Folding officer's artillery ruler of the USSR. Such a different line of officers. An excerpt characterizing the Officer's Line

The officer's ruler is a special device designed for the work of an officer. It is usually made of transparent plastic and looks like a rectangle with various slots. Depending on a particular type, patterns, stencils, a protractor, divisions for measuring distances or angles, and for applying symbols, for example, on topographic maps, can be placed on it.

Application area

An officer's ruler, the photo of which you see above, is used, mainly for orientation on a topographic map, to determine more accurate coordinates. In addition, it can be used to easily measure angles, draw shapes, fonts and numbers.

Any officer ruler is a universal working tool that combines a variety of drawing devices. It is used mainly for taking measurements (for example, on maps and plans), conveniently marking symbols such as floods or fires, areas of radiation, biological or chemical contamination, and the placement of various types of weapons and equipment. The officer's ruler also allows you to mark highways, column tracks and special routes on maps. In addition, you can use it to create any graphic images, plans and diagrams.

Description

Any officer's ruler includes (in addition to such a simple geometric measuring instrument as a ruler) a scale scale, a protractor with a double-sided millimeter division scale and stencils. In addition, it must contain special inscriptions and images, as well as various ones. For example, these can be rectangles, circles, triangles, squares and ovals.

Main types

Currently, it is customary to distinguish between two main types of such products - the officer's naval line and the land line. The first is intended to simplify and speed up the laying of the routes of various vessels. This tool easily replaces the commonly used protractor and parallel ruler. In addition, it allows officers to bypass the necessary compass correction calculations. In this way, the possibility of calculation errors can be eliminated.

And finally, this simplest computing mechanism makes it possible to “remember” the deviation table, as well as the course followed by a sea vessel, and the corresponding corrections on this course.

As for the ground officer line, in addition to applying standard geometric shapes and symbols, it allows you to make such designations as a cannon (field gun, howitzer), machine gun (light, heavy), parachute (landing), communications station and observation post. The designations of all the signs presented on this instrument, which, depending on the additions inside and outside, can change their meaning, are described in detail in a special manual called “Commander’s Work Card”.

Tablet:
The 1935 model tablet began to arrive in units in 1936. It was usually made of high-quality black leather with a granular surface that did not give glare. Soldiers could also use civilian tablets, and there were also captured copies. By the end of the war, green or brown became the main color of tablets. The manufacturer's stamp and year of manufacture were affixed to the back of the top valve.

The 1935 model Meldekartentasche 35 tablet was used by officers, some non-commissioned officers, artillery observers, military field
gendarmerie, signalmen, couriers and other military personnel in accordance with their type of activity.

The most common model was a rectangular bag made of grained leather in black or brown. Its upper part was closed with a flap using a strap with a buckle (sometimes a staple was used).

Under the flap there were seven slots for pencils and several pockets for
rulers. Inside the bag was divided by a partition into two compartments.

One of them contained a protective card case made from two transparent celluloid sheets held together by a leather frame.

The tablet was worn on the belt, threading the belt through loops sewn to its back wall.
You could also carry the tablet on a strap slung over your right shoulder. According to the charter, in any case, it should have been located in front on the left side or on the hip

Field Officer Recruitment:

Pencils and erasers:

Cards

German map times of World War II

Deckungswinkelmesser - "goniometer"

Deckungswinkelmesser (protractor). It was included in the field kit of almost everyone who was involved in shooting (artillerymen, machine gunners, mortar men). Inside the optical device of the device there is an angle measuring scale with markings up to 30 degrees (in increments of 0.25 degrees). The tablet was stored in a special designated pocket:

Compartments for pencils and protractor

Curvimeter (Kurvenmesser) is a device for measuring the lengths of curved lines on maps. Definitely present in any tablet:

Topographic protractor (kartenwinkelmesser):

"Officer" line

Logarithmic ruler

Ruler-protractor

Celluloid protractor ruler, kept in a specially designated pocket

Pencil sharpeners:

Set of colored pencils

Case for collet pencils capable of writing on any surface, including acetate, celluloid and pigment. Pencils of excellent quality, produced for the army by Eberhard Faber. The name of the model speaks for itself: Taktik.
Nearby lies a kilometer ruler (Kilometermesser). This simple device made it possible to quickly estimate distance on maps of different scales. Plastic, aluminum and painted metal were used as ruler materials.

Stationery products, which we are now accustomed to seeing everywhere on store shelves, make our lives much easier. Even the improvement of computer technology will not be able to displace such necessary little things as, for example, a ruler from our everyday use for many years.
Such products were popularized back in the eighteenth century, when it was difficult to imagine a dinner party without beautifully designed invitations signed in calligraphy. If we talk about the history of the emergence of such objects, then the modern officer’s ruler with division into centimeters appeared more than two hundred years ago. Such even, smooth, thin planks:
measured scale and distance (for example, on maps);
drew straight lines and geometric shapes;
took measurements.
Since then, the intended use of stationery items has not changed much, but has only expanded significantly. So now the old-style officer's line is in almost every home, because it is an item that can come in handy at any time. Since the invention of this kind of measuring system, rulers have been popular in everyday life.
What is the modern USSR officer line?
Currently, the ruler contains not only an accurate measuring line, divided into centimeters and millimeters, but also:
protractor;
stencils for drawing simple geometric shapes;
ribs for drawing wavy lines, etc.
As you can see, such lines are distinguished by high levels of functionality, so it is difficult to imagine the work process, as well as the learning process, without them. The question of where to buy an officer's line worries a lot of consumers, because the modern stationery market does not always offer customers high-quality goods.
The colored plastic from which the ruler is made, which can be purchased in every store, is fragile. Therefore, such writing instruments must be used extremely carefully. What should you do if you want to purchase a truly high-quality product that will serve you for at least several years?
High-quality and functional officer line: buy in the Tylovik store
Our wholesale and retail store offers its customers exclusively high-quality stationery - pens, pencils, accessories, erasers and much more. Not only employees in certain government departments make purchases from us, but also ordinary students who understand that we always guarantee the excellent quality of our own goods.
If you need an officer's line for one purpose or another, you can buy it (Moscow) from us at the best price. It is the excellent quality of goods and their affordable prices that attracts a huge number of customers to us, who are always satisfied with the level of services provided.

This subject is familiar to most children who grew up in the USSR. Classmates looked with envy at the happy owner of a transparent strip with many holes in the form of various geometric figures. These days this item is more of a rarity. Even the military itself is increasingly resorting to using paper maps.

A little history

The exact time when people began to use a ruler is unknown, but during excavations of settlements of the ancient Hellenes buried under layers of sand and stone, archaeologists found smooth wooden tablets with divisions. This is not surprising, because the architectural monuments of that era are impressive. The ancient designers who created these structures probably used one or another drawing tools when developing their projects.

A ruler with modern measures of length appeared in France. One fine day, people got tired of endlessly converting some measures of length into others (pounds, inches, arshins, elbows, etc.) and a meter was adopted as a measure of length - one forty-millionth of the circumference of the globe.

Well, like any human invention, the line, when it was born, quickly began to develop. There are all kinds of rulers. Regular strip with divisions. A ruler in the form of a square with different angles. The usual protractor, indispensable in drawing, is a semicircle with divisions into degrees, etc.

Why did the officers need a ruler?

Since time immemorial, military personnel have used maps to plan their actions. And if the commanders of antiquity had no questions about how to plot the location of their troops and the enemy’s forces on the terrain map, then in times close to modern times, everything became not so simple.

The success of a planned offensive often depended on the strict execution of a specific task by subordinate units at a specified place and time. The maps of the area that the commanders had played an important role in this. The locations of units, directions of strikes and counterstrikes, locations of fortifications.

The troops have long ceased to consist only of cavalry and infantry. On the map it was necessary to indicate machine gun nests, locations of communications equipment, gun crews, positions of military equipment and much more.

It is precisely because of the variety of symbols and signs applied to military topographic maps that the need arose to unify all these designations. The goal is to make the map developed by one officer understandable and “readable” for all his other colleagues in uniform. The standard officer line began to be widely used during the First World War, and by all warring parties at once.

What is an officer's line?

Probably everyone knows what this drawing tool looks like. The officer's ruler is more of a kind of stencil with which special signs can be applied to paper. For ease of use, it is usually made of some transparent material. The USSR officer's ruler was made of transparent celluloid. The material was not completely transparent, but had a yellow-gray color. In the modern Russian army, an officer's ruler is used, cast from hard transparent plastic.

Lovers of antiques appreciate the Soviet version. But it’s not only collectors who are drawn to antiquities. Officers who, due to their occupation, still have to use a ruler, oddly enough, also prefer “Made in the USSR.” The fact is that the officer's ruler, made of celluloid, practically does not break, unlike its modern counterpart.

What are there

The officer's line is not 100% universal. Some troops had separate types. Here, for example, is the standard officer line. Photo from the standard set of officer's tablet.

The next option is not much different. This is a naval officer's line. Military school cadets also had their own line.

And here is another officer's line. Photo from US Army equipment.

And such rulers were found among captured or killed German officers during the Great Patriotic War.

How to use it

Any of the listed types of rulers contains a set of various icons that the military usually uses to designate certain tactical units. Just put the ruler down, press it down and trace the desired shape with a pencil. Any officer line contains a whole set of all kinds of symbols and various figures (outlines of aircraft, ships, other pieces of equipment).

Scale windows are designed to allow you to estimate the distance on the map in real units of measurement without wasting precious time on calculations. All other features of the standard ruler No. 2 are the same as those of any other drawing device. Individual edges of the officer's ruler are made in the form of irregularities of various configurations. With their help, wavy lines are drawn on the map. Almost all rulers have a familiar protractor - an angle meter.

Some copies have a section in the form of a magnifying glass, with which you can make out small symbols and inscriptions on the map.

Specialized rulers are more difficult to use. For example, an artillery officer's line. This is a whole measuring device, with the help of which the artilleryman could calculate, in addition to the firing range, some parameters ballistic trajectory, fire sector, etc.