Colour of 25pr Propaganda Shell WW2

[Buster]

The attached image shows soldiers loading propaganda leaflets into 25pr base ejection shell. My questions are:

What was the basic body colour of these shell?

Were they supplied as specific shell or were they just modified smoke BE which could be easily disassembled?

Can anyone identify the fuzes in the picture they look odd to me. Or are they just unusual fuze covers?

Thanks in advance

 

[Burney Davis]

The odd looking 'fuzes' are fuze covers. I have one marked 221 and another marked 223. I believe they were just modified BE smoke shells.

 

[Rrickoshae]

Yes, mostly shell delivered leaflets were sent over in boxes to be loaded at the point of use into smoke shells that had had their smoke pots emptied out leaving the expelling charge in place. However some 25pdr smoke shells were factory loaded with leaflets. These were painted black, with the usual red band and filling station details and ‘Leaflet’ stencilled in white.
leaflets that were delivered by shell, rather than aircraft, are easily identified as the expelling charge builds up considerable pressure before the base closing disc lets go causing the rolls of leaflets to be compressed and leaving them with lozenge shaped folds and, for those in the top roll, scorch marks.

 

[Rrickoshae]

The stepped fuze cover was designed for use with the No.222 series of time fuzes which were in effect a No.221 time fuze with the external shape the the No.117/119 D.A. Fuzes. This allowed change from D.A to time fuzing without needing to recalibrate the weapon. But the caps appear to have been used with both 221 & 222 fuzes.

 

[Rrickoshae]

You can see the distinctive folding caused by the build up of pressure before the base plate lets go in these leaflets from my collection.

 

[Buster]

Thanks for all the informative replies.

 

[ron3350]

Thanks for finally identifying my fuze cover. It has many dints and is a No5 1 made by SPL over V so is Australian? (Who is this company?)
Dated 6 / 65 in black. It has a rubber seal at the base groove so missing the steel clip.
The middle section seems longer than that shown by Rrickoshae , the flat part is about 30mm long.
I thought it was home-made but now I must keep it as a variation.

 

[fert]

Hello,
I have these 25pr BE Mk1D, one of wich has a capital P on it. Could be a local conversion marking for Propaganda?
all the best

 

[G1u53pp3]

The stepped fuze cover was designed for use with the No.222 series of time fuzes which were in effect a No.221 time fuze with the external shape the the No.117/119 D.A. Fuzes. This allowed change from D.A to time fuzing without needing to recalibrate the weapon. But the caps appear to have been used with both 221 & 222 fuzes.

I'm attaching two cutaways that show the protective caps on the No.221 and No.222, I think they may be useful.

 

[G1u53pp3]

I also confirm that the body is exactly that of the SMOKE type, I have seen several unexploded ones, but never with the colorations. An Italian manual describes the coloration of the smoke (in Italy it is designated as "nebbiogeno") with the body colored green and a red band near the warhead. Obviously we are talking about smoke colorations, I don't know if they were then actually simply adapted without coloring them or not.

I'm also adding the cutaway in the smoke projectile.

 

[Rrickoshae]

I’m not aware of smoke shells converted to leaflet carriers being marked in some way but it would make sense if they were. And the ‘P’ do look to have been applied as an after thought. When I said ‘point of use’ I didn’t mean right next to the gun about to fire it. So it would make sense to mark the shells containing leaflets rather than smoke pots so that when brought to the gun, the gunners would know which was leaflet and which was smoke. sending a shower of leaflets might confuse and confound enemy troops for a short while but unlikely to screen your own activities for very long. Equally, if the smoke rounds were of the target acquisition coloured smoke type, telling RAF pilots to bomb on the leaflets would equally confuse them!

Hello,
I have these 25pr BE Mk1D, one of wich has a capital P on it. Could be a local conversion marking for Propaganda?
all the best
View attachment 205966View attachment 205967View attachment 205968View attachment 205969View attachment 205970View attachment 205971View attachment 205972

 

[G1u53pp3]

I'm also showing you some 'trophies'. The propaganda war is very fascinating to me.

 

[LEAFLET]

Yes, mostly shell delivered leaflets were sent over in boxes to be loaded at the point of use into smoke shells that had had their smoke pots emptied out leaving the expelling charge in place. However some 25pdr smoke shells were factory loaded with leaflets. These were painted black, with the usual red band and filling station details and ‘Leaflet’ stencilled in white.
leaflets that were delivered by shell, rather than aircraft, are easily identified as the expelling charge builds up considerable pressure before the base closing disc lets go causing the rolls of leaflets to be compressed and leaving them with lozenge shaped folds and, for those in the top roll, scorch marks.

Hello Rrickoshae
That are the details about the colour of the propaganda shells I know to.
Btw as far as I know the Americans used there Smoke BE shells for Propaganda shells aswell, the 4 leaflets you posted where delivered with 105 mm shells.

LEAFLET

 

[G1u53pp3]

The British 25-pounder was used to launch propaganda leaflets during WWII. In 1943, in Tunisia, Captain Con O'Neill rediscovered this technique after finding that leaflets dropped from aircraft at 15,000 feet could drift up to 2.5 miles from the target due to wind.

On January 22, 1943, he tested the first modified 25-pounder propaganda shell, and twelve days later the first seven rounds were fired at German troops. The advantage was precision: firing at a few hundred feet altitude, the leaflets had little chance of being blown off course by wind, allowing specific visible targets to be hit accurately.

Although the shells tended to wrinkle and sometimes slightly singe the leaflets from the blast, they offered a much more precise solution than aerial drops for tactical psychological warfare.

Check out https://www.psywarrior.com/PropArtilleryShell.html

it's an excellent resource on PSYOP history and techniques.

 

[Rrickoshae]

Hello Rrickoshae
That are the details about the colour of the propaganda shells I know to.
Btw as far as I know the Americans used there Smoke BE shells for Propaganda shells aswell, the 4 leaflets you posted where delivered with 105 mm shells.

LEAFLET

That’s a nice collection of leaflets! I’m obviously not the only one who has a leaflet collection! Just a pity that the psywar.org site nolonger runs - it was an amazing source of info