History
Gyro gunsights were (for the most part) modifications of the reflector gunsight to aid pilots in hitting targets (other aircraft) that were turning rapidly in front of them. The reflector sight (first used on German fighters in 1918 and widely adopted on all kinds of fighter and bomber aircraft in the 1930s) was an optical device consisting of a 45 degree angle glass beam splitter that sat in front of the pilot and projected an illuminated image of an aiming reticule that appeared to sit out in front of the pilot's field of view at infinity and was perfectly aligned with the plane's guns ("boresighted" with the guns). The optical nature of the reflector sight meant it was possible to feed other information into field of view, such as modifications of the aiming point due to deflection determined by input from a gyroscope.
It is important to note that the information presented to the pilot was of his own aircraft, that is the deflection/lead calculated was based on his own bank-level, rate of turn, airspeed etc. The assumption was that the flightpath was following the flightpath of the target aircraft, as in a dogfight, therefore the input data was close-enough.
Read more about this topic: Gyro Gunsight
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