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German 7,7 cm

S

silent knight

Well-Known Member
I found this piture on the internet and I wonder if the two objects near the 7,7 cm F. Schr. 96. shells are cartridges ?


DSCN1372.jpg

Pascal
 
They look like two piece casings, but rather short ? Must be for the 1916 separate loading gun.
 
Before the 7.7cm gun was rebuilt with a recoil system and sheild, it took separate loading ammunition. The shell case was 100mm tall. Note the low rotating band on the projectiles. This gun was designated FK1896. After being rebuilt in 1905-06 it was called the model Fk1896n/A. This model of the gun took fixed ammunition. In 1916 the gun was again rebuilt and now took separate loading ammunition but with the longer case, same as the 1896n/A but with no crimp marks at the neck. The early ammunition basket shown in the photo is for the first model gun, the fixed ammunition carrier basket took three fixed rounds.
 
@frizzen: all right, but what about the 1896 or 1897 (or pre 1905) dated cases with a length of 230 mm? ;-)

I also think the cases here are 77x100R, but they are normal brass cases with their protective caps still attached...
 
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There are 230mm cases with dates of 1896 and 1897, but these are very thin walled and were drawn from the older 100mm cases. If you examine them closely, you see that they are identical in every way to the original, even by weight. Usually they will have more modern dates stamped on the headstamp closer to the rim and in very small print. The cases in the photo do look different from those in my collection, perhaps they are later mfg. The older separate loading ammunition was used for target practice in the rebuilt guns. I have several photos that clearly show the older ammunition next to the modern gun. It doesn't make sense to me to practice with different ammunition than you would use in a tactical situation, but the evidence is that they did just that. There is still debate over when the original guns were rebuilt, some say 1905 or 1906 even 1908. I tend to think it was earlier but have not been able to verify this. The French came out with their gun in 1897, just one year after the Germans, but theirs had the recoil system. Why the Germans waited so long to rebuild theirs is a mystery. It is even possible that after the gun was rebuilt, they were using the older separate loading ammo and later rechambered it for fixed ammunition. The records are unclear.
 
One other thing here. In the first photo posted, you can see by the parts of the gun shown that it is the original model 1896 and not the rebuilt 1896n/A, so it is unlikely that it is of more modern mfg cases.
 
Here are some shots of the different ammo types for the model 1916 7.7cm gun, the model 1896 gun and the rebuilt model 1896n/A gun. Also the baskets for the long projectile and standard projectile fixed ammunition, and a couple shots of the gun..006.jpg010.jpg007.jpg008.jpg075.jpg074.jpg678.jpg679.jpg
 
frizzen said:
There are 230mm cases with dates of 1896 and 1897, but these are very thin walled and were drawn from the older 100mm cases. If you examine them closely, you see that they are identical in every way to the original, even by weight.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much, I do not own one of these old cases I just noticed that they do exist. So it was'nt possible to do a comparsion. You solved a long asked question for me.

One more question would be, why so many 77x100R have a very large "A" stamped on the base. The same "A" exisits on the ogive of old 9 cm and 15 cm shells...?
 
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