37x94R Hotchkiss Baranovsky

[pzgr40]

From the time the Tzar was still the king of Russia…..Cutaway model of a Russian 37x94R Hotchkiss-Baranovski armour piercing explosive shell, although I have my doubts about the armour piercing capacity as the shell is made of cast grey iron. This can be observed by the pockets of carbon (dark colour) in the cast shell body. This means the ductility and tensile strength are low, which however means the fragmentation will be good. I’d rather call it a high explosive shell with a base fuze.

The base fuze is of the hotschkiss design where a sheet brass sleeve is placed over the firing pin with a double v-shaped bend end on the lower sides. A cilinder is placed over this assembly forming the set back weight. In safe position the cilinder protrudes above the point of the firing pin, preventing it from reaching the firing cap (red). Upon firing, inertia sets back the cilinder, flattening the double v-shaped bend in the sleeve on it’s way down. Upon impact, the firing pin, together with the sleeve and cilinder move forward, igniting the firing cap, which ignites the black powder charge, exploding the shell.

The shellcase is filled with coarse black powder. The shellcase is marked 1909 and has a naval anchor in it’s base stamp. Vo of the projectile is stated to be 400 mtrs/sec.

Regards, DJH

 

[Gspragge]

It's likely chilled shot, that is the head is much harder at the upper end than the rear of the projectile. These had low penetrating power but were intended to go through thin Torpedo boat armour and explode just after penetrating the fragments doing the damage. Rather a low explosive device as nothing much really got blown apart.
Here is some data from 1888 tests of Hotchkiss 37mm which is basically the same thing as the Russian rounds excepting fuze and band designs. The image
of projectiles that were put back together shows how they broke up. Steel shot would seem to be solid shot.