Name This...(266 Special Edation)

[Brady]

???

[2Stepper]

Tried to do a lil digging, but couldn't find a specific reference so I'll take a stab...

18" shell from either BB's Musashi or Yamato that just happened to be a dud.

Had also thought perhaps 16" shell from one of our bigboys, but in comparison to the soldiers hand, I'm betting its an 18"er.

Only other possibility I can think of is its a dud from a railcar howitzer, but I didn't think the Japanese employed those. So I'm doubting that. [8D]

[jcjordan]

Arm pointing to a line on an unexploded shell[:'(]

[dr. smith]

world's first breast implant (size 88DD) [:D]

[crsutton]

Nope, Im guessing its too blunt to be a naval shell. Its a bomby thingy and if it goes off that guy is never going to be able to sit in his car and pick his nose again.

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: 2Stepper

Tried to do a lil digging, but couldn't find a specific reference so I'll take a stab...

18" shell from either BB's Musashi or Yamato that just happened to be a dud.

Had also thought perhaps 16" shell from one of our bigboys, but in comparison to the soldiers hand, I'm betting its an 18"er.

Only other possibility I can think of is its a dud from a railcar howitzer, but I didn't think the Japanese employed those. So I'm doubting that. [8D]

don't think it's a dud since the driving band doesn't seem to be engraved

[mlees]

What's a driving band?

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: mlees

What's a driving band?

If you look at that raised thingee just above the hand, that is the driving band.

It is usually made of copper and is the diameter (roughly) of the bottom of the rifling grooves. The shell itself is the diameter (roughly) of the top or raised portion of the rifling groves. When the shell is fired, the driving band is deformed by the rifling; this gives a good gas seal and insures that the shell gets a good spin imposed as it travels up the barrel. If you tried to do something similar with the hardened steel of the shell itself, it would erode the rifling VERY quickly.

Disclaimer: I actually know nothing about ordnance and have never been present when anything larger than .30 cal was fired.

Edit: I need a spelling checker

[ChezDaJez]

Appears to be a HE shell from a large caliber naval gun or very large artillery round. Its HE due to its rounded, not pointed shape and due to the fusing port on top. Has what apears to be rifling marks in places but that could also be scratches on the picture.

I don't see any attachment points on the bottom that a bomb would need for fins. The flat bottom also points to a naval shell.

Whose? Don't know. Architecture in background appears to be European but because the Europeans had colonies in the Far East, can't rule that area out.

Size? 16-18".

Best guess: Japanese naval shell, 18" dud.

[tsimmonds]

Is that one of those "san shiki" main battery AA rounds?

[tc464]

I don't have access to my books at the moment, so I'm going off experience here. I'll be checking on it at home though, this one is a good challenge.

I don't think this is a projectile, for a couple reasons...

Not streamlined enough. The shape of the nose in the picture indicates a large bomb to me.

Rough surface. Projectiles were machined on the outside. Granted, this one may be dirty, but not that dirty.

Rotating band. First, I don't recall any projectiles with rotating bands located that far up on the body. Also, rotating bands on projectiles that size would be far more noticeable (2"-4" in width)

Nose fuze. All nose fuzes on projectiles are streamlined, making the projo look like it has a nice pointy tip. Again, if this is a dud, that nice pointy fuze would be mangled, but the small gap between the body and the widest part of the fuze is also suspicious. You wouldn't see that on a projectile fuze.

Now, as far as bombs go, this one fits better. It has a rough, or semi smooth body, a common shape to the nose, and the fuze reminds me of a typical nose impact fuze (possibly the M103 ?). Lugs may or may not be present, either due to impact, or because some bombs had strapped on lugs. If it's a dud, the fins may not be present. I rarely found a large size bomb with intact fins, and if I did, it was almost always the first thing I removed, in order to gain access to the tail fuze pocket.

I also thought it might be a breech loaded mortar round, like the ones used by Coastal Artillery, but I don't recall one being that big (I think 12" was the largest diameter). I actually measured my hand and used at as a way to try and measure the pic, and it came out to about 16"-18".

I think its a bomb, 1,000 to 3,000 lb range, general purpose, fragmentation or demolition. Like I said, I'll be hitting the books later.

Just my .02

[mlees]

Dang thing looks (from the scale of the guys hand) to be four or five feet tall.

If you removed the back end off a torpedo, (and placed the engine section out of picture frame) would it look similar?

Forgive my speculating...

[tc464]

The nose would be wrong for that too. Torpedoes didn't have protruding nose fuzes, and the ones I saw either had a nice smooth round nose or a round nose with a rubber bladder (?) looking thing (due to chronic beer poisoning, the technical term escapes me at the moment), for acoustic fuzing. I'm speculating a bit too, its been years since my few days in Area 8.

[DrewMatrix]

This is a film from the Yellow River Delta, spring 1942.

The guy is pointing to the high water mark from the winter flooding, where it left a stain on some boring old thing sitting on a blanket.

From the fact the boring old thing is sitting on a blanket, I assume it is taken on the beach, during optimum sun-tan hours (noon to 1 PM)

Beezle in California, Dude

[panda124c]

Looks to be about 30cm or approx. 12" in diameter shaped much like a mortar round.
Some sort of round for a siege mortar.

If it was shorter and a little wider I'd say a 380mm StumTiger round.

[2Stepper]

Nah, I doubt Brady would grab anything from the European theater. He's been pretty good about keeping them all Pacific based. Though I have been in "quiet" mode a while doing other things lately so anything is possible...

As for the pic, one of my first thoughts was a rail born howitzer round as I was pretty certain it was HE in nature due to the rounded off top.

Still, its tough to say. The dirty nature of it leads me to think it was a dud. Is it just possible the picture was taken to use as a training tool to other EOD troops of the day? As to explaining why it didn't go off maybe? Still bobbing for apples here, but I'm sticking with an unexploded 18" round.

[rtrapasso]

Nah, I doubt Brady would grab anything from the European theater. He's been pretty good about keeping them all Pacific based.

Have you forgotten the recent Italian pneumatic ASW mortar/R2D2's great-great-great-great-great grandfather?

[mlees]

So what is Mr. Hand trying to draw our attention to?

[rtrapasso]

Measuring my own (average sized) hand from tip of index finger to wrist (about 7"), and comparing to this guys, the shell is about 2x that size = 14" diameter. I am surprised - I was guessing on the 18" size.

Similarly, it is 6.5 x 7" = 45.5" long. Of course, if our demo hand is from a giant or dwarf, it will skew the results.

[rtrapasso]

Could this represent the Japanese 800 kg AP bomb/converted BB shell?