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Is this a shell !?

Yodamaster

Yodamaster

Well-Known Member
Ordnance approved
Hi all,
I must face a difficult identification problem !
A friend of mine, retired EOD Technician, dugged out, in the region of Ieper (Belgium), a strange part of iron. Seeing the remnants of the driving band similar as a 18 Pd band, he thought immediatly on a WW I british shell, but.......
The shell is hexagonal in shape ! When he asked me his problem, I though immediately on a Whitworth shell, but, on my knowledge, these shells had no driving band. This era is not my favorite and these specific shells even less.

What is your meaning about it ? Should it can be a sort of trench art or a sort of necessity transforming to use after the war ?

Calibre of the shell, measured between two flat sides is approx 12 cm.
Bottom is provided of a location for base plate or base fuze.

Have a look on the pictures.


Yoda
 

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Now you got us baffled. Has the band got rifling marks, that would determine if the item is a shell or something completely different.My guess that it could be and ancient cannon with copper band to give the barrel strength or something like a ornate pot or vessel.
 
Thanks for answer, BMG50.
As my friend said, what seems to be a driving band is VERY similar on the 18 Pd shell driving band.
Rifling marks on a driving band let just know that the shell was fired. We regularly find driving bands without rifling marks.
Now, in this case, apparently, the driving band is too damaged to see if it is rifled !
Your idea that it could be an ancient cannon is helpfull, we can look in this direction too !


Yoda
 
In the case of a hexagonal shell, the copper band would be to gain a better gas seal, therefore no rifling marks. The manufacturing tolerances could be opened up on the barrel and projectile, as the copper would fill the gap. The Hex shaped projo does the stabilizing rotation. If you look at the U.S. 120mm HEAT projectile for the Abrams tank, it has an ever so slight copper band to seal gas, but the gun is a smoothbore. It gets its rotation, just enough to stabilize, from a slight twist in the T-shaped fins.
 
This thing looks very old so I wouldn't expect it to be of the last century.
 
HAZORD said:
In the case of a hexagonal shell, the copper band would be to gain a better gas seal, therefore no rifling marks.
Click to expand...

Just Hazord, I though the same thing, a sealing band to hold most of pssible the gas pressure, but I never saw something like that on this kind of projectile !
All the docs I could find about hexagonal shell report to Whitworth, and I never saw a Withworth projectile with a sealing band.
Armstrong_Whitworth.jpg
Somebody well, perhaps ?!?!


Yoda
 
Last edited:
Last news, the diameter of the hole of base plate is approx 10 cm ! Difficulty to measure !!!


Yoda
 
From the rather thin walls it looks more like a fragment of a cast iron drain pipe fitting, or a cast iron gas lamp standard/post. The copper band might then just be part of a bracket for fixing to a wall.



Tom.
 
Hi Yoda,
I found an 18pdr shrapnel shell very similar to this years ago at Polygon beek,but it only had two sides of the shell flattened,popular local theory was that it was in the middle of a 'stack' in a ammo dump that received a 'direct hit',the damage caused by the surrounding shells exploding and of course the weight of the stack partially containing the explosion causing the 'flattened' sides of the shell....research did show that there was a ammo dump in the location and did get hit in 1917

Tony
 
smle2009 said:
Hi Yoda,
I found an 18pdr shrapnel shell very similar to this years ago at Polygon beek,but it only had two sides of the shell flattened,popular local theory was that it was in the middle of a 'stack' in a ammo dump that received a 'direct hit',the damage caused by the surrounding shells exploding and of course the weight of the stack partially containing the explosion causing the 'flattened' sides of the shell....research did show that there was a ammo dump in the location and did get hit in 1917

Tony
Click to expand...


Well that makes sense Tony. If you look at the pictures the sides are not flat but some appear to be concave. Can you find an 18pr shell to do a physical comparison with ?

Cheers

Gary
 
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