Something thats been bugging me...
 

Hello all.
This has been bugging me for a while now and I post in the hope that someone here can shed some light on the job of those rings that are hanging on the rafters?
It's my understanding that each man received a handgun for protection and if the case arises, for a quick anesthetics. But those rings?
The photographs information is that was taken in the armoury of No 149 squadron who were based at St Omer in 1918.
Two Gunners and a Sergent are inspecting their Lewis guns prior to a sortie.
I have inserted a slight enlargement of subject in question in the bottom right corner of the photo for your convenience.



http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...hatarethey.jpg

It's hard to see in the pic, but they may be artillery gauges used to check the size of cannonball.

I've seen similar circular wrenches used to set the elapsed time before a shell exploded and thus for ack-ack the height. The original from about the 17th century was a spiral set of dots on a shell fuse - the gunner pierced the required point for the time of flight so the shell burst over the taget. The old Priddy's Hard Museum near Fareham used to have a great display of old gunnery but it all got removed with the "update".

You could very well be right on the fuse spanner ICT_SLB.
Number 149 sqn did primarily fly FE.2b's as night bombers.
I will have a look at bomb fuse's used around 1918.