british 18 pounder case paint markings

[peregrinvs]

Very impressive work. I can’t help with your questions I’m afraid, but if you haven’t already done so I would recommend joining the British Ordnance Collectors Network: www.bocn.co.uk

[MAXELLENDE]

Hi

Hi

Here are 18 pounder shells from the 1918 Battle of the Cateau. Paints and markings are still visible. This may help.

[Rod Burgess]

Terminology

 

 

 

Be sure to use the correct terms so as not to confuse yourself and others. A complete round consisted of a PROJECTILE, fitted with a FUZE; and a propellant CHARGE. In “BREECH LOADING” (BL) ordnance, the charge was contained in one or more fabric bags and was referred to as a CARTRIDGE. In “QUICK_FIRING” (QF) ammunition, the charge was contained in a CARTRIDGE CASE (sometimes, though not strictly correctly, referred to as a “shell case”), usually of brass, and fitted with a PRIMER.

Artillery ammunition is either SEPARATE LOADING (ie you load the projectile and then the propellant charge separately) or FIXED (ie the projectile is firmly attached to the front of the case which contains the propellant charge, forming a single unit like a giant rifle round). Confusingly, the British used the term CARTRIDGE both for the propellant (with or without case) of separate loading rounds and for the complete assembly of a fixed round.

 

 

Projectiles could be solid (eg naval armour-piercing), which were called SHOT, or hollow with some kind of filling, which were called SHELL. Avoid referring to the hollow body of a shell as a "case" or "casing", to avoid confusion.

Just to throw a spanner in the works, some less-commonly seen projectiles existed which contradicted the simplified rule above. 

·         A few guns and/or howitzers of the WW1 period could fire a round consisting of a tin cannister of metal balls which burst on leaving the muzzle of the gun giving an effect like like a giant shotgun. These were intended to be used against close-in infantry in the open at very short range and for historical reasons were referred to as CASE SHOT or cannister. Case shot was quite rarely used by WW1 and none was ever produced for the 13-Pdr, 18-Pdr or 60-Pdr guns, nor for the 4.5-in or 6-in howitzers, nor for or most other "modern" guns.

·         PAPER SHOT was used to test-fire fortress guns and the like, which could not be pointed in a safe direction. The “projectile” was made of paper and disintegrated totally before reaching the muzzle.

·         PROOF SHOT was used exclusively in research establishments to test and measure guns or propellant performance.

·         PRACTICE SHOT was used only in training.

By 1915 official publications were describing solid armour-piercing shot and case shot as "becoming obsolete", though the former was reincarnated after the War for anti-tank use. Neither are you likely to see surviving examples of paper, proof or practice shot today.

 

 

13- and 18-Pdr shrapnel shell colours

 

As to the colour of British 18-Pdr and 13-Pdr shrapnel shells:

The Mk I shrapnel shell was the original and was painted black overall as were all other shrapnel at the time.

The Mk II and Mk III shrapnel shells had a slightly more pointed nose, which gave them different ballistics from the older shells (though the same as each other). To distinguish them from the Mk I they were painted a colour variously described as "slate grey" or "lead grey". However, when stocks of Mk I shells ran out, all shrapnel shells for a gun had the same ballistics and the grey was discontinued. Thereafter all shrapnel shells for all types of gun were painted black.

 

 

The Explanatory List of Service Markings To be found on ammunition and ammunition packages in use with the Field Armies, 1918, and the Treatise on Ammunition, 10^th Edition, 1915, list the colours which projectiles should be painted, as follows (I have omitted purely naval ammunition):

 

 

Body colour

 

All lyddite and HE shells (except as below)	Yellow
QF HE shells made up with reduced propellant charge cartridges	White	Note 1
BL 15-Pdr shrapnel shells QF 13-Pdr shrapnel Mk II & III shells QF 18-Pdr Shrapnel Mk II & III shells QF 12-Pdr (8 cwt) and 12-Pdr (12 cwt)2 all except lyddite shells	“Lead colour”	Note 3
QF shrapnel shells made up with reduced propellant charge cartridges	White	Note 4
All smoke shells	Light green
All incendiary shells	Red
All chemical (gas) shells	Light grey
Target-indicator shells	Light green
All other projectiles	Black

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes

¹    QF 18-Pdr HE shells made up with reduced propellant charge cartridges were painted yellow with a white band around the body.

²   The QF 12-Pdr (8 cwt) and QF 12-Pdr (12 cwt) were both obsolescent naval “landing guns” mounted on field carriages and were not used on the Western Front. Their projectiles were painted yellow to distinguish them from ammunition for other 12-Pdr guns with which they were incompatible.

³    As described above, from about 1916 onwards all QF 13-Pdr and QF 18-Pdr shrapnel shells were painted black.

⁴     QF shrapnel shells made up with reduced propellant charge cartridges were white from the shoulder to the driving band with the remainder black (or grey, as described) except for their red tip.

 

 

Tip colour

 

Some projectiles had the tip of the nose (except the fuze) painted as follows

 

 

All shrapnel shells	Red
All shot (except case shot)	White
All common shell (except lyddite)	Black

 

 

Rings around the head (ie between the tip and the shoulder)

 

 

Red	Indicates the shell is filled	Note 5
Black x 2	On incendiary shell, indicates the shell is filled (discontinued late in the War)	Note 6
Black	On HE shell, indicates that powder-filled fuze is required
White x 2	Armour-piercing shell
White	Indicates steel projectile (discontinued late in the War)	Note 7
Light brown	Indicates cast iron or semi-steel projectile

Notes

⁵    Shell for hot climates were filled with Amatol and the red band was replaced by a ring of red Xs. Some earlier Amatol-filled shells instead had the red band overlaid with a ring of yellow Xs.

⁶    Incendiary shell were painted red overall, so two black rings were painted, leaving a red band between them, to indicate the shell was filled. This marking was discontinued late in the War.

⁷     This marking was omitted on steel HE, shrapnel and star shells, and its use was completely discontinued late in the War.

 

 

Bands around the body (ie between the shoulder and the driving band): non-chemical shells

 

 

Light green	Shell is filled with Trotyl (TNT), Amatol or Amatoxol 8	Note 9
White	Immediately below the green band on 18-Pdr HE shell indicates the round is made up with a  reduced charge propellant cartridge
Yellow	Target-indicating shell

Notes

⁸     If the shell is filled with Trotyl (the British name for TNT), the letters “TROTYL” are stencilled in black on the green band.

      If filled with Amatol (a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate), the proportion of the two constituents was stencilled in black below the green band, in the form of a fraction. Late in the War, when 80/20 became the accepted standard, the fraction was only marked on the shell if it differed from this.

      If filled with Amatoxol, the letters “XOL” were stencilled in black below the green band.

⁹    For ammunition not supplied in boxes (generally larger calibre shells which were often stood upright on their bases), the green band was to be painted just above the shoulder. Boxed rounds (whose boxes were clearly marked with the details of their contents) had the band around the body.

 

 

Bands around the body (ie between the shoulder and the driving band): chemical shells

 

 

No band	Filled with SK mixture
White	Filled with PS mixture
White x 2	Filled with PG mixture
White x 3	Filled with AK mixture
Red	Filled with CBR / CBR Mk II mixture
Red x 2	Filled with JR mixture
Red x 3	Filled with JBR mixture / White Star mixture
White over red	Filled with VN mixture
White, red, white	Filled with NC mixture
Red, white, red	Filled with CG mixture

 

Star shell

Star shells were painted black overall with the standard red ring on the shoulder when filled. Below the ring, they bore a red six-pointed star on a white disc.

 

 

So much for shell colours. Their stamping and stencilling are a story for another day, as is the painting and stencilling of QF cartridge cases.

 

References

 

Treatise on Ammunition, 10^th Edition, 1915. War Office, London. 1915.

Available online at

            https://www.milsurps.com/content.php?r=329-1915-Treatise-on-Ammunition

 

Handbook of the 18-Pr QF Gun: Land Service, 1913, Reprinted with Amendments, 1914.

HMSO, London. 1914.

Available online at

            https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/handbook-of-the-18-pounder-field-gun/

 

Explanatory List of Service Markings To be found on ammunition and ammunition packages in use with the Field Armies, 1918. HMSO, London. 1918.

Available online at

            http://bulletpicker.com/pdf/Explanatory%20List%20of%20Service%20Markings.pdf

 

Early British Quick Firing Artillery, Len Trawin. Nexus, Hemel Hempsted. 1997.

 

Gun Drill for 18-Pounder QF Gun, Marks I to II on Carriages, Marks I* to II. HMSO, London. 1920.

Available online at

            https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE5349168&mode=browse

Edited 16 September , 2020 by Rod Burgess
Formatting error

[Rod Burgess]

My description of the difference between shot and shell could have been better...

 

In the earliest days of artillery, the only kind of projectile available was a stone ball. Layer, the balls for guns, howitzers and mortars were made of cast iron. In those days, anything fired from an artillery piece was called SHOT. Eventually, some bright spark realised you could fire explosive BOMBS filled with gunpowder from mortars. Later, the idea was copied for howitzers: a hollow iron SHELL was packed with gunpowder and lobbed at the target on a relatively high, looping trajectory. For both guns and howitzers meanwhile, other forms of shot developed: GRAPE-, CANNISTER- and CASE-SHOT all included sub-calibre balls of varying sizes which spread from the muzzle of the piece like a giant shotgun; BAR- and CHAIN-shot were used at sea and consisted of one or more large lumps of iron linked together which whirled through the air to destroy masts and rigging; CARCASS-SHOT was an incendiary for setting fire to ships and fortifications. Then, in Napoleonic days, a British officer called Shrapnel invented a projectile in which a hollow sphere was packed with gunpowder and lead musket balls. It meant that you could get the same effect as case-shot but at longer range since the thing didn't burst until it had travelled some distance from the point of firing. For that reason, he christened it SPHERICAL CASE-SHOT, even though it was a form of hollow shell, but when pointed, cylindrical versions were developed in the victorian era they were re-named SHRAPNEL SHELLS, in honour of their inventor.

 

Developing as they had, the word SHELL came to mean a hollow projectile with some kind of filling, while SHOT came to mean anything else fired from a gun or howitzer. All mortar projectiles were, and still are, called BOMBS.

 

By WW1, the term SHELL was applied to a variety of hollow, filled projectiles including COMMON SHELL (filled with explosive), COMMON POINTED SHELL (likewise but with a more pointed nose), COMMON POINTED SHELL WITH CAP (ie with a crushable nose cap to improve effective penetration); ARMOUR-PIERCING SHELL (with a strengthened and hardened nose but still containing an explosive filling); ARMOUR-PIERCING SHELL WITH CAP (self explanatory); LYDDITE COMMON SHELL (ie common shell filled with the new picric acid high-explosive, Lyddite developed in the late 19th century at Lydd, in Kent); HIGH EXPLOSIVE ("HE" - filled with the latest, high-explosives such as Trotyl, Amatol, Ammanol etc); SHRAPNEL (as described above, though the balls were no longer pure lead); and STAR SHELL (which contained pyrotchnic candles or "stars" to illuminate the scene); SMOKE SHELL (self explanatory); CHEMICAL SHELL ("gas" shells); TARGET SHELL (projectiles used in "registering" targets, which contained tracers, so their flight could be followed by eye and produced a bright flash and distinctive smoke ball on detonation). The term SHOT applied to everything else: solid ARMOUR-PIERCING SHOT (becoming obsolete in favour of explosive AP shell); CASE SHOT (becoming obsolete); PAPER-, PROOF- and PRACTICE SHOT (as described in my original post above).

Common shell and its variants were also becoming obsolete by 1914.

 

There is one other area of common confusion worth mentioning: practice and drill rounds. A DRILL round is an inert lump of metal, shaped exactly like a real, live round and weighing much the same: it is used to practice gun drills but does not go bang and fly down range when you operate the trigger - it has to be extracted from the breech by hand. A PRACTICE round is actually fired from the piece but contains no bursting charge, allowing practice of the crew and all procedures but not exploding when it arrives. Needlsess to say, a practice round can still do devastating damage if it lands outside the safe area of the range.

 

All these WW1 definitions are as listed in the Treatise on Ammunition referenced in my earlier post, so they can be regarded as the official British position at the time.

Edited 17 September , 2020 by Rod Burgess
Typing error