Shrapnel for Schneider 75mm field guns
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The
shrapnel adopted by the Bulgarian Army was composed by :
body with copper driving band, ogival head,
diaphragm, central tube, bullets, colophony, bursting charge. It was equipped
with a double acting, time and percussion, fuze. The shrapnel body (1). It was made
of steel. Its base contained the bursting chamber, which was
separated from the rest of the body hollow by the diaphragm. The
inside of the upper part of the body was threaded to
screw on the head. The cross-section of the body was slightly smaller than
the inside diameter of the gun barrel except for two locations: the top of
the cylindrical portion of the shell and the rotating band. The top band was known as a bourrelet. The
driving band (10) was made of copper and was pressed
into a groove milled near the base. They provided a very close tolerance
between the projectile and the barrel. Being larger than the body itself the driving band was compressed by the rifling
grooves and rotated the projectile, keeping it in a straight line during the
flight. The head (5). It was made
of steel; only some patterns of Schneider shrapnel had the head made of
aluminium in order to make it lighter. It was screwed into
the end the body and had inside the fuze body screwed in it. At the bottom it had a hole where the upper part of the central
tube was fixed. The central tube (7). It was made
of steel with an inner diameter of 8mm. It had to transmit the flame from the
primer charge in the fuze, housed in the head, down to the gunpowder stored
in the base. It was filled with pellets of
compressed cylindrical powder. In the middle it had
a hole where the lower part of the central tube was fixed. To make easier the
breaking of the tube and the ignition of the colophan,
it had some grooves notched on its upper surface. The diaphragm (6). It was made
of steel and was supported by a shoulder in the wall
of the shrapnel body, into which it fitted tightly. In the middle
it had a hole where the lower part of the central tube was fixed. The bullets (8). They were
made of hardened lead and filled up the room between the diaphragm and the
head. They weighted The colophan.
It was a pine rosin mixture poured into the shrapnel to hold the bullets in
place and to provide smoke so that artillery observer could determine if the
shrapnel was timed correctly to explode on the target. The bursting charge (9). It was
composed Time & percussion fuze.
The Bulgarian artillery, having adopted both Schneider and Krupp shrapnel,
used the double acting, time and percussion fuze, of both firms. The general
structure and the action of these two double-banked fuzes
were very similar, even if their inner arrangements had some minor
differences. |
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Shrapnel |