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57mm projectile i.d needed
- Thread starter earni74
- Start date
highlandotter
HONOURED MEMBER RIP
Looks like a Gruson 57mm.
Hotchkiss has been considered, I just don't know, MINENAZ16 has seen one in a museum, so I will opt for Hotchkiss possibly for export, the (VR) stamp on the base of the shell is still a mystery to me.
MINENAZ, do you know the case length for this projectile and which fuze it has
mick
MINENAZ, do you know the case length for this projectile and which fuze it has
mick
Hi Sebastien, thankyou for your input,very interesting that it was filled with lead balls and segments , i can see inside that there are 6 verticle top to bottom segments, also, it has a thin shelf at the bottom and rounded for the powder cup just like a normal shrapnel round.I can also see that it had a (TIN ?) liner covering the segments inside although only the top one third is visible, i have tried to take a couple of photo's shining a torch inside the shell, i hope you can see this.
mick
wingsofwrath
Well-Known Member
Well, this is a surprise - I've been on this forum for years now and this is the first time I see this thread and the older one from 2014 about the same projectile. I was searching for "57mm Hotchkiss" with the forum search tool intending to find this other thread and this is the first time it pops up.
In any case, I think I can finally give a firm identification - and I could have done so earlier, had I found the thread before this moment.
This is a Romanian shrapnel for the 57mm Hotchkiss Md.1888/91 guns from the Bucharest forts.
It's incredibly rare, because the only reference of it I could find is in the plates for an article from the "Revista Artileriei" (basically the Romanian version of the French "Revue D'Artillerie") from January, 1899. Interestingly, the actual article does not mention it at all, it mentions just the semi-armour-piercing base fused shell and the case shot, which leads me to believe this was never actually adopted. Thus we have no idea what fuze it might have used.
Of course, we also know that the gun itself would be taken out form the forts and turned into infantry suport guns and AA guns, at which point they would finally get the Md.1915 steel shrapnel which would be used during the war with a bedazzling array of fuzes, from the 10s Md.1880 simple time fuze of the Md.1880 75 and 87mm field guns (modified to fit as the Md.1915 time fuze) to the 15s and 24s Md.13 "Burileanu" fuze of the 53mm Gruson.
In any case, I think I can finally give a firm identification - and I could have done so earlier, had I found the thread before this moment.
This is a Romanian shrapnel for the 57mm Hotchkiss Md.1888/91 guns from the Bucharest forts.
It's incredibly rare, because the only reference of it I could find is in the plates for an article from the "Revista Artileriei" (basically the Romanian version of the French "Revue D'Artillerie") from January, 1899. Interestingly, the actual article does not mention it at all, it mentions just the semi-armour-piercing base fused shell and the case shot, which leads me to believe this was never actually adopted. Thus we have no idea what fuze it might have used.
Of course, we also know that the gun itself would be taken out form the forts and turned into infantry suport guns and AA guns, at which point they would finally get the Md.1915 steel shrapnel which would be used during the war with a bedazzling array of fuzes, from the 10s Md.1880 simple time fuze of the Md.1880 75 and 87mm field guns (modified to fit as the Md.1915 time fuze) to the 15s and 24s Md.13 "Burileanu" fuze of the 53mm Gruson.
Last edited:
wingsofwrath
Well-Known Member
I was about to type that we have no idea what the fuze was, but I decided to look at the album of the Paris "Exposition Universelle de 1889" (yes, the World's Fair for which the Eiffel Tower was built) from the Cornell University Library and I think I just solved it, because there are these two plates, one of which definitely contains our shrapnel:
And yes, at the time we were already using that specific shrapnel fuze with the Armstrong 63mm Mountain Gun Md.1883, hence why they didn't feel the need to add it to the plate, because it was already a known quantity.
And yes, at the time we were already using that specific shrapnel fuze with the Armstrong 63mm Mountain Gun Md.1883, hence why they didn't feel the need to add it to the plate, because it was already a known quantity.