Which 'new' artillery shells?

[michaeldr]

A Marine at Gallipoli by Harry Askin (Pen & Sword Military, 2015)

In the above diary Cpl Askin RMLI describes being on the receiving end of a bombardment at Helles in December 1915 where it appears a different type of shell was used for the first time

 

“I suppose the Turk knew that, after a time, troops lose all fear of shrapnel, providing of course that they had cover handy, so he or the Bosch had thought out something new. This new one was like two shells in one. First, they burst in the air like an ordinary shell, then again on contact with the ground or whatever it hit. Really devilish things. One went right into one of C Company's dugouts, nearly wiping out No.11 Platoon.”

 

There's a ref in Kannengiesser's book (The Campaign in Gallipoli) saying that “In November the eagerly awaited ammunition arrived...”

Major Erich Prigge (The Struggle for the Dardanelles) also describes a mid-December action where “A vigorous retaliatory fire with the new German artillery ammunition is the response.....”

 

[At first I thought that Askin was referring to the recently arrived Austrian heavy howitzers, but a little later he gives a separate description of one of their bombardments, suggesting that the earlier ref was not to them]

 

Can anyone say what these 'new' shells were?

 

Thanks in advance

Michael

[michaeldr]

2 hours ago, michaeldr said:

This new one was like two shells in one. First, they burst in the air like an ordinary shell, then again on contact with the ground or whatever it hit.

 

just a couple of pages later Askin has a second ref to this type of shell where he says

"...he shelled us heavily with those double-event HE things."

my emphasis

[14276265]

2 hours ago, michaeldr said:

Cpl Askin RMLI describes..  "...First, they burst in the air like an ordinary shell, then again on contact with the ground or whatever it hit."

 

This description sounds like a German Universal shell, operating with fuze set to Time (rather than Percussion). The shell emitted the shrapnel bullets as an air burst while the head flew forward forming a separate high explosive shell in its own right. 

 

Image shows shell without fuze for 1905 Model 10.5cm Light Field Howitzer. The 7.7cm Field gun was also supplied with a Universal shell.

 

 

 

265

[MikB]

Ian V. Hogg in 'The Guns 1914 -18' describes a 'Universal' shell for the German 77mm which dispensed shrapnel in flight, along with a fuze/head assembly carrying its own bursting charge which would land approximately in the middle of the shrapnel pattern and explode on impact. Could be these?

[michaeldr]

14276265 & MikB,

 

Thank you both - Those examples sound exactly right for what Askin describes

I take it that the time frame fits -

ie these shells being exclusively German in the early months of the war and then in late 1915 being allowed out for the supply of their allies?

 

Thanks again

Michael

[14276265]

The time frame is right. The 10.5cm Howitzer shell was obsolescent in 1915 and declared obsolete from 1 July 1916, although examples were occasionally met with thereafter. Being obsolescent in 1915 was probably a reason for dumping supplies of this nature onto an ally.

 

 

 

265

[Gunner Bailey]

The fuzes for this shell seem to be limited to just two.

 

Dopp Z.16 from 1911 (7.7 cm ) Though mainly used for AA shells

Dopp K.Z.11 1B from 1905 (10.5 cm) This fuze and the Universal shell were both destined to be obsolete by 1st July 1916 as 265 says.

[michaeldr]

Many thanks to one and all

Michael

 

[michaeldr]

 

By way of a Post Script to this brief thread

Askin also mentions another type of shell coming in at that time (Helles, December 1915)

 

"Some of the chaps found the base belonging to one of the big shells, a great piece of steel, ten inches across, and on the bottom was stamped the British War Department's  stamp and date of manufacture. They must have been shells that were sent to Bulgaria before she turned against us. How nice to be blown up and shaken up by your own shells'"

Possibly fired by the Austro-Hungarian 240mm ???

 

Kannengiesser quotes a letter from Major Senftleben

"I am now commander of the heavy artillery of the southern portion from Kirthedere to the shores of the Dardanelles, and have two old and ten new batteries under my command, among which is the Austrian 24-cm, howitzer battery with 1200 rounds."

 

Would the British round be compatible with the AH Howitzer?

 

Thanks again for help

Michael

[MikB]

Could the 10-inch shell base have been remains from earlier bombardments by HMSs Swiftsure or Triumph, which carried guns of that calibre?

[14276265]

The men are more likely to have stumbled on a fragment from a British naval round, from a previous bombardment.

 

9.2" was a British artillery calibre but 9.45" (240mm) was not. 9.2" was not compatible with 24cm. If Great Britain had manufactured and supplied 240mm shell for a foreign gun, they would not have been marked with either British Land Service or Naval Service acceptance stamps.

Edited 30 May , 2020 by 14276265
sp

[michaeldr]

MikB & 14276252

 

Thanks for those comments 

I must admit that I had not thought of it being one of ours from earlier in the campaign

but that must of course, be a possibility

 

Very many thanks for all the help with these ammunition queries

Michael

[assafx]

20 hours ago, michaeldr said:

14276265 & MikB,

 

Thank you both - Those examples sound exactly right for what Askin describes

I take it that the time frame fits -

ie these shells being exclusively German in the early months of the war and then in late 1915 being allowed out for the supply of their allies?

 

Thanks again

Michael

Michael,

 

When i was inspecting about 200 shrapnell balls from Nebi Samuel there were one or two dozens of them that had a strange damage.

Lead is a soft metal, once it impact something solid it dents or squash (depends on the speed, surface type and so on).

These balls seems as if their outer layer was peeled:

I went with a couple of them to a senior bomb technician of the Israeli police.

I wanted to know if the damage could have been made by the explosion of a unified shell, since the balls are surrounded by TNT or amatol.

His reply was that it is possible, but there is no way to prove it and no one will allow us to test this thesis.

 

As mentioned above, the shells were made Obsolete in Jan 1916.

This is around the time in which Bulgeria joined the central powers and helped take over Serbia.

The occupation of Serbia, created for the first time, a direct line between Germany and the Ottoman Empire.

I'm assuming that at this stage, the German shipped almost every hand grenade type that they had and old GEW88 rifles just to replenish the Ottoman stocks.

It is possible that they sent an unknown quantity of obsolete shells with them, and if i am right, at least one of them was in use in 1917.

 

Assaf

 

[Gunner Bailey]

Could that be impact on sand?

[assafx]

1 hour ago, Gunner Bailey said:

Could that be impact on sand?

this is not from the desert. Nebi Samwil is in the Judean hills so youll have exposed bedrock at some places and earth which is more solid then sand. in 1917 the site had stone houses and fences.