Help Identify this ordinance please

[Jammanna]

I got this at a recycling center. The markings are tough to identify. I can however clearly see the number 50 and No.88 H. Its about 4 1/2" across at widest point and 5" high not including the bottom flange. Does anyone know what it is?

[vegetius]

British 4.5 Inch Shrapnel fuzed with a No 88 Time and Percussion.

[Jammanna]

Thanks vegetius I had a feeling it was British. WW1 ??

[vegetius]

Yes but the No 88 was still in service in 1936 as it is in the 1936 Textbook of Ammunition. When I have access to the OB Proceedings again I could look at the Out of Service date.

[08SMLE48]

Weren’t Shrapnel shells done away with soon after the end of WWI?

[vegetius]

SMLE,

They still appear in the 36 Treatise. I don't have access to the Obsolescent / Obsolete list currently but that's peaked my curiosity now so I'll look into it. The 36 shows the 60 Pdr and 18 Pdr, I know the 25 Pdr never had a shrapnel so it is an interesting question as to what we stopped.

R

.

[Teck 147]

Not sure when they were supposed to be obsolete on the Isles or anywhere else for that matter but there were enough instances of left over Shrapnel being chucked around in WWII. The Germans managed to snatch a whole load of Soviet ones in Barbarossa.
The 105mm Flechette (Beehive shell R.?) and further developments prove that they never really went out of fashion

[08SMLE48]

I’ve read somewhere (can’t remember where) that WWI just about make the shrapnel shell obsolete since armies quit moving around the battlefield in tight formations. The amount of shrapnel balls in the shell and the dispersion of the shrapnel did not give desired results. HE with a time fuze was more effective against troops in the open. Shrapnel was used to cut through wire in the preparation barrages though followed up with HE with delay and time to destroy trenches and air burst exposed enemy troops

[Richard2]

I was told by my gunnery instructor at Fort Sill in 1974 that the US Army stopped buying shrapnel shells at the end of WWI, but those already in stockpile continued to be used for training for several years. He said the reason was that HE fragmentation shells were cheaper, and more cost effective; we could inflict more casualties per dollar spent using HE than by using shrapnel.

[08SMLE48]

I was told by my gunnery instructor at Fort Sill in 1974 that the US Army stopped buying shrapnel shells at the end of WWI, but those already in stockpile continued to be used for training for several years. He said the reason was that HE fragmentation shells were cheaper, and more cost effective; we could inflict more casualties per dollar spent using HE than by using shrapnel.

Yes and perhaps what I read pertained more to the US inventory than that of other countries