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Need help with colours for Arty Shells

Dear Expert and Knowledgeable Members,

I have just finished building a model of a 12 inch railway howitzer, with a spade wagon, in 7mm O gauge. With the start of painting I need information on the colour schemes for the shells. The model is for the defence of Southern England in late 1940.

From visits to the IWM it seems that shells were painted green or yellow to denoted filling and purpose. Was that true for my period and were there any other colours?

Thanks for your help,

David
 
Sir,
not to be a hard nose here on this fabulous website, but I believe you might be better off and introducing yourself first in the "Introduce Yourself" forum first. Then you may well get an answer from one or two of the members here or at the very least you can use the "Search" button first.
 
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Hey Commander

I could not find a reference to the ammuntion colors via the search function. A medium gray color for the projectile would suffice. I would be interested in seeing pictures of your project.

Rick

Update: I meant yellow :)
 
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Welcome CommanderChuff! It doesn't matter if you introduce yourself or not, especially when you are so courteous, even if some of our members appear discourteous and rude. Yeah it's nice if you do, but not mandatory by any means.

As to your question, there are a number of things to consider when trying to search for the color of your bullets. Color codes change periodically over the years when governments revise designs or update their policies for a number of reasons. So, things were painted a certain way during WWI, but then some nations made changes during the inter-war years, and the U.S. changed in 1942. In order to be more precise, we really need to know the Mark number and Mod number of your gun, if it was U.S. made or of U.K. manufacture, and if it was shooting ammo left over from WWI or newer production ammo from WWII.

Can you give us some more information about your model Howitzer?
 
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David,

A High Explosive shell of that era for use in the colder UK climate would be basically yellow with a lower 1" wide green band with black text denoting the type of HE used (i.e. "TROTYL" or "T.N.T."), and an upper 1/2" wide red band (solid band for colder climate, red crosses for hot climates) to signify when the shell had been filled with HE material. There is further black writing to specify the gaine type, mark and lot number; the exploder type (e.g. "EXPR C.E." for Composition Exploding); the filling method design number; the filling contractor's monogram letters; the month/year of filling; and the filled lot number in a circle.

The attached 1934 ordnance handbook images (grabbed off eBay) show a yellow anti-aircraft HE shell and a green smoke shell. The AA shell has a green disc to indicate it is fitted with a smoke box (smoke puff on explosion near aircraft to aid visibility), something a Howitzer shell would not have. The second image shows a 6" Howitzer shell on the extreme RHS which I found here on this forum (apologies to the owner for not crediting) and the first image is of 1940 dated 18 pounder rounds with the typical makings of the era shown on the HE round.

If a forum member has a copy of the relevant hanbook on markings could they please post the relevant page.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Graeme
 

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welcome to BOCN commanderchuff
first of all id like to appologise for an earlier reply that sounds unwelcoming,this is not intentional its just badly worded so dont let this put you off using the site.
i would also like to see the scale model youve made if possible sounds an interesting project

spotter
 
CommanderChuff,

My apologies to you for what was a really, a poorly judged introduction. I can assure you that I meant no harm in welcoming you to this great website as one person would have you think. I definately should of picked better words for my statements as one of the few who welcome new members. It was not worded right and I do hope that this will not hinder your exposure to this web-site.

Again my apologies Sir. As for the individual who stated I was rude, please understand that this person almost always responds with his hyperbole..

I too would like to see your project(s).



Now, For my usual response to new people:

"Sir, you have came to the right place to discuss your questions and needs that you may have."
 
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Hello David,
I'm sorry I can't help with your question, it's not in my area of expertise. I would very much like to see a picture of your interesting project and take this opportunity to welcome you to BOCN where there is a wealth of information.
Very best wishes,
Guy.
 
Gentlemen,

Thank you very much for your responses and interest in my models. Here is the railway gun and spade wagon photos.

Railway Artillery Howitzer

This model of the Mark 1 gun on a Mark 1 railway trolley is the result of many lonely week night hours in various hotels across merry England.

The gun is a 12 inch howitzer built by Armstrongs of Elswick, Newcastle, and the trolley wagon was built by Birmingham Carriage and Wagon Works. After the army had been taken off the Dunkirk beaches most of the heavy equipment and weapons had been left behind. These guns were primarily intended for mobile coastal defence and followed the practice of armoured trains.

The model is constructed entirely from plastic sheet, with the usual steel wheels and some other small bits in brass. The rivet heads have been cut off from cast components supplied by Calibre 35 and supper glued to the platework. The rough estimate of rivets is about 4,000. The gun is designed is to be lowered onto the track when preparing for action. This is done by having the bogies attached to large box sections at each end of the trolley. These are raised and lowered by large screw threads and I have managed to make the model operate in exactly the same way.

The gun was accompanied by a warflat which carried the outriggers and other large lumps of equipment, these were lifted off by a small hand crane. The outriggers and spades in the model can be slotted into the holders on the gun trolley for setting the gun for action.

The gun barrel is currently several plastic tubes, but the main difficulty is to cut the shape of the barrel. I do have a plan to use a homemade lathe but hope to get a friendly modeler to turn one up in aluminum. There are lots of rivets, about 4,000, and I have done nearly 50%. Contrary to popular response, cutting the heads off plastic rivets, only 1mm in diameter and super gluing them on long straight lines is quite therapeutic. Particularly after a hard day in the office. The accompanying warflat carries the shell trays and hardware for anchoring the gun down. The spades are dug into the ground and attached to gun wagon with the large outrigger arms.

The shells have been painted in dull yellow, as per your most welcome advice, and I out the red and green bands on during the next painting session.

Thanks again for your responses and will keep updating with new photos as I progress the train, David.
RailArty Howitzer 12inch Action5 Mk1 - Copy.jpgModel RailArty How12in SpadeWagon 4 apr2012.jpgModel RailArty How12in SpadeWagon 2 apr2012.jpgModel RailArty How12in  1 Jan2012.jpg
 
wow i didnt realise you had built it from scratch i thought it was a kit you had,,ive been trying to make an airfix kit of HMS Victory and my patience went very quickly so i can appreciate the hours and hours of work you are putting into this project,,
Look forward to seeing the finished result
Allan
 
Hoggs book British and American Artillery of World War 2 has on page 169 12 in railway how. a note that the ammunition is the same as the road how. on page 144, and 144 has a drawing of the shell and charges.
 
Hoggs book British and American Artillery of World War 2 has on page 169 12 in railway how. a note that the ammunition is the same as the road how. on page 144, and 144 has a drawing of the shell and charges.

Thanks very much for this 2pdr, will try to look at the book in the library at the weekend,

David
 
Hallo 2pdr,

The local library has got the Hogg artillery in WW2 book in and as a bonus also the WW1 book as well, and have taken these out on loan, they are turning useful data to confirm some dodgy dimensions, so thanks for the pointer, will be painting the bands on shells this weekend,

David
 
Howdy CommanderChuff,

I am interested to know how the guaging system works as I had an "O"guage clockwork trainset as a child, but that had a guage of 25mm (1")? I was wondering where the 7mm came into it?

Nothing to do with ammo I know, but I progressed from trainsets to ammo!!! LOL

PS: You have a lot of patience, well done & welcome aboard.

Regards Ozzi.
 
Hallo Ozzi,

The sizing and gauging of model trains sets has settled down since your old clockwork trainset all those years ago. These are referred to a coarse scale, which means that the model and track has no consistent scale or is true to the prototype. Without being offensive, these are toy trains. When the modelling community moved into using engineering standards a new set of scales were adopted called fine scale.

Essentially, the ratio of the model to the original is expressed as mm per foot, the gauge of track as mm, and the scale as a convenient groups which double in size.

So for OO scale the ratio is 4mm, track is 16mm, and is the most popular toy trainset by Hornby. The O gauge covers covers 7mm / foot, track 32 mm, and Gauge 1 is double that (16mm and 64 mm)

The main difference between OO and O, apart from the size is that there is less mass produced trains in O, so that most modellers have to build kits or scratch build.

Hope that helps and thanks for the kind comments,

David
 
Update to Railway Arty Shells

Just thought that I would post some pics of the completed model, showing the shells which have been painted in the colours provided by the BOCN members. Thanks for all of your help and expert advice.RailArty-Warflat-spad MetroCammell.jpgMEMO0043.jpgMEMO0042.jpgMEMO0041.jpg
 
Hallo again,

The railway gun is completed. After a bit of rush to get those final details on it the gun and spade wagon were entered into the annual modeling competition in the O gauge Guild show at Telford in September. The quality of models is always high and such it was on this occasion with a great big yellow railway crane taking the honours of the first prize and glass trophy. My little tiddler came a close second and I took home the silver. But never the mind, the thing is done, and it does look good on my layout, so here are some photos of the gun and wagon.

Far from being disappointed with the competition thoughts have now turned to a 18 inch howitzer model, a real monster, and I have got the project file out and looked at the drawings. Fortunately I have a mass of info from the IWM, footage of a large scale model in Duxford and drawings from Firepower.

I hope the attention to detail has pleased the experts, the many rivets and brass fittings, the copper driving bands on the shells and the general colour scheme.

Thanks for all of your support and helpful advice, and here is looking forward to the next model, all the best in whatever you are doing, and Marry Christmas,

David.MEMO0073.jpgMEMO0074.jpgMEMO0076.jpgMEMO0081.jpgMEMO0082.jpgMEMO0086.jpgMEMO0088.jpgMEMO0091.jpg
 
WOW that's amazing CommanderChuff, very impressive.
Welcome to the forum, its a great place to be.
Dave.
 
An 18" Howitzer still exists it is at Larkhill.

You can see it on Google Earth at 51.2053 -1.8156

It is on a proof mounting
 
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