German 15cm Naval Gun Ammunition

[musadv]

Hi Guys,

Like Alex, who posted his enquiry concerning a German Artillery cartridge case on 11 December last, I'm new to the Forum, and was attracted to join the forum by the 'promise' of photographs of the cartridge case of a 15cm German gun posted with Alex's enquiry. I'm researching the bombardment of Scarborough by ships of the Kaiserliche Marine in December 1914. It seems certain that the two ships which fired on the town used their 15cm guns, and Scarborough Museum has a rusty, empty shell, minus its fuze and with the driving bands grooved, of nominal 15cm calibre, so I'm pretty sure it's from the bombardment but it didn't explode, which is why it's survived. I'm now trying to find images of the ammunition these ships would have used, and in particular sectioned drawings which would indicate filling arrangements, etc of both shell and cartridge. So far I can't find any - can anyone help?

Best wishes,

Robin

[Khaki]

Hi Guys,

Like Alex, who posted his enquiry concerning a German Artillery cartridge case on 11 December last, I'm new to the Forum, and was attracted to join the forum by the 'promise' of photographs of the cartridge case of a 15cm German gun posted with Alex's enquiry. I'm researching the bombardment of Scarborough by ships of the Kaiserliche Marine in December 1914. It seems certain that the two ships which fired on the town used their 15cm guns, and Scarborough Museum has a rusty, empty shell, minus its fuze and with the driving bands grooved, of nominal 15cm calibre, so I'm pretty sure it's from the bombardment but it didn't explode, which is why it's survived. I'm now trying to find images of the ammunition these ships would have used, and in particular sectioned drawings which would indicate filling arrangements, etc of both shell and cartridge. So far I can't find any - can anyone help?

Best wishes,

Robin

Did the 15 cm gun fire shell cased ammunition or was it a shell with bag charges??? I don't know, would appreciate some naval opinion

khaki

[MikB]

Did the 15 cm gun fire shell cased ammunition or was it a shell with bag charges??? I don't know, would appreciate some naval opinion

khaki

I thought it was pretty much standard for German Naval and land artillery to use cased charges, sometimes with an extra fore charge added. Krupp sliding wedge breeches lend themselves to this better than the Welin screw type used by the British. It also had some safety advantages in naval engagements - catastrophic magazine explosions, whilst not unknown (eg. SMS Pommern), were more unusual.

Regards,

MikB

[bill24chev]

The German 150mm SK L/45 usedon Cruisers and Battlships secondary armament used "seperate loading ammunition".

Whichi beleive means that projectile and chargeare seperate.

[TonyE]

Yes, but the charge was still in a brass cartridge case and not a bag, as Mik says.

Regards

TonyE

[Michael Haselgrove]

Hi musadv,

There is a thread I started under "Ships and Navies" about a piece of shell in my collection, albeit from West Hartlepool, that may interest you. There is an illustration of a 15cm shell there. It is probably not the one you are looking for as it has a base fuze. The thread started on 21.02.13. The easiest way to find it is to type "West Hartlepool" into search and it is the second item down.

I can't recall which ships bombarded Scarborough. Are you sure they didn't use their main armament? At West Hartlepool the Blucher certainly used its main armament and in a photograph of pieces of shell recovered there in The Illustrated War News there is also the nose section of a 10.5cm shell. In any event, if you can identify the type of shell(s) that interest you I may be able to supply some information.

Regards,

Michael.

[TonyE]

I have just posted some drawings of the 15cm shell and fuzes for the 15cm SKL/40 naval gun (that was also used by the army) over on the BOCN forum here:

http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threads/88736-WW1-German-Naval-15cm-Ammunition

I think the later naval L/45 gun used the same shells but would be grateful if anyone could confirm.

Regards

TonyE

[musadv]

Thanks everyone for all this info, and in partic TonyE who posted v useful drawings on BOCN. The warships which bombarded Scarborough were the Von der Tann (8 x 28cm guns, 10 x 15cm guns and 8 x 8.8cm guns) and the Derfflinger (8 x 30.5cm guns, 12 x 15cm guns and 8 x 8.8cm guns). I am awaiting copies of the relevant extracts from the ships' logs from the Bundesarchiv in Freiburg for these two battlecruisers, but first indications are that each was directed to use "medium" and "light" weapons only, and in both cases they complied with this instruction.

[Guest boxhill221]

I can help with this topic. I'm just completing all our research for the Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre centenary exhibition about the Bombardment as such and amongst the source material I have found is the official Imperial Navy transcript of the raid produced after the war in1919 in which it is stated at Scarborough that Von Tapken's two battlecruisers fired the following -

333 x 15cm shells and 443 x 8.8 cm shells. We have long suspected this was the case as out of all the fragments of ordnance discovered after the raid, not a single piece came from either the 11 inch or 12 inch main armament carried by Von der Tann & Derfflinger. Certainly if the Germans had fired these large guns very little of the town would have survived.

No, the main armament was reserved for any potential encounter with Beatty or Warrender as Hipper took all six of the entire raiding force back east at high speed.

It is a source of irritation every time we see reference to the 'big guns firing' etc. Dramatic yes, but not true. Any student of naval warfare of the period would be aware that no Captain of a first rate capital ship was going to waste any of the very expensive and relatively limited supply of large shells on bricks and mortar.

I hope this helps. It is just one of the new things we have discovered about the raid we intend to display later this year.