truthergw Posted 30 March , 2011 Share Posted 30 March , 2011 From anecdotes, a shell which lost its driving band made a recognisable sound as it ( hopefully) passed overhead. Until ir passed on, it caused great anxiety as its flight was unpredictable. Co-incidentally, at the gate of the cemetery in Auchon Villers when I visited a couple of years ago, there was a shell with its band in a very bad state where someone had been trying to remove it but had given up. Perhaps they paused in their labours and their eye fell on the headstones and last resting places and that had given them reason to reconsider just how badly they wanted the bit of scrap. Or perhaps they had simply nipped off for a bigger hammer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnreed Posted 30 March , 2011 Share Posted 30 March , 2011 4.5 in HE round removed from sportsfield Langemark 2006 No corrosion after being burried 90 years. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bierlijn Posted 30 March , 2011 Share Posted 30 March , 2011 From anecdotal evidence, all the farmers in the Ypres area were to a greater or lesser extent in the scrap metal business after the war. Cutting the drive band off was quite usual. Hugh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
18th Battalion Posted 30 March , 2011 Share Posted 30 March , 2011 4.5 in HE round removed from sportsfield Langemark 2006 No corrosion after being burried 90 years. John That blue clay is incredible at preserving things due to the lack of oxygen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Bailey Posted 31 March , 2011 Share Posted 31 March , 2011 I don't believe any driving band would come off a shell in flight. They are too tightly located on the body of the shell. There are many photos of French soldiers and post war farmers attacking shells with hammer and chisel to remove the bands to make trench art. I include a photo of quite a rare example. A complete driving band found at the site of an explosion. In this case a German cross channel shell from WW2. This was dug up in a garden in Folkestone. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seadog Posted 31 March , 2011 Share Posted 31 March , 2011 This is one of my very favourite WW1 topics!, I just love things that go BANG!. This shell was in the woods behind the destroyed village of Douaumont on the Verdun front. Note what is I thnk a large dent in the shell, could it be that this contains gas?. Lots more here: Flickr photoset Regards Norman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
auchonvillerssomme Posted 31 March , 2011 Share Posted 31 March , 2011 What size shell is it John? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
auchonvillerssomme Posted 31 March , 2011 Share Posted 31 March , 2011 Bairnsfather Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Bailey Posted 31 March , 2011 Share Posted 31 March , 2011 What size shell is it John? Hi Mick It's a 6 inch. Most people imagine the cross channel shells to be huge but most were 6 - 8 inch shells shot up long guns with large charges. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 1 April , 2011 Share Posted 1 April , 2011 True Gunner, but what about the 38cm guns at Batterie Todt? Cheers TonyE (Off topic I know, sorry) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Bailey Posted 1 April , 2011 Share Posted 1 April , 2011 True Gunner, but what about the 38cm guns at Batterie Todt? Cheers TonyE (Off topic I know, sorry) Quite agree Tony. The Germans varied their calibres as did we. Our Guns went from 9.2 inch (Citadel and South Foreland Batteries)up to the 18 in big guns like Boche Buster, with the likes of Scene Shifter and others being 13.5 inch. However the Germans did I believe sleeve some of their larger guns to fire smaller shells longer distances. One shell of these smaller shells from Todt did I think reach the outskirts of Maidstone. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiegeGunner Posted 1 April , 2011 Share Posted 1 April , 2011 One shell of these smaller shells from Todt did I think reach the outskirts of Maidstone. What did it do — land on a railway wagon as it pulled out of Dover? Wissant to Maidstone is about 80 miles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 1 April , 2011 Share Posted 1 April , 2011 Wissant to Maidstone is 55 miles according to my Autoroute software, so still a fair way for a shell of any kind! Also, I don't think there were any small calibre long range guns at Todt, only the 38cm and local defence guns. Regards tonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calibre792x57.y Posted 1 April , 2011 Share Posted 1 April , 2011 There were lots of shells lying about in the Twenties and lots of shrapnel bullets and lots of unemployment. The unemployed scavenged the battle field for scrap and sold it off. It is quite easy to remove driving bands with a 2 lb hammer and a sharp chisel and shrapnel could be picked up by the basket load. The result you see today. SW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Bailey Posted 1 April , 2011 Share Posted 1 April , 2011 Wissant to Maidstone is 55 miles according to my Autoroute software, so still a fair way for a shell of any kind! Also, I don't think there were any small calibre long range guns at Todt, only the 38cm and local defence guns. Regards tonyE They were experimenting with smaller shells - large charges with the idea of reaching London. Their problem was spotting the hits as the recce plans kept getting shot down, so they abandoned it, hoping the V3 would do the job. John (Apologies to the topic starter for going off course). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
auchonvillerssomme Posted 1 April , 2011 Share Posted 1 April , 2011 There were lots of shells lying about in the Twenties and lots of shrapnel bullets and lots of unemployment. The unemployed scavenged the battle field for scrap and sold it off. It is quite easy to remove driving bands with a 2 lb hammer and a sharp chisel and shrapnel could be picked up by the basket load. The result you see today. SW From experience I would disagee that removing a driving band, even an 18 pounder is easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiegeGunner Posted 1 April , 2011 Share Posted 1 April , 2011 Wissant to Maidstone is 55 miles according to my Autoroute software I used the AA Route Planner and have just discovered that it doesn't give the distance 'as the crow flies', but the length of a route that involves going through the Channel Tunnel ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tootrock Posted 1 April , 2011 Share Posted 1 April , 2011 Using the ruler thingy on Google Earth the straight line distance from Wissant to Maidstone is 56.5 miles. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Bailey Posted 2 April , 2011 Share Posted 2 April , 2011 Using the ruler thingy on Google Earth the straight line distance from Wissant to Maidstone is 56.5 miles. Martin Still less than the 'Paris Gun' achieved in WW1 but at far less cost. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Flashman V.C. Posted 2 April , 2011 Share Posted 2 April , 2011 I'm with the coastguard and sometimes we get called out to deal with WW2 munitions on a beach close to where I live mostly mortar bombs and anti tank shells. Theres plenty of brass banding to be found on the beach.......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Bailey Posted 2 April , 2011 Share Posted 2 April , 2011 I'm with the coastguard and sometimes we get called out to deal with WW2 munitions on a beach close to where I live mostly mortar bombs and anti tank shells. Theres plenty of brass banding to be found on the beach.......... Driving bands are normally copper and brass rings normally come from fuzes. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Flashman V.C. Posted 3 April , 2011 Share Posted 3 April , 2011 Definatly copper bandings they have got the rifling groves on them. Got a good photo of a mortar bomb on the beach when you turned it round in had the date 1942 stamped into the casing. EOD came and blew the lot up.... Dazz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asanewt Posted 3 April , 2011 Share Posted 3 April , 2011 I can show you two Geraint. Only five minutes walk from you! Listen for the bang!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geraint Posted 4 April , 2011 Share Posted 4 April , 2011 If you've got them in the house Jules - I'll be giving your neighbourhood a miss till I hear the bangs!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
franzmaximilian Posted 11 April , 2011 Share Posted 11 April , 2011 I don't know about France and Belgium, but surely the retrieval of metals was a common profession in post war impoverished Italy. Of course copper was the most valuable, but also steel and iron were collected at places close enough to roads. "Experts" did manipulate rounds having a deep knowledge of their mechanisms and variants. Of course mortality was quite high... but most had no other choice to feed their families. The activity regained popularity in the mid '30ies when Italy was subject to international sanctions during the aggression to Ethiopia and prices of metals raised greatly. It is most likely that any shell found now days without its copper band had it stripped away immediately after the war. Manipulating those shells today is much likely more dangerous today than it was immediately after the war. Internal mechanisms would not act now in the same way they were supposed to when they were still nearly new and not corroded. Though most explosives used in shells are pretty stable, some are not in the long term. A good example is Pycric Acid which forms Pycrate Salts with heavy metals. Those are much less stable and really dangerous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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