Weird German shell case

[CMichaud]

Does anyone know what this was from?

Thanks

 

[CMichaud]

Well Google is my friend as is Kaiserbunker...its a 37mm German flak casing

 

[Ganderite]

Looks very short for a flak gun casing. has it been cut down?

 

[CMichaud]

No don't think so. Pic is here

h t tp://www.kaisersbunker.com/cc/cc18.htm

 

[Ar180shooter]

Looks very short for a flak gun casing. has it been cut down?

Nope. It was designed for close defense on German Navy Cruisers/Battleships. It was later used as an anti-aircraft gun during WWI.

 

[donor]

Judging by pictures on the www that gun looked like basic scale-up of maxim MG.

I think Germans decided that in order to make gun safe and reliable cartridge had to be small.
Also this gun was meant for close AA work ( right over trenches?)so medium size MG with big punch works for what's intended to do.

 

[Cocked&Locked]

Pom Pom round. They weren't a scaled up maxim, they where a maxim, used all over the world. Brits and boer's both used them in the boer war.

Not a huge fan of widipedia, but they got most of the details right in this one, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QF_1-pounder_pom-pom

or get a copy of collector grade publishing "The Devil's Paintbrush" fascinating read!

 

[Quiet]

They have one of these guns on the lower floor of the Canadian War Museum. It looks very impressive, but from what I've read, the actual performance was not particularly well suited for anything. Low velocity, slow rate of fire, and not much explosive power in the shell.

 

[Pblatzz]

So the concept of the American Mk19 is a remake of the WWI German m3.7 Flak Maxim... What was old is new again.

 

[tjhaile]

So the concept of the American Mk19 is a remake of the WWI German m3.7 Flak Maxim... What was old is new again.

Not quite. 40mm grenades are what is known as a high-low pressure system. The muzzle velocity of the Mk 19 is typically around 790 fps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High–low_system

The 37mm Maxims are conventional automatic cannon with a high pressure case design and typical muzzle velocity of 1800 fps.

The high-low pressure design of the Mk 19 makes it possible to be light enough to be broken down into man-portable loads. 37mm Maxims were more like towed or pedestal-mounted light artillery; the bare gun alone weighs 410 lb.

 

[donor]

They have one of these guns on the lower floor of the Canadian War Museum. It looks very impressive, but from what I've read, the actual performance was not particularly well suited for anything. Low velocity, slow rate of fire, and not much explosive power in the shell.

Mind you that gun was meant for slow(relatively),low flaying,fabric covered airplanes.
If it didn't work Germans would stick to just using issue MG's on the front line.Very often they did just that.

Speaking of uses-wouldn't that make good observation balloon busting gun?