Did shells really whistle?

[chaz]

Bruce's military programmes do have them firing off various caliber weapons, even flame throwers and multiple camera/microphone views. Well worth binge watching.

 

[FROGSMILE]

2 hours ago, ianjonesncl said:

One for the technicians.... the sound of a 100 lb (45.4kg) 6 inch gun shell flying through the air in the First World War would sound the same as a modern 43.5 kg 155mm shell flying through the air ? 

Certainly the balistics of possible lengths, weights etc would give some differences, but would not be discernible ?

 

Having spent an 8-year period both, firing upon - plus directly in front of, depending upon calibre - and alternating with being inside the ‘Bombard OP’ at Larkhill, I can testify that all your posts above chime with my own experience.  Indirect fire technology continues to evolve of course, but the basic components of artillery fire (and its ballistics) remain pretty much unchanged, as you have pointed out.  I strongly recall the ‘whistling’, the semi concussion caused by impact, fragments of concrete falling from the OP (bunker) ceiling, damaged laminated glass, observation slits, and emerging after numerous impacts with a splitting headache.  In the 1970s, before the repeal of crown immunity, the imposition of health and safety at work legislation, and the European human rights act, the climate among gunnery staff was much less restrictive than it subsequently became.  For 105mm guns (pack howitzers) and 81mm medium mortars, fire was permitted on top of the OP**.  It was an experience that I’ve never forgotten because it met the purpose of the Bombard OP in teaching the officer corps some small hint of what being under artillery fire might feel like.  Things changed subsequently and by the late 1980s the safety impositions were a great deal more stringent and so it was less impactful for those under training.

**I recall that this was later stopped because it was gradually destroying the overhead earth mantlet and continual repair costs were prohibitive.

Edited 6 August , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[ianjonesncl]

19 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

late 1980s the safety impositions were a great deal more stringent and less impactful for those under training.

My only recollection was the Bombrad OP being conducted as a danger close mission (105 mm Light Gun) with drop corrections of 100m, probably to within 100m of the Bombard. The concussion effect was a memory, as was a piece of sharapnel embedding into the perspex slaps that were mounted over the slits. They used to fig 11 targets outside so you could inspect some of the damage afterwards.

And of course the obligatory Effects of Artillery Fire film.

 

Edited 6 August , 2022 by ianjonesncl

[Acknown]

This subject is discussed here.

I find Leon Wolff's descriptions in 'In Flanders Fields' to be persuasive.  

Acknown

[Terry_Reeves]

I understand the larger calibres whistled "Take me back to dear old Blighty."

I witnessed the 9.2 inch costal defence gun at Spur battery Gibraltar being fired out to sea in 1972. Gun wave and shell wave,but no whistling. The gun was dismantled in 1982 and now resides at IWM Duxford.

TR

 

Edited 6 August , 2022 by Terry_Reeves

[MikB]

The sound heard from a projectile on trajectory depends very much on the listeners position and the shape of the surrounding landscape as well as the speed of the projectile. 

For example, on a full-bore target rifle shoot the sound a butt-marker hears as they wait to score a shot is a sharp crack as a supersonic bullet passes overhead, followed by a dull thump of discharge. As the range increases, the crack and thump reduce in volume, and the interval increases.

The firer, after the report of discharge, is likely to hear a hiss as the round goes downrange. I think the hiss is actually the echo of an infinite series of sonic cracks reflected off the land surfaces of the range, and that the 'tearing calico' sound of shells passing is a similar but larger effect. I think I heard this as a teenage cadet when artillery fire passed overhead on Salisbury Plain.

So the sound experienced is very often an echo process, modified - sometimes substantially - by whatever the original sound waves of passage have ricocheted off. People's experience of it may differ very widely, but I suspect such differences are more circumstantial than subjective.

[MikB]

4 hours ago, ianjonesncl said:

One for the technicians.... the sound of a 100 lb (45.4kg) 6 inch gun shell flying through the air in the First World War would sound the same as a modern 43.5 kg 155mm shell flying through the air ? 

Certainly the balistics of possible lengths, weights etc would give some differences, but would not be discernible ?

 

There are 2 major differences:

The modern 155 has a boat tail, allowing the vacuum drawn by the passage to close smoothly with far less turbulence and consequent drag. Extended range variants have a base bleed of propellant to fill the vacuum and still further reduce drag. 

Pointy ballistic caps to ease the front end passage through the air are now practically universal on the 155. In WW1, although ballistic caps were very occasionally used, the radius of the ogive was generally smaller, resembling a piercing point - which in many naval rounds of course it actually was. In many types there could be a fuze sticking out that might or might not conform to the general ogive point.

Both of these changes have much reduced drag and thus the theoretical capacity to waste kinetic energy in noise generation, and have increased range greatly - in many cases with little change in muzzle velocity. 

Edited 6 August , 2022 by MikB

[RaySearching]

On 05/08/2022 at 18:40, TinHat said:

Did shells really whistle.

Too technical for me although I have been reliabaly informed that if you hold a shell to your ear you can hear the sea

 

[petwes]

I'm still trying to find the origin of my recollection of shells sounding like express trains. I have a feeling it was in ' Storm of steel' which in translation has to be be treated with circumspection. 

Wiki reveals:

Ypres Express: “A term common earlier in the war, referring to the big gun batteries, the rumble of which sounded like an approaching train.”

 

Peter

[Gunner 87]

24 minutes ago, petwes said:

I'm still trying to find the origin of my recollection of shells sounding like express trains. I have a feeling it was in ' Storm of steel' which in translation has to be be treated with circumspection. 

Wiki reveals:

Ypres Express: “A term common earlier in the war, referring to the big gun batteries, the rumble of which sounded like an approaching train.”

 

Peter

H Peter. I've often heard that terminology when describing the huge shells fired by naval guns.... 

[Bob Davies]

Having just read The Life Of James O'Malley, Late of the 17th Leicester Royal Bengal Tigers I can add something to this thread. O'Malley is fighting in the Crimea 1854. Now a common description he uses is whistling cannon balls or shot whistling past. The British were using Brown Bess muskets and Enfield rifles as he describes. What the Russians were using I don't know. I will endeavor to find out. So these cannon balls and shot from muskets are possibly  not traveling as fast as WW1 projectiles yet he describes them to whistle. Now my next observation is from my own experience of using a sling (what David slew Goliath with) Small stones that are nearly round make quite a noise as they pass through the air, odd shaped stones make even more noise. Both I would describe as a sort of 'wizz...ving' They go pretty dam fast, though nowhere near a musket shot. I would bet that musket balls/shot and cannon balls are not precisely round and therefore must make some sort of noise. Can we apply this to WW1 projectiles? Link to James O'Malley here, page 67 and 69 for 2 examples; https://archive.org/details/lifeofjamesomall00omalrich/page/66/mode/2up

[MikB]

2 hours ago, Gunner 87 said:

H Peter. I've often heard that terminology when describing the huge shells fired by naval guns.... 

I think I've read it in several places in descriptions of large artillery shells passing. I'd wondered if it was in Filson Young's description of the Dogger Bank battle, but can't find it.

[Bob Davies]

13 hours ago, MikB said:

I think I've read it in several places in descriptions of large artillery shells passing. I'd wondered if it was in Filson Young's description of the Dogger Bank battle, but can't find it.

Thanks for the book reference MikB, I have never read it but it looks interesting. Link here; https://archive.org/details/withbattlecruise00youn/page/n293/mode/2upAnother interesting post from @knittinganddeath is here, link; https://knittinganddeath.medium.com/what-did-world-war-i-sound-like-cfa0a455844c  I can't help thinking that if so many soldiers and others describe whistling shells and bullets, then they must have done, as most people know what a whistle sounds like. Regards, Bob.

[RedCoat]

For a modern equivalent, try this video:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sItcHvrknQ

Cheers

[awjdthumper]

Looking at the video, the frequency of the whistle must be ~1500 Hz which is roughly what you would expect when you multiply the likely spin rate of the shell by the likely number of rifling grooves in the shell's drive band.  In other words, the whistle is caused by the spinning grooved drive band which is sort of what you would expect.

[MikB]

5 hours ago, awjdthumper said:

Looking at the video, the frequency of the whistle must be ~1500 Hz which is roughly what you would expect when you multiply the likely spin rate of the shell by the likely number of rifling grooves in the shell's drive band.  In other words, the whistle is caused by the spinning grooved drive band which is sort of what you would expect.

I'm not getting that. Using rifiling and MV data for the US M114 howitzer and its 48-groove 20 cal rifling, and allowing for a 25% decline in spin rate near the target, I'm still getting grooves passing at 6660 Hz - a good 2 octaves above. and a very high-pitched whine. Of course there's also considerable Doppler effect with the note higher on approach and dropping on passing. Since the round must be clearly subsonic as it passes, I'd think some resonance of regular collapse in the base vacuum is a more likely cause.

Now I think I'll head for my own foxhole... 

Edited 10 August , 2022 by MikB

[JMB1943]

Here are a couple of relevant quotes from a book that I am currently reading,

With The British Army on The Somme, by W.B. Thomas (War Correspondent for the Daily Mail).

p. 43 “……our heavy guns dispatched their express trains overhead with a most comforting roar and rattle.”

p. 49 “A giant gun far away to my right was at work enfilading a German trench to my left; and as its comet projectile churned through the air I could hear distinctly the whistling note of its passage…….”

Regards,

JMB

[awjdthumper]

The whistling frequency will depend on the gun but arbitrarily considering an Ordnance Bl 6-Inch 30 Cwt Howitzer used at the start of WW1, the initial groove frequency on leaving the muzzle would have been 2,500 Hz. This would have reduced considerable down range. To put this frequency into perspective, the highest note on a piano is 4, 816 Hz.

[MikB]

59 minutes ago, awjdthumper said:

The whistling frequency will depend on the gun but arbitrarily considering an Ordnance Bl 6-Inch 30 Cwt Howitzer used at the start of WW1, the initial groove frequency on leaving the muzzle would have been 2,500 Hz. This would have reduced considerable down range. To put this frequency into perspective, the highest note on a piano is 4, 816 Hz.

At the MV of that howitzer, that frequency sounds right, but 2500 is still a helluva lot higher than the sounds on the vid. It's nearer to the splinter sounds on the Finnish vid. 

I wouldn't expect rate of rotation to decay at anywhere near the rate of forward velocity - drive band lands with their tiny area and few millimetres depth don't have anything like the work to do that the ogive has in shifting the air to pass through. I'd still think it has far more to do with the turbulent flow behind the base.

[Gunner Hall]

Like frogsmile and ianjonesncl i have memories of the bombard op at Larkhill. I don't.remember a whistle. Only a massive concussion which seemed to suck the air out of your chest.  I do remember a shell that landed somewhat short of its target. A fragment the size of my boot flew past me and my signaller and cut a pine free in half. It definitely whistled as it passed us.  It was an American 105mm M1 round - if it had been one of ours, - an L31, we would have been mince.

[trajan]

On 06/08/2022 at 19:24, RaySearching said:

Too technical for me although I have been reliabaly informed that if you hold a shell to your ear you can hear the sea

 

And now leave the room please...

[Ancre1917]

Reading Michel Goya's book on the French army “Flesh and Steel during the Great War” (Pen & Sword), I came across this description of the noise shells made on page 189:

While the shell is in flight, before it bursts, it squeaks or hurls into the air a sort of long, shrill scream.  Depending on whether the shell has a time-fuse or bursts on impact, depending also on its calibre, its speed and the flatness of its trajectory, its din varies from the wail of a siren to the metallic rattle of a speeding train.  All the soldiers have learned to distinguish each calibre of shell, from the German 77mm to the 420mm, just from the rumbling, caterwauling or other singular sound that sets it apart.”

Charles Coste (commandant). La psychologie du combat. Published 1929

Richard

 

[Interested]

I'm currently part-way through EPF Lynch's "Somme Mud" and he describes the various sounds of the projectiles, which confirms the noises described above.  He also mentions he recognised the sound of bullets hitting home, especially stomach wounds, so I'd think he had good hearing, and would accept his descriptions as accurate.

[dman]

Do shells whistle ...??

 

Yes if they dont know the words ..

Sometimes they will hum along .......

[Ancre1917]

Goya also refers to the sound made by bullets and other objects like shells, shrapnel and grenades in a section he calls “The infernal orchestra” (pages 187-192). 

Richard