:<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal</a>"As the ships from the two sides intermingled, they battled each other in an utterly confused and chaotic mêlée at close distances where the superior Japanese optics and well practiced Japanese drill at optically sighted night aiming proved to be deadly effective. Afterward, an officer on Monssen likened it to "a barroom brawl after the lights had been shot out".[33]"Great twiight performance, anyone?  Contrast was king.So their ability to produce quality and quantity was already well underway.The most interesting aspect, for me, is that the optical quality coming from a federationof mom-n-pop optics and glass factories was ahead of almost anything else in Japan.I still haven't connected the federated effort to Dutch business/trade practices studied in Japan,but that seems like the model they followed.   And after WW2, of course, most other Japaneseproduct had a bad reputation.  It's after a good cleaning sometimes that the quality and precisionhits you in the eye like a ton of....sharp edged...bricks. They produced many little precision wide-angled binoculars that advanced on themother-products produced in Germany.  Both places ceased production of these littlecool x-wides, the Germans earlier.  I suspect they were too expensive to machine andthe public had little appreciation for them, a little thing with a big price.  The little Customs are about the only descendent left.Kind of a fascinating jumble of articles and quotes about Japanese optics, David Bushnell,and Nippon Kogaku (to become Nikon):<a href="http://www.miniaturebinoculars.com/page0006.htm" target="_blank">http://www.miniaturebinoculars.com/page0006.htm</a>...and many more tidbits....I got into miniatures for a while, but I could never clean up the contrast towhere the bigger ones were, so I haven't kept any 15mm-18mm ones,except a fewe phenomenal 6x18 extra-wides tagged Jason or Bower.</blockquote>

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