30mm ADEN AP

[Buster]

Attached is a picture of 3 AP shell (shot?) for the 30 mm ADEN HV Cannon. The unpainted shot is date stamped, RG 54 and the middle black one RG 53 which is about right according to Labbett/Brown, British 30mm and 30/20mm Ammunition. However the one on the right is stamped RG 44, this to me seems far to early for this projectile. Does anyone have any information on this.

 

[Tony Williams]

Well, one thing we can be certain of is that Radway Green was not making 30mm Aden projectiles of any type in 1944!

 

[2pounder]

were they RG making projectiles to test captured German 30mm cannon?

 

[Buster]

Could be, does anyone know what projectiles were used in the British made 30mm (Hispano?) wartime cases which much later became the RARDEN cannon?

 

[Tony Williams]

were they RG making projectiles to test captured German 30mm cannon?

The Mauser revolver cannon were at an early development stage at the end of the war, with only about a dozen prototypes made, and some of those were in 20mm. I don't think that any of these were captured until after the European war was over. In any case, the Mauser MG 213C 30mm had a short (85mm) case with very long projectiles from the MK 108, very similar to the Low Velocity Aden (86 mm case) which entered service in the early 1950s. But the short projectiles shown in the pic above belong in the High Velocity case (111-113 mm) which came out in the mid-1950s.

A key point with all of the various 30mm MG 213-derived types, from France, the UK or (experimentally) the USA, is that while case lengths varied from 85mm up to 126mm, the overall cartridge length always remained the same at 199mm - the length of the exposed projectiles varied to fit.

 

[Tony Williams]

Could be, does anyone know what projectiles were used in the British made 30mm (Hispano?) wartime cases which much later became the RARDEN cannon?

Here they are, from the ECRA bulletin of February 2011 which had an article about the development of the 30mm Hispano (item 550-9):

 

[Buster]

Thanks Tony, I guess why it is stamped RG 44 will remain a bit of a mystery, it certainly does not fit in with anything I have ever seen.