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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Strange shells


IanA

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Last week, while walking the track from the corner of High Wood to the crucifix at Bazentin, I came across a small dump of three shells at the side of the path. They were '18 pounder' size and where the fuses had been knocked off there was a blue composition visible. At the base of the shells was a pattern of holes the like of which I don't think I have ever noticed before. Am I correct in thinking that these might have been gas shells? I did not try sniffing! :o

Cheers,

Ian

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Ian

From your description these were probably rounds for the 7.5cm Light Minenwerfer. The holes in the bases (which can vary, 4 or 6 ) are for the gases from the self contained propellant, you can see the propellant chamber in the attached diagrams. The blue that you saw may have been corrosion residue from alloy fuzes. The shape of the round determines if it is gas or H.E.

Yours

Mike

post-97-1161067911.jpg

post-97-1161067935.jpg

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Hi Mike,

Many thanks for the swift reply. Your answer makes perfect sense to me - I wonder why I've never come across these before on my many ramblings? I think the ones I saw had six holes in the base. I did take a couple of photos but Istruggle to reduce them so that they are acceptable to the forum. Maybe I'll have a go later.

Cheers,

Ian

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Carrying box for 6 shells LMW

Regards,

Cnock

try again

post-7723-1161075391.jpg

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Thanks for the great pictures Cnock. I'm still struggling to make my photos small enough to fit on the forum!

Ian

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Try quick resizer,it is one of the easiest of the Photo resizing programmes,i have tried lots of them and it is pretty much Soldier Proof,but i say again it is very quck,and easy to use.

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Zephyr4 and PBI - thank you very much indeed for your input. Sheer laziness on my part for not getting this sorted sooner. Perversly, I followed neither of your hints as I am wary (perhaps unreasonably so) of downloading free programs which are liable to carry hidden spyware so I went for a Microsoft Powertool which is free, quick and easy to use, and Bill Gates says it's OK :D

My next two postings ought to carry pictures of my shells/ mortar rounds. Fingers crossed!!

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Brilliant Photos..glad you posted them....at last (Hee,Hee.)

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A prod with a sharp stick may, occasionally, be required!

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I went for a Microsoft Powertool which is free, quick and easy to use, and Bill Gates says it's OK :D

Ian,

What's this tool called? And does it come from the MS Download Center? What I really want is a dead simple utility that you tell to re-size a pic to 99kb with the minimum possible loss of quality, and it does it all for you.

Thanks

Mick

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Hi Mick,

Can recommend it - it does what it says on the tin. You still retain your original image within your folder but it puts a new small one there as well. I got it right first time so it must be easy! You are looking for ImageResizer.exe and you should find it at

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloa...ppowertoys.mspx

Good luck,

Ian

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