FUZES

[Old Tom]

I posed a question on 11 December about 2 fuse caps brought back from France by my father after the war. I am grateful to Museumtom for information about one of them, the No 94. The other remains a mystery. I have attached a picture. The No 94 on the right. The one on the left has two adjustable rings, i.e. they are free to be rotated and the nose cap has a spike which enters the central tube connecting, I suppose, with the shell; presumably to provide explosion on, or soon after impact. Can anyone please identify and indicate the purpose of this fuse compared with the No 94 and say to what shells i.e. 18 pdr, 4.5" howitzer etc they were applied.

It seems my attachment did not work, trying again

Happy New Year!

Edited 29 December , 2004 by Old Tom

[museumtom]

94 Number on British fuzes. Time and Percussion Fuze. 88 filled with Chilworth Composition. 42 seconds burning time for long range Shrapnel. Introduced 1918. Obsolete 1921.

[museumtom]

80 Number on British fuzes. Time and Percussion Fuze. Krupp design made by Vickers for 18pr Shrapnel Shell. Introduced 1905. Obsolete 1943.

80B Number on British fuzes. Time and Percussion Fuze. Modified 80 Fuze. Introduced 1916. Obsolete 1943.

80/44 Number on British fuzes. Time and Percussion Fuze. Modified 80 Fuze for Anti-Aircraft High Explosive Shell. Introduced 1914.

80/44 Number on British fuzes. Time Fuze. Percussion element removed. Introduced 1917. Obsolete 1944.

80B/44 Number on British fuzes. Time Fuze. Converted 80 Mark 1, 2 and 3. Introduced 1917. Obsolete 1944.

[NIGEL]

Old Tom and All here

I am sure Aurel Seceu and Giles Polou ( excuse my spelling ) did something almost identical earlier in 2004. The pics look identical to the ones in their thread.

[Old Tom]

Hello,

Many thanks for the information. The No 80 fuze indeed has numbers and letters stamped into its base. In order they are: V.S.M. (with broad arrow and a small A adjacent) (say 12 o’clock), 183K, (say 3 o’clock), AL1 (small letters) and 80VII (say 6 o’clock) and 3/18 (say 9 o’clock with in small fine letters M/F nearby).

If these fuzes were for 18 pdr shells, I am intrigued at the possible antiaircraft use. I would have thought the 18 pdr had insufficeient evevation for that role.

Regards

Old Tom

[MikB]

If these fuzes were for 18 pdr shells, I am intrigued at the possible antiaircraft use. I would have thought the 18 pdr had insufficeient evevation for that role.

Regards

Old Tom

Quite true on the standard carriage with the single-boom central trail, but Ian Hogg's "The Guns 1914-18" shows an unsuccessful AA design with the 18-pounder barrel assembly slung in a high mounting with a twin-boom box trail reminiscent of the WW2 25-pounder, and there were a number of AA adaptations of the 13-pounder, including one mounted on the back of a truck.

Regards,

MikB

[museumtom]

VSM, Vickers son and Maxim.

Tom

[museumtom]

My ould eyes cannot read the numbers in the picture from this distance.....try again.

Tom

[museumtom]

It looks line the grading of seconds and parts of seconds on a time fuze. Here is the Arabic/aramaic, egyptian alphabet.

Enjoy.

Tom

[Gary Samson]

80 Number on British fuzes. Time and Percussion Fuze. Krupp design made by Vickers for 18pr Shrapnel Shell. Introduced 1905. Obsolete 1943.

Found myself reading up on the No 80 T&P fuze in Howard Williamson's The Collector and Researchers Guide to the Great War II over the weekend. The British arms manufacturer Vickers made these fuzes under a pre-war licence from the designer Krupp of Germany and I guess I was a little surprised (although perhaps less so given our increasingly litigious society) to read that Krupp had demanded "royalties of £260,000 for fuzes fired by the British at the Germans during the war!" According to Williamson, Vickers actually paid Krupp £40,000! Truth stranger than fiction...you really couldn't make this stuff up, could you.

Gary