Unkown 75mm Shrapnell

[Gspragge]

I thought at first an American 75, but I'm not so sure - French ?
No markings on the side of the body.

 

[LEAFLET]

Hi Gspragge,

It looks Dutch to me, but do you have some measurements for me?

LEAFLET

 

[Alpini]

It's a Krupp 7,5 cm shrapnell (most likely also made by Krupp). Exported to many countries and yes also to the Netherlands. These shrapnel shells were used in the same guns as the two Krupp percussion fuzes from Gordon's other thread.

 

[Gspragge]

Well that's interesting enough, would the Belgians have used these also ?

 

[Hoeksel]

The Belgiums also had the same gun (Krupp M1903 L/30 field gun) later made under license as M1905 Cockerill. Not 100 % sure about projectiles, but they ordered huge amounts of shell cases in 1909 and 1912 (the infamous shell case with Krupp shell case number 21 II). Everything about this projectile shouts "Krupp".

 

[greif]

What is the length of the Shell?

 

[Gspragge]

212mm , 74mm diameter below band and same above at widest point.
Rifling left marks in the paint finish so a good fit.
I just noticed a number stamp at the top, likely matching
to the long departed nose section.

 

[wingsofwrath]

In my mind, the only reason this is most likely not Belgian is because while everybody else followed the French pattern and made their shrapnel red, the Belgians followed the German one and made theirs blue instead:



Other than that, it could as well be Romanian, because we also used it and 212mm is bang on for the body lenght without the adapter, even though I don't see any conspicuous "RR" markings.
I know @Irod7 has a very nice one with original paint which looks very much like this, if he'd allow me to share pictures of it.

Out of sheer curiosity, how many rifling marks are there? The Krupp M.1904 has 28 as opposed to the French 75mm Mle.1897 which had 24.