LeFH 18 ‘accessory’ question

[Greg S]

I am painting my German LeFH 18 medium artillery and there are several crates and extras that go with it.  And there is one little pit that is baffling me, so I’m hoping someone could identify it.

It is a small pile of long cylinders, with cross hatchings on them.  There are what appear to be discarded shell casings among them.

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[Jacob Carter]

Pretty sure those are wicker transport cases for artillery shells.

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[Greg S]

That’s not something I have seen before.  Thanks.

[Crazynoob198]

That’s cool. Never really thought about what they would be made out of. I don’t know the model, but it looks like a winter time period. Maybe wicker was used to help prevent hands from sticking to metal shell canisters? Just a thought.

[Robert]

The use of wicker shell carriers was widespread and dated back to before the First World War. Here is a WW1 example:

Robert

[Robert]

And a German heavy Minenwerfer from WW1:

Robert

[Robert]

German WW1 field artillery shell wicker carrier:

Robert

[invisible officer]

The wicker had some andvantages. It was light and elastic. So a dropped cannister was not breaking like thin wood. (Massive Wood was heavy)  For Germany in wartime it was also an advantage to save rare materials, even seasoned Wood was becoming scarce.

 

German 10,5 cm amo consisted of the case with base propellant, a number of bags with extra  loads, the seperate shell and the fuze.

There had been many different shells, like HE /Sprenggranate, Smoke / Nebel , AT / Panzergranate and more.

 

The pic of my 10,5 cm guns Show the  different Containers.

 

AT and AA guns used “Patronenmunition” with Shell and case together. They got metal Containers.

 

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by invisible officer.

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[invisible officer]

And another angle.  The boxes are for fuzes and charges, see the different size of stuff inside. Both protected by containers, normally made from cardboard (Waxed for water protection)  and put in a wooden box. .

 

Loading prodedure was (Simplified) : Gun commander got the range from battery staff and ordered the number of charges for the case depending on range . The shell was chosen and the fuze inserted. With a key the fuze was set. Then the Shell/fuze combination was loaded and next the case. Closing the breech – BANG

4 – 6 rounds / minute

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by invisible officer.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by invisible officer.

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[Greg S]

Thanks guys.  I had had identified the rest of the boxes and crates from Google, but had never come across wicker shell carriers.  And I don’t think I’ve seen one in a museum.

And thanks Invisible Officer for being as informative as usual.

[Author]

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