130mm PRB manufactured HE LR/BB projectile for M-46 and M1954 field gun, Russia
In the 80's and 90's of the last century I was quite busy cutting about any piece of ammo I could lay my hands on. For some years this meant grinding on a monthly schedule. As I was living in a flat, of course one will understand you cannot grind ammo over there, a matter of common sense.
The father of one of my best friends had a greenhouse, secluded and out in the countryside. One day -on a birthday party- I jokingly asked him if I could use the workshop of the greenhouse to grind my artillery shells, and to my surprise he said "Shure, no problem".
Up to seven years ago I cut over there upon a monthly basis, up till the moment I decided to take it a bit slower as I grow older too.
As a kind of "rent" I made Shure he got a nice cutaway model every now and then, which ended up in the greenhouses office where it always seemed to draw a lot of attention of visitors, until pieces started to disappear, and the cutaway models disappeared into storage behind lock and key. About eight years ago the greenhouse seized activities and the workshop and office ended up as a storage for furniture and car parts. Some time ago the greenhouse was taken down, only the workshop was kept until it was sold recently. It was cleared out and I got a phone call to come over last friday. Five old rusty cutaway models had turned up from the attic.........everybody had completely forgotten about.
"Well", he told me "as I have no place left for them anymore I suppose you better take them home and repair them". As greenhouses generaly are quite humid and warm, one will understand it took me a few hours of polishing with rough to fine sandpaper to get it rust free and fine polished again.
The first one I patched up today:
A 130mm HE LR/BB (High Explosive Long Range / Base Bleed) projectile for the Russian M-46 M1954 field gun. (The M1954 is the improved M-46)
The Projectile is made by the PRB (Poudreries Réunies de Belgique SA) ammunition factory in Belgium, which went bankrupt in 1993. Apart from that it was later discovered that in spite of the Iraq arms embargo the factory had delivered powder for the Iraqi Babylon gun project together with a batch of 130mm HE LR/BB projectiles by using Jordania as an in between station.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/UK/Scott Report/f3-19.htm
The 130mm M-46 M1954 gun was a post WW2 Russian designed gun with a wide range of Sowjet produced ammunition.
In -as far as known- 1989 PRB started producing these projectiles, however threaded for Nato fuzes. This to serve a market of countries that had M-46 M1954 Guns in their armoury, but wanted to buy ammo on the free market.
The projectile was of an improved design, using a Base Bleed to improve the already long range of 31 km for the normal Russian VOF-842M HE projectile. The Base Bleed is an aluminium housing containing a slow burning powder stick with a high volume of gas exhaust. Upon firing, it is ignited, nullifying the base drag.
The drawn and machined steel body houses a TNT charge, a booster charge in a sheet aluminium housing is placed in top of the explosive charge, just below the booster of the fuze.
The projectile is fuzed with the Fuze MTSQ Nr. 2146. (MTSQ = Mechanical Time Super Quick), a time and impact fuze.
The length of the fuzed projectile is 730mm.
A separate loaded shellcase belongs to the projectile, which I do not have however, they seem to be quite rare. I do not know if PRB produced the shellcases.
Strange enough, none of the Jane's series of big and thick books from the 80's and 90's describing artillery ammo contains even the slightest mentioning of this projectile at the PRB ammo chapter.
If anyone has some more info about this projectile -preferebly factory booklets or data sheets- , please let me know.
Thanks in advance,
Regards, DJH
In the 80's and 90's of the last century I was quite busy cutting about any piece of ammo I could lay my hands on. For some years this meant grinding on a monthly schedule. As I was living in a flat, of course one will understand you cannot grind ammo over there, a matter of common sense.
The father of one of my best friends had a greenhouse, secluded and out in the countryside. One day -on a birthday party- I jokingly asked him if I could use the workshop of the greenhouse to grind my artillery shells, and to my surprise he said "Shure, no problem".
Up to seven years ago I cut over there upon a monthly basis, up till the moment I decided to take it a bit slower as I grow older too.
As a kind of "rent" I made Shure he got a nice cutaway model every now and then, which ended up in the greenhouses office where it always seemed to draw a lot of attention of visitors, until pieces started to disappear, and the cutaway models disappeared into storage behind lock and key. About eight years ago the greenhouse seized activities and the workshop and office ended up as a storage for furniture and car parts. Some time ago the greenhouse was taken down, only the workshop was kept until it was sold recently. It was cleared out and I got a phone call to come over last friday. Five old rusty cutaway models had turned up from the attic.........everybody had completely forgotten about.
"Well", he told me "as I have no place left for them anymore I suppose you better take them home and repair them". As greenhouses generaly are quite humid and warm, one will understand it took me a few hours of polishing with rough to fine sandpaper to get it rust free and fine polished again.
The first one I patched up today:
A 130mm HE LR/BB (High Explosive Long Range / Base Bleed) projectile for the Russian M-46 M1954 field gun. (The M1954 is the improved M-46)
The Projectile is made by the PRB (Poudreries Réunies de Belgique SA) ammunition factory in Belgium, which went bankrupt in 1993. Apart from that it was later discovered that in spite of the Iraq arms embargo the factory had delivered powder for the Iraqi Babylon gun project together with a batch of 130mm HE LR/BB projectiles by using Jordania as an in between station.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/UK/Scott Report/f3-19.htm
The 130mm M-46 M1954 gun was a post WW2 Russian designed gun with a wide range of Sowjet produced ammunition.
In -as far as known- 1989 PRB started producing these projectiles, however threaded for Nato fuzes. This to serve a market of countries that had M-46 M1954 Guns in their armoury, but wanted to buy ammo on the free market.
The projectile was of an improved design, using a Base Bleed to improve the already long range of 31 km for the normal Russian VOF-842M HE projectile. The Base Bleed is an aluminium housing containing a slow burning powder stick with a high volume of gas exhaust. Upon firing, it is ignited, nullifying the base drag.
The drawn and machined steel body houses a TNT charge, a booster charge in a sheet aluminium housing is placed in top of the explosive charge, just below the booster of the fuze.
The projectile is fuzed with the Fuze MTSQ Nr. 2146. (MTSQ = Mechanical Time Super Quick), a time and impact fuze.
The length of the fuzed projectile is 730mm.
A separate loaded shellcase belongs to the projectile, which I do not have however, they seem to be quite rare. I do not know if PRB produced the shellcases.
Strange enough, none of the Jane's series of big and thick books from the 80's and 90's describing artillery ammo contains even the slightest mentioning of this projectile at the PRB ammo chapter.
If anyone has some more info about this projectile -preferebly factory booklets or data sheets- , please let me know.
Thanks in advance,
Regards, DJH
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