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Ordnance BL 5-inch howitzer

wingsofwrath

Well-Known Member
Since the last thread concerning the 120mm Gruson and Krupp howitzers in Romanian service did so well and you managed to answer all my questions, I thought it was time to move on to another turn-of-the-last-century artillery piece in Romanian employ, this time with a more British persuasion.

Namely, this is the Ordnance BL 5-inch howitzer famously used during the Second Boer War and which we adopted in 1916 as the "Obuzierul „Vickers” de 127 mm, Model 1896" (127 mm „Vickers” Howitzer Model 1896) or "Obuzierul englez de 127 mm M.1896" (127 mm English howitzer M.1896) of which we received 28 via Russia in early 1917.

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The problem I have with it is I can only find ammunition drawings from 1902-5 of the "common shell Mk.I-III", which do not correspond at all with the ammunition we actually used with it, which seems to be two types of shell, one fitted with a No.44 fuze and one with a No.100.
So, my question is this - do any of you have proper drawings and/or pictures of this latter type of shell? I know for a fact the British Army used them as well in the Middle East.


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it's interesting to note both shells have the later pattern No.7 cupro-nickel driving band and also that, by the time they were drawn into this album (roundabout the early 30s) the paint on them had degraded so much they are drawn as brown rather than the original golden yellow.


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Obviously, when I said "the same two drawings" I was being hyperbolic rather than literal, but the point stands that these are all much too early to help me.

Besides, they don't fit dimensionally because the shortest of them, the "Iron, Mark I" is 381mm tall (15 inches as per plan) and the ones I posted are 330mm and 322mm respectively and they seem to have a much rounder ogive to boot.
 
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I was hoping to avoid this, but, since we don't have proper plans to go by, I decided to reconstruct these shells in CAD working from the few dimensions we do have - the heights are taken from the Romanian album, the diameters from the 1896-1909 manuals and a few other measurements from the construction plans of the 4.5-in shell . Surprisingly, I ended up with a pretty solid result for both of them.

I'm still lacking some proper dimensions for the No.44 fuze, but I have at least two No.100s and the plans for the 4.5-in shell which give me the proper mouth diameter and thread to fit a No.100 as well as width of wall, floor and radius of filleting for the explosive cavity and height for the adapter.
And it turns out I was wrong about the ogive radius, it's exactly the same as on the older shells, at 252mm / 9'.92.

The one thing which I'm still largely ignorant of is the proper shape of the driving band, because the stated dimensions of 14mm / .55 width don't square with the drawings.


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Hi Wingsofwrath,
This is the only drawing I can find for a dimension of the No 44.
On the left upper corner there are some. Sorry not mutch but better than nothing.
No dimensions of the driving band.

LEAFLET
 

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