Greg Posted 29 September , 2004 Share Posted 29 September , 2004 Does any one have the splinter distances/lethal radii/minimum safe distances for of common First World War equipments on both sides? Regards Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnreed Posted 1 October , 2004 Share Posted 1 October , 2004 Greg The only way you could possibly find out this information would be for the Range Tables for the various equipments. Within the next month I will be going to the RA Library at Woolwich where I will be able to get the information for you. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Posted 1 October , 2004 Author Share Posted 1 October , 2004 Dear John , Many thanks.I would really appreciate that Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andigger Posted 2 October , 2004 Share Posted 2 October , 2004 Greg, Just out of curiosity what prompted your highly specific question? It seems like it deals with such minutea, and something that would be incredible hard to determine.... all reasons it fascinates me. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Posted 2 October , 2004 Author Share Posted 2 October , 2004 When I was the arty I was a FOO for a time- started thinking about fire planning in Great War. Had already noted the very short maximum ranges involved had also read some points about German fire planning and noted that medium guns lifted in 400 metre jumps.This made me curious! regards Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desmond7 Posted 2 October , 2004 Share Posted 2 October , 2004 Not WW1 - but I did see a prog. on landmines today on Discovery .. well the first 10 minutes. They gave an example of a German 'bouncing betty' mine in WW2 which used an explosive charge to reach a height of around four feet before showering lethal projectiles in a radius which would cover 25 metres. Nasty. However, I thought a 'bouncing betty' was a Vietnam era AP device? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhill Posted 2 October , 2004 Share Posted 2 October , 2004 When I was the arty I was a FOO for a time- started thinking about fire planning in Great War. Had already noted the very short maximum ranges involved had also read some points about German fire planning and noted that medium guns lifted in 400 metre jumps.This made me curious! regards Greg I would welcome some more professional opinion about this. I suspect we would have to be careful about defining exactly what the purpose of artillery was on a particular occaision. As I understand it, the purpose of the "barrage" was, as the name suggests, to place a "cordon sanitaire" between the defenders' reserves and the area under attack. The "creeping" barrage was a refinement to keep the defenders under cover as long as possible. Thus the lateral distance and the rate of fire might be more important than the length of the jumps. The British artillery schemes I have looked at typically had the field artillery starting, firing mostly shrapnel. Leading them by a few hundred yards were some of the smaller heavies. Ahead of them fired the Vickers machine guns, and ahead of them more heavies. The total depth of the barrage might be 600 - 800 yards or more. There was also special attention paid to specific targets and counter battery work. I am not an expert in this stuff. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Poilu Posted 2 October , 2004 Share Posted 2 October , 2004 No scientific specifics here but for the record I believe a typical British Great War 18 pdr Shrapnel shell was designed to disperse it's balls over a lethal radius of around 400yds square. A typical defensive grenade (ie a Mills No.5) might be lethal for an area of 50 - 100yds. A typical offensive grenade (ie a German stick grenade) might only be lethal in the immediate blast zone of say 10 yds. Obviously the concussive effects of HE shells in varying sizes are difficult to quantify. There are many stories of a shell landing in a group of men, most being blown to pieces and some surviving virtually intact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Posted 3 October , 2004 Author Share Posted 3 October , 2004 Thank you for all the replies! I find the whole area very interesting. Some years ago I read JBA Baileys Field Artillery and Firepower- which I found really stimulating. It had inter alia a theory of artillery development which related to the general tactical developments of the war- this argued for a gradual change in the rationale behind artillery activity from destruction to neutralisation. It is ony recently that I have really thought about how small the battlefields were given the density of men and equipment and the ranges of the weapons. the density of the bombardments must have been incredible.Someof the strange esacpes are also fascinating- I saw a 105 shell burst under a grand stand full of observers at a firepower demonstration and people sitting right above the blast were unhurt- the butterfly effect was really noticeable. I also watched calibration shoots which gave a clear idea of 'zone ' of the shells. The relationship between the depth of penetration of linesand the need to move guns forward also seems to have been important. The figures would help me to envisage the effects of differnttechniques at different periods ofthe war. Regards Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph J. Whitehead Posted 3 October , 2004 Share Posted 3 October , 2004 However, I thought a 'bouncing betty' was a Vietnam era AP device? Des, This was a WWII German type, one of the nastiest anti-personnel mines designed to inflict serious injuries in a wide area, unfortunately waist high. I always love the war movies where a man steps on a mine and you hear a click and nothing more, it seems if Hollywood is to be believed, the mines were of poor quality yet WWII, Vietnam era and later accounts and even some WWI accounts do not support this. Anyone stepping on a mine would be extremely grateful if it did not go off but I doubt this happened often or at all possibly. Ralph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnreed Posted 4 October , 2004 Share Posted 4 October , 2004 Greg Just to recap on "Splinter Distances" The two sets of criteria that intend to look into are 1. The maximum distance that a splinter is expected to travel from the point of detonation 2. The distance where lethal casualties would occur from the p;oint of detonation. I will not take into account Shrapnel Ammunition. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Samson Posted 11 December , 2004 Share Posted 11 December , 2004 Typically, what kind of maximum velocity would an HE shell fragment attain. I know there are too many variables to give a precise answer (calibre, bursting charge, size of fragment, and so on), I'm really just looking for a very rough figure. Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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