Markings for a 1944 4.5 inch Projectile

[peteblight]

A friend has a British 4.5 inch base ejection projectile with stamped markings indicating the year of manufacture as 1944.

Can anyone provide the correct body colour and markings for such a projectile please as he's planning to restore it either as a smoke or star projectile.

Cheers

Pete

 

[AE501]

Where are these stampings? Are they on the base, which would indicate a BL shell for the standard 4.5" medium artillery gun of the time, or are they on or above the driving band, which would indicate that it was a QF fixed shell?
I believe it to be the former, because as far as I know, the RN were using 4.7" at that time. Is 4.5" included in the stampings?
A picture tells a thousand words.

 

[gravelbelly]

Where are these stampings? Are they on the base, which would indicate a BL shell for the standard 4.5" medium artillery gun of the time, or are they on or above the driving band, which would indicate that it was a QF fixed shell?
I believe it to be the former, because as far as I know, the RN were using 4.7" at that time. Is 4.5" included in the stampings?
A picture tells a thousand words.

There was an overlap between the 4.7" and 4.5" calibres in use by the RN. I am pretty sure that the 4.5" was in use during WW2 but cannot give a date offhand. The earlier mountings used fixed cartridges which were heavy (about 85 pounds) and proved difficult to handle on a moving deck at sea. The change was made to separate shell and cordite leaving the shell exactly the same, including the crimp groove, and shortening the neck of the case.

I worked on the 4.5" Mark 11 mountings on HMS Eagle during 1964-66 and recall that all of the equipment was older than me (I was born 1943). The handbooks for these guns and mountings showed hoists and fuze setters for fixed ammo but our guns were changed to separate ammo. We sometimes fired WW2 dated H.E. shells in the wartime paint schemes to use them up.

gravelbelly

 

[TimG]

The change was made to separate shell and cordite leaving the shell exactly the same, including the crimp groove, and shortening the neck of the case.

That explains a lot. Back in the summer, I visited 'Explosion' and got to see the reserve collection. One of the exhibits was the carousel for a 4.5" QF Separate, gun. This was loaded with a number of cannelured 4.5" projectiles. I assumed they were being used with 'artistic licence'.

TimG

 

[peteblight]

Where are these stampings? Are they on the base, which would indicate a BL shell for the standard 4.5" medium artillery gun of the time, or are they on or above the driving band, which would indicate that it was a QF fixed shell?
I believe it to be the former, because as far as I know, the RN were using 4.7" at that time. Is 4.5" included in the stampings?
A picture tells a thousand words.

The stamped markings are on the side as shown in the attached picture.

Cheers

Pete

 

[AE501]

The basic body colour of the Land Service smoke shell is the correct colour rather than the naval one.
The star shell is naval.