The earliest 37mm HE shell?

[Tony Williams]

AFAIk the first 37mm explosive shell was used in the 37x94R round designed for the Hotchkiss multi-barrel 'canon revolver' of 1885.

Were there any earlier HE shells in this calibre?

 

[Gspragge]

37mm 1874

These are the earliest Hotckiss production types that I know of. The Light pattern also exists with the the 1874 ribbed band. Those shown are 1 Pr. Heavy pattern projectiles. None are mine.

 

[Tony Williams]

Thanks Gordon,

Some supplementary questions:

Were these rounds first developed for the canon revolver, or were there any earlier guns chambered for them?

Second, was the 37mm (1 pdr) calibre in use before the Hotchkiss 37x94R cartridge was developed?

 

[Gspragge]

Referring to Robert's book it seems anything before these was rather experimental and while noted as 37mm might have been 40mm. All of these were for the Revolving Cannon which seems to have come first. The Prussian 1870 Anti Balloon gun was it seems 41mm or something like that which appears to be the first use of this kind of small calibre in an organized way, but has nothing really to do with these. I guess just coming out of the muzzle loading era 37mm would be too small to be useful if used that way so I guess Hotchkiss was the first to apply this calibre to modern cartridges, without which this size would be rather useless.

 

[Tony Williams]

Thanks again, Gordon.

I have always assumed that the 37x94R was inspired by the St Petersburg Declaration of 1868 in which leading nations, perturbed by the possible use of newly-developed explosive bullets in warfare, banned any such projectiles weighing less than 400 grams, for which the 37mm calibre was appropriate at the time - so these rounds were the smallest legal size.

 

[Gspragge]

That seems to be the case and Hotchkiss seems the first to make something that small work and be of some military use. Given the weaker power of the explosives of the time (Black Powder) smaller wasn't really better. It should be remembered that these small projectiles weren't intended to blow anything up, but to inflict damage with the fragments.

 

[saintlo990]

That seems to be the case and Hotchkiss seems the first to make something that small work and be of some military use. Given the weaker power of the explosives of the time (Black Powder) smaller wasn't really better. It should be remembered that these small projectiles weren't intended to blow anything up, but to inflict damage with the fragments.

The fragmentation effect of the early cast iron 37 mm shell was very small, and the fuses were almost useless on graze. I have a round of black powder loaded Mle 1888 Common shell (very similar to the Hotchkiss common shell) that was burned in a sand pit and exploded. We only recovered about 15 large pieces, wth the base, fuse, and front intact.

British Surgeons reports after the Boer war particullarly emphasized the non operation of the fuse when striking personnel. (It would go through them.)

When the black powder loaded base fused steel shell was introduced the exploded fuse sometimes did not even reupture the case. I have one with the fuse body sill in the shell and the plug blown out and no cracks in the shell body.

 

[Gspragge]

None of this surprizes me. The idea of the pointed projectiles was to penetrate the thin sides of a torpedo boat, (in those days it had to get within a thousand yards to launch the torpedo's !) the projectile explodes 3 feet or so after passing through and the fast moving fragments do the damage. The original projectile for land use was the heavy 1 Pr, with is longer than the regular kind it had a better fuze. The smaller light projectiles were for navel use where if they hit anything it was very flat and hard so the Desmaresk fuze worked well, on land the light projectile used the same fuze as the heavier projectile. But the only way these were effective was in volume which you could get with the revolving cannon. The 1885 book by Lt Very explains the tests very well of these munitions if you have seen that. The U.S. Steel Shell MK1 was even worse, sometimes the thing only splits in half and the fuzes can be filed a bit and fit again. The image of the fragmented projectiles are the 1 Pr Heavy

 

[Tony Williams]

British Surgeons reports after the Boer war particullarly emphasized the non operation of the fuse when striking personnel. (It would go through them.)

Somehow I suspect that such a hit was probably still quite effective...