Brodie Helmet entry/exit hole damage analysis

[IM75]

Hi all

This is a bit of a “niche” request….

I’m after a some advice relating to some damage on a Mk1 Brodie helmet, specifically entry and exit holes.

Ideally, some “expert” opinion on what calibre round is likely to have caused them, and if the trajectory would have missed the wearer.

I’ve got photos that I’ll upload later but I just wanted to put some feelers out to see if anyone can help or point me in the right direction please?a

Many thanks 

IM

 

[JMB1943]

British round = 303 in = 7.7 mm

French = 8 mm

German = 7.9 mm

I don't know that you could differentiate entry/exit holes of these bullets.

Regards,

JMB

[IM75]

18 hours ago, JMB1943 said:

British round = 303 in = 7.7 mm

French = 8 mm

German = 7.9 mm

I don't know that you could differentiate entry/exit holes of these bullets.

Regards,

JMB

Thanks - I thought it would be unlikely but I thought there might be a ballistics whizz out there who could tell the difference! 

[JMB1943]

IM75,

There are some ballistics wizards out there @MikB who could give you chapter and verse, (especially if you post the photos that you have) regarding the probability of wounding.

Regards,

JMB

EDIT: I should have qualified my first reply to your question, by stating that I am by no means a firearms or ballistics expert; my knowledge level is merely that of an interested layman.

Edited 10 December , 2023 by JMB1943
Add info.

[MikB]

I have similar doubts to JMB - bullet diameters between British 303, German 7,92mm and French 8mm were only different by roughly 10 thou or 0,25 mm, and entry holes would be extremely difficult to differentiate. Small differences in angles of impact would cause ovality of holes, and the uncertainty over exact metallurgical properties could result in different levels of fit on the penetrating projectile.  Although 303 was reportedly somewhat less stable on deceleration than the others, all of these bullets could be distorted by impact on the helmet and all would usually topple and try to turn over to a tail-first attitude, if their general shape was retained.  

Even this all assumes rifle-calibre bullet penetrations. Handgun rounds, shrapnel balls and splinters were less likely to do so - after all, they were shrapnel helmets. I don't have detail knowledge of would ballistics or how much clearance there would normally be between helmet inner surface and wearer's head - I'd expect considerable individual variation, also at different points within the helmet for the same individual.

If someone thinks they can distinguish between them I'd be interested to hear the arguments, but as of now I don't think I know how to do it.

[Bob Davies]

If I may add my observations.

My Grandad received a 'GSW head'. This was 1st March 1917 at a place called Gommecourt.

The German army were in retreat from the area at the time.

So whether he was hit by a rifle bullet, grenade fragment or a shell splinter we shall never know.

The wound was on the upper side of his head and after various operations he was left with a hole in his skull approx 1 inch diameter.

The skin grew over it and he lived with it until he died in 1980.

He was found staggering down a trench (by his Uncle Oliver) holding his head, blood everywhere and no helmet.

Grandad knew he was wearing his helmet at the time. Of course that was left on the battle field and he was sent down the medical evacuation chain.

So whatever hit him, must have dented in the helmet or penetrated it to some extent. There must be an inch of space between the helmet and the head at least.

I have his medical reports, from memory they were pulling bits of bone out of the wound but no mention of shrapnel or other. I will dig them out and re read them.

Regards, Bob.

 

 

 

 

[IM75]

Thank you all for the input - it really is appreciated. I've not got access to the helmet at the moment but there's some photos below - unfortunately there isn't any of inside the helmet or side at the moment but I'll try and get some in the near future. The most detailed account I have of the incident that resulted in the damage suggests a bullet went through the crown of the helmet from the front but didn't kill the wearer.  He carried on for another 30 minutes before a shell splinter went through the side of the helmet and into his shoulder, which sadly killed him. There is also a brief mention somewhere else that said he was killed by a sniper but that seems likely to be the stock "he was killed instantly and didn't suffer" type of account sent to the family.

I know the photos aren't ideal, but what do you think? 

Thanks again for the input.

P.S. Great to hear that your Grandad lived such a long life Bob!

[MikB]

It's very difficult to imagine that the wearer could've survived, even if they'd received immediate medical help - which in very many cases they wouldn't.

The only hole that looks like it could've been made by a bullet is the oval one, and it looks too big  to me for any standard calibre. 13mm Tankgewehr could be an outside possibility, but it seems likely by default that all the other damage occurred at or around the same time. So perhaps it's a shrapnel ball hole from a German round that also had an explosive nose that detonated in the very near vicinity. I say that because of the outward dent on the edge of the big tear damage, that looks as if it was caused by something travelling in a direction at an obtuse angle to whatever made the oval entry hole - that dent makes me doubt whether the tear is exit damage from the same projectile. Although the largest curled peel in the tear does appear to follow a possible entry line from the oval hole.

Of course it's always possible that the was no wearer at the time, and all this stuff happened while it was parked somewhere for whatever reason.

It's a bit like a motorway crash, where you can't imagine with any confidence how the vehicles got into the positions you see.

Edited 11 December , 2023 by MikB

[Bob Davies]

If for a moment we assume/take it that the oval entry hole and the large torn open exit hole were created by the same projectile.

When the projectile hits the helmet I would think that the helmet would move as much as it could do, possibly slightly upward, so raising the helmet off the wearers head as the projectile continues its path and exits.

There looks to be more of a gap inside the top of the helmets ie between the top of the skull and the helmet, than there is on the band that rests on the head.

Therefore the wearer is going to stand a better chance of the projectile missing his skull, as if I suggested, the helmet is lifted upward on impact away from the wearers skull.

Have a look at the link here, which shows a loosely similar case.

Screen shot courtesy of History Nebraska.

https://history.nebraska.gov/dr-charles-arnolds-helmet/

As @MikB suggests there are too many unknowns to work out what was where at the time.

If the wearer was ducking down at the time that would also have an effect on the result.

3 hours ago, IM75 said:

P.S. Great to hear that your Grandad lived such a long life Bob!

Thanks IM, he was a tough young man and the treatment he received all the way down the line was second to none at this stage of the war.

Plus he wasn't left in no mans land slowly bleeding to death.

The hospital ship that he was on, was hit and sunk by a U boat torpedo in the channel but they got him home

Edited 11 December , 2023 by Bob Davies
To add a screen shot

[MikB]

The entry and exit holes in the original photo for this thread are a good deal further apart and further down the radius of the helmet bowl, plus there is much other damage suggesting, in default of other evidence, a considerable group of projectiles striking more-or-less simultaneously. If this was a cloud of splinters or just-burst shrapnel, there would've certainly been other strikes on any wearer, plus likely still more that just happened to miss the helmet.

Dr. Arnold's helmet looks like a chord of trajectory cutting the arc of the helmet bowl closer to the tangent than the top photos here. It's also the only damage, and its origin and effect were documented. The entry hole looks a lot bigger than 7,92 Mauser, possibly because of the shallow angle. I also wonder if it could be a shallow ricochet from what would otherwise have been a near miss (?).

Edited 11 December , 2023 by MikB

[IM75]

Thanks both again for your input. The account I have claims the damage occurred separately over a 20-30 minute period. Firstly, a bullet through the crown, then a smaller piece of shell that came through the brim at the front damaging the tunic but not injuring the wear, and finally the piece that caused the damage on the side and mortally wounded him through the shoulder. 

That account was given to a relative some months after his death, however, I do not believe they witnessed it first hand. 

I suppose we can never know for certain. 

[MikB]

Thanks IM75. That makes about as much sense as any of the gruesome speculations I've been turning over in my head - which I'm glad to leave behind... 

[IM75]

43 minutes ago, MikB said:

Thanks IM75. That makes about as much sense as any of the gruesome speculations I've been turning over in my head - which I'm glad to leave behind... 

Indeed. Ultimately, it didn't end well whatever the course of events.

Thanks again for your thoughts - much appreciated.

Iain 

[Chasemuseum]

IM75

the account of the incident seems consistent with the damage. I would suggest that the "bullet" was either a rifle/machinegun bullet that was unstable in flight and tumbling, or a shrapnel bullet from a shrapnel artillery shell. I would expect a serious headwound from that first event. The second and third events are more consistent with damage from high explosive artillery shells. Not being killed by event #2 is surprising. At least the concussion from being that close to the explosion and having the wave of explosion over pressure passing through the individual is likely to have caused serious injury. Event #3, the "exit wound" looks like a large chunky shell splinter from a high explosive artillery shell. The damage to the body would have been massive and death instantaneous.

 

[IM75]

On 19/12/2023 at 00:24, Chasemuseum said:

IM75

the account of the incident seems consistent with the damage. I would suggest that the "bullet" was either a rifle/machinegun bullet that was unstable in flight and tumbling, or a shrapnel bullet from a shrapnel artillery shell. I would expect a serious headwound from that first event. The second and third events are more consistent with damage from high explosive artillery shells. Not being killed by event #2 is surprising. At least the concussion from being that close to the explosion and having the wave of explosion over pressure passing through the individual is likely to have caused serious injury. Event #3, the "exit wound" looks like a large chunky shell splinter from a high explosive artillery shell. The damage to the body would have been massive and death instantaneous.

 

Thanks  for your input - fascinating and very much appreciated.

[Stevie]

Referring to the photographs of the first helmet, the entry hole - assuming that it is a rifle round - would suggest that the wearer of the helmet had his head tilted to one side when it was struck. It hasn't been hit full on, but more of an angled penetrating blow that produces an oval entry hole. This would be sufficient to knock the round off it's trajectory on entry and cause the round to spin and create a much larger exit hole. The problem with battle-damaged helmets is that almost everyone wants to believe that the helmet was being worn at the moment it was hit, but there were plenty of tin hats littering the battlefield that received damage while on the ground. As for the story attached to the helmet, the same old advice goes... buy the item and not the story attached to it. Here is my battle-damaged helmet, and it once adorned the walls of the Cloth Hall at Ypres until the museum received a facelift back in 2012. 

Cheers,

           Steve

 

Edited 25 December , 2023 by Stevie
Typo

[Chasemuseum]

If it was being worn at the time, the owner definitely had a headache.

[Stevie]

10 hours ago, Chasemuseum said:

If it was being worn at the time, the owner definitely had a headache.

The damage to the skirt was caused by a strike which failed to penetrate, but hit with sufficient force to crack the metal.

Cheers,

           Steve

[MikB]

I don't know helmets well - is the partially punched-out circular slug at the rear the remains of a liner attachment?

[Stevie]

It's a helmet rivet. The helmet uses three split rivets to hold the liner in place, the rear rivet having a thicker head than the front two. The rivet passes through the shell of the M16 helmet and then through the leather liner band - or the later M17 steel band which was also used in the M16 shell. There are two prongs which are bent over the liner band and secure it in place. Unlike the WW2 German helmets, there was no washer placed over the rivet before the prongs were opened out and bent over.

Cheers,

           Steve

Edited 27 December , 2023 by Stevie

[MikB]

Thank you for that. 

[Chasemuseum]

Also the rivet on the back had a deliberately larger head. All German helmets could be used with the clip-on armour plate on the front - the purpose of the lugs to support the weight of the plate. The plate had a leather strap that buckled at the back and the large rivet head prevented the strap sliding up and slipping off. 

[MikB]

Looking at the way the cracks around the damage sites have propagated, and comparing that with the way WW2 German tank armour sometimes cracked like china, I can't help wondering about the characteristics of German heat treatment standards.

It looks kind of over-hardened or under-tempered - though it may simply be alternative ways of arriving at similar levels of protection.

Does anybody have any specialist understanding of this?

[Chasemuseum]

In manufacture you are pressing/drawing the metal, this involves managing how the metal starting as a sheet of uniform thickness stretches and thins. You can heat treat between successive pressings for stress relief, but this creates a series of issues with distortion. The Germans were managing this in a skillful manner using electrically heated dies in the press, where usually pressing is done cold.

 

After pressing, the shell is heat treated to manage properties; malleability, hardness, ductility, tensile strength. The original alloy and carbon content will be critical to the process. You are trying to optimize the characteristic properties. The shell is only intended to provide single event protection and to be disposable. So having part of the shell crack and shatter is not a problem if this successfully protects the user.

 

By comparison, the design of tank armour follows a different logic design path. Certainly you want to stop or deflect a projectile and a piece of damaged armour can be removed in the workshops and replaced but the tank is expected to remain functional in combat despite multiple projectile impacts so shattering after one hit and letting the next straight through is a design failure. The armour may be intended to stop 2-pr Anti-Tank AP and 6-pr AP AT but not 17pr AT AP, so failure after being hit by a single 17-pr AP would not be considered a design failure, but the tank crew would not be very happy.

 

Things do go wrong in manufacture. The AIF capture two Japanese T95 Ha-Go tanks at Milne Bay in 1942. They were returned to Australia for detailed technical intelligence analysis as the first Japanese tank specimens of WW2 to go the Tech Intel.  One was used for a variety of practical weapon and land mine testing to optimize tactics to engage these tanks in combat, the other was pulled apart and looked at in detail. Analysis of the steel armour plate found that this was superior to the equivalent British steel armour plate in use at the time, however one of the panels on the tank had never been heat treated and was much softer than the adjacent panels. Showing serious quality control problems at the manufacture facility. 

 

The TI report is actually a fascinating document, about 100 pages long and full of detailed photos and drawings. One of the interesting observations is an analysis of the internal insulation fabric lining the hull. That this is a fire proofed organic fibre woven into a coarse mat and is not asbestos fibre. You will find numerous references on the internet and youtube to this product being asbestos but it would appear that it is not. Its just that people look at it and assume that it is.     

[MikB]

Thanks Chase - I'd forgotten that the Stahlhelm went through more deep-drawing presswork than the Brodie, which would make the metallurgy different in several ways, even if the point level of protection from impact were broadly similar.