8,8 cm Flak (shell & casing)

[Private Snafu]

Bought this shell & casing quite some years ago. One of my first items i bought in fact.
Its an 88cm Flak casing & projectile
The casing is in steel I believe. And the projectile is painted green/grayish with black bottom and red/brow top (looks quite rusty in the picture). The inside is flat white.

Dont know much about it but according to a local military historian the casing is marked as fired once (see pic - circled).

What does the other markings mean?

[Nordland/Danmark]

Very nice! I wood like to get my hands in that pice

[Matt L]

Funny nobody's answered this one in a year LOL So here's what you're looking for:

The two, three-letter codes are the manufacturers:

ozs was

Emil Karches sen., Mechan. Werkstätten, Straßburg (Elsaß), Gerbergraben 24 - 26

atr was

Langbein-Pfannhauser-Werke A.-G., Leipzig 05, Torgauer Str. 76

Obviously 42 was the manufacture date, 323 was the lot number (323rd of 1942) and the WaA10 is the military authority acceptance stamp. The '8,8cm Flak 18' is obviously the weapon, and '(8,8cm 30St)' is the case designation- since there were several 8,8cm weapons with different cases; the 'St' portion refers to the case being Stahl (steel).

[kradman]

Looks to me like this is one of the German Flak 88 rounds that was sold off by the Finnish army some years ago there is quite alot of them on the market and all came from the Finnish army with the Fuzes missing

[Nordland/Danmark]

Looks to me like this is one of the German Flak 88 rounds that was sold off by the Finnish army some years ago there is quite alot of them on the market and all came from the Finnish army with the Fuzes missing

hello there

You say there is a lot of them on the market!!
whara can I get my hands in one of this?

Regardes
Thomas

[John Brandon]

hello there

You say there is a lot of them on the market!!
whara can I get my hands in one of this?

Regardes
Thomas

Hi Thomas
There is a Belgium dealer "Ben" who bought nearly the whole lot from Finland, and when he comes to Beltring or Stoneleigh he always has them for sale, at a very good price too. Once in a while he will have some gems, and last year I bought 3 or 4 of his "Tiger" shells complete with correct fuses. I can't think of his last name at the moment, but all he deals in is munitions

[kradman]

His name is Ben Junior or something like that , He has some and i know that the Finnish Army still have alot in Storage as i saw them about two weeks ago

[Nordland/Danmark]

Thanks guys

[trustno1]

Hy guys!

Im new on the forum and I would like to ask you does anyone know if flack shell 88mm can explode if the fuse is removed???
Im a diver and found 7-8 flack 88mm shells unexploded in shallow watter.
The police removed the fuse (silver top of the shell) and left it on the bottom near the rest of the bomb. Can the fuse explode if I touch it or can the bomb explode if I move it but without the fuse. Im colecting that kind of things but I dont want to die. The bombs are from ww2, I know this because there, near my beach, in october 1944. five britain ships attacked 6 nazi ships. Nazis lost the battle, one ship sunked and two ships neaded to run aground.
Does someone have sheme of the bomb?
I would be thankful if someone can help me.
Sorry for my bad english.

[Matt L]

Theoretically the shells themselves shouldn't explode; high explosives are intentionally designed to be extremely stable, meaning you can burn them, smash them, and basically do anything you want to them and they won't detonate- they need another explosive to set them off, which is what is in the gaine (attached to the fuse) does. The gaine explosive is much less stable so is easy to set off- the fuse sets that off and that sets off the primary charge. Now of course explosives can become unstable over time, so can become dangerous- I would suspect that real EOD folks would simply advise staying away from anything that's still loaded, and that's probably the safest thing to do.

The fuse itself is just a mechanical device, so is totally safe- it's the smaller cylindrical metal piece screwed to the bottom of the fuse- the gaine- that's the dangerous bit; if the fuses you see have these still in place, stay away from them. But it'd have been pretty poor work by the police to separate the fuses and not remove the gaines.

If you look at the website wk2ammo.com, you can find cutaway examples of lots of ordnance, and there are some excellent 8,8cm shells there that show all the parts.