5.2 INCH SHELL- KILLING RANGE

[Guest]

Could any  ordnance expert tell me what the rough blast range was for this type of shell?  I have a local casualty who was reportedly killed by one while whistling his old school hymn in August 1916. I suspect that,given the calibre of the shell, anyone hearing him whistle would also have been killed by the blast.

[MikB]

5.2 inch? 13,2 cm? would be a little bigger than a 60-pounder. If it was shrapnel - uncommon but not unknown in such sizes - it's quite easy to imagine that the balls might hit one person and miss another nearby, or be deflected by cover. Similar events even with HE are sometimes described anecdotally. Blast lethal radius is not very commonly given as a statistic - it's critically dependent on circumstance. Loads of variables.

Edited 26 July , 2020 by MikB

[Guest]

1 hour ago, MikB said:

5.2 inch? 13,2 cm? would be a little bigger than a 60-pounder. If it was shrapnel - uncommon but not unknown in such sizes - it's quite easy to imagine that the balls might hit one person and miss another nearby, or be deflected by cover. Similar events even with HE are sometimes described anecdotally. Blast lethal radius is not very commonly given as a statistic - it's critically dependent on circumstance. Loads of variables.

 

   Thanks for the info.  Caprice was a factor I had not reckoned with-I have another local casualty who bled to death from a small shrapnel wound-while a man in the same trench  and the same shell was smoking and laughing at the same time,as his shrapnel wound was a small one to the heel- a"blighty" and the man knew it.

   Just out of sheer coincidence and noting where you are, my casualty in question was Captain Arthur John Waugh, RAMC- attached,would you believe, to 1st North Staffordshire. 

[JMB1943]

 

 

The Field Service Pocket Book (1914) p. 91 gives the following generalizations,

1. "The width of the area of ground struck by the bullets of an effective shrapnel is about 25 yds."

2. "The distance effectively covered by shrapnel bullets varies from 100 yds at short ranges to 50 yds at long ranges."

3. "The radius of the explosion of a high explosive shell is about 25 yds."

 

Regards,

JMB

[Guest]

On 01/08/2020 at 23:51, JMB1943 said:

 

 

The Field Service Pocket Book (1914) p. 91 gives the following generalizations,

1. "The width of the area of ground struck by the bullets of an effective shrapnel is about 25 yds."

2. "The distance effectively covered by shrapnel bullets varies from 100 yds at short ranges to 50 yds at long ranges."

3. "The radius of the explosion of a high explosive shell is about 25 yds."

 

Regards,

JMB

 

    Thanks indeed for that little gem of info.   One of the curiosities of the war is that Captain Waugh-my casualty- was also described as having being killed by a German shell "which landed at his feet". This phrase occurs several times  in accounts of how my locals met their end- I suspect that it was idiomatic and allusive-and unduly polite- a way of saying that the man was splatted -by leaving the reader to work out what happened. Remember that we English always have this reticence,as ex plained by our cuddly old poet John Betjeman "Oh why do people waste their breath devising dainty names for death".

[Michael Haselgrove]

 

Having regard to your last post, and in case it is of interest, "Notes on German Shells 1918" at page 7 has a table showing the average dimensions of shell craters.  The table was designed to be of use in identifying the calibre of shell by which a crater has been made.  Of course, the size of the crater varies dependent on a number of factors.

For instance, in "clay" soil the average depth of the crater made by a 13cm shell with a non-delay fuze is given as 3.5 feet and the width as 6.5 feet.  For a 15cm shell with a delay fuze the figures are 6 feet deep and 13 feet wide.  The dimensions are larger with ordinary soil and reduced in the case of chalk. 

Regards,

Michael. 

[Gunner Bailey]

The killing range of any form of shrapnel can't in my opinion be pinned down to yards. 

 

A few years ago I was talking to a WW2 veteran about grenade training. He told me the once his platoon drove to a grenade range, parked their lorry and walked with their grenade crates 500 yards to the pits. When the exercise was complete they went back to the lorry and found the windscreen had been smashed and sitting on the driver's seat was the base plug of a Mills grenade.

 

Now 500 yards is well beyond the normal range of a grenade fragment, but here is evidence of how far an a small amount of explosive can propel a piece of metal. 

 

I would think that large shell could sent fragments over 1000 yards. Shrapnel balls can probably be more predictable.