Found on San Sisto ridge

[swizz]

As some of you know I have recently visited the Asiago plateau. One of the places we visited was San Sisto ridge where we saw what remains of the lines held by British troops in June 1918. There was a lot of material still there - we found a bullet cartridge in one of the trenches and there seemed to be areas of barbed wire still in place in front of the line. We also found a lot of old cans and amongst them was this object. It was about 3 or 4 inches across and hopefully it is possible to see the double layer of metal inside.

But what is it? I was wondering whether it was part of a gas mask?

Swizz

[swizz]

Here it is from the other side.

[Max Poilu]

Possibly some sort of 'Tommy cooker'...

Or, are you sure that inner disc is not card/fibre - also very reminiscent of the round tin 'box' that holds Mills detonators/fuzes...

[swizz]

Hi Max

No I'm pretty sure it was all metal. It was my husband who found it in with a lot of old cans. At a glance it just looked the same as the cans, but it was when he lifted it up he saw the two layers inside!

Swizz

[SiegeGunner]

Is it perhaps the base of a self-heating food can?

[CSG_Smolders]

I'm certainly no WW1 expert, but that looks like the insides of an oil filter for an engine. Could it be something like that?

[auchonvillerssomme]

Have you got a picture of the underneath?

Mick

[SiegeGunner]

... that looks like the insides of an oil filter for an engine.

Can my idea of the self-heating can — I vote for the oil filter. When I look at it again, the gathered-in 'skirt' suggests that the complete object probably had a domed top.

[swizz]

The pictures show the two sides of it (top and bottom).

You may be right about the filter idea but I suppose there's no way to be sure. I left it on San Sisto. I suppose there's nothing really - apart from the location it was found - to indicate that it is even from the war!

Thanks to all for their contributions!

Swizz

[Flavio]

I was scrolling through old discussions concerning the presence of British troops in Asiago, in my opinion this is the container for the primers of the mills hand grenades

[Andrew Upton]

2 hours ago, Flavio said:

...in my opinion this is the container for the primers of the mills hand grenades

I can see why you might think that, but I believe it is incorrect. Although the detonator tins for the Mills vary greatly in terms of construction they typically share a few features. One is the center is effectively left solid (not pierced/drilled as on the OP's relic item), but more diagnostically they feature holes of two different sizes (not all the same size as on the relic item) to take the thinner detonator section and wider cap, eg:

 

[Flavio]

Clearly I'm not an expert on this object but I found a container for Mills detonators next to a Lewis loader, then seen the same, identical to the war museum in Canove di Roana

 

[14276265]

3 hours ago, Flavio said:

I was scrolling through old discussions concerning the presence of British troops in Asiago, in my opinion this is the container for the primers of the mills hand grenades

It is a cylinder for 25 No.8 MkVII detonators, often used for demolition explosives. The central big hole in the middle is for a rectifier, which is a spike on a handle used to ensure the detonator cavities in slabs of guncotton and in 1-oz guncotton primers are the correct size (not too tight).

Attached is an example listing of demolition stores to Italy for one month in 1917.

[Flavio]

Thanks so much for the explanation.

Really interesting and apologies for the mistake to the previous user too

[Chasemuseum]

Still impressive, that members can accurately identify debris excavated from the ground 100 years latter. Give anther 100 years and most of these sheet steel objects will be simply a ferrous oxide stain in clay.