Question..electriclly tested Arty Ammo????

[Dean (Ajax)]

Maybe someone can help with this WW 2 Artillery Ammo testing question..I have spent hours at my local archives and searched the net for an answer to this question...but no joy.

While researching D I L in Ajax, I have read that they tested the Artillery Rounds electricly...however I can find no more about this.

Does anyone have any ideas what this means...did they fire the rounds from Guns? Or was there some other device and system to test Rounds from each Lot of Manufacture?

By the way, the testing area for D I L Ajax is now under the Kids Water Park at the lake...always got a kick out of that. LOL

Dean

[chris vickery]

Hi Dean, just a shot in the dark on this (sorry for the pun). I have heard of this also. I think what is being referrred to is that the round was fired electrically with the addition of an electrical igniter instead of traditional percussion primer system. They most likely had a test chamber where the round was inserted into a test fixture and fired remotely. I could see this in a bunker type test facility. I could also see this being used in the testing of fuses and or HE type projectiles. If someone else knows better let me know, Chris

[RHClarke]

Recent manuals indicate that electrical testing of rounds and missiles refers to circuit checks that are conducted to determine the fitness of the various electrical systems. Rocket motors come to mind as do electrically set fuzed ammo.

Manuals go to great lengths to warn the user to only use an authorized test kit and suitable power source sufficient for the testing and to avoid using a power source that may cause a reaction in the explosive component of the round or missile. Makes sense.

There are some older manuals that discuss static discharge limits and lightning strikes on ammo storage sites.

Not much has changed with regards to electrical testing of ammo since WWII. Ammo Techs still want to walk out of the bunker alive - the test kits have changed as have the complexity of the ammo.

[Dean (Ajax)]

Thanks guys...now, I wonder what the launcher looked like..and did they shoot the round into the lake ( Ontario) or wha happened to it???

I mean, if they fired the round into the lake..how would they know it worked??? The Projectile would not go off on impact with the water..and how far out into the lake would it have gone???

Just questions I now have after really lookng into how "Shells" were filled, painted, packed and tested.

There are so many dead ends on this..as I live in Ajax..the largest shell filling town outside Russia during the War...you would think I could find the answers to this and many other questions..not even our Archives out here can answer many questions..hell I asked questions they never thought of...never mind could answer..

Well the Film Production I am helping out on this has almost no money...yup. if we were American...I could see the Millions rolling in..however it is a case of the Devil you know...sort of thing....the scripts are somewhat...well lets just say...someone that knows NOTHING about this wrote them..and I am trying to point out the errors...while providing a "way" do sort it out.

One guy found on line a photo of a cutaway 18 pounder..so everything he bought looked like the stuff in the photo...including the cordite...I had to tell him that cordite was not soft..but brittle..and the photo he had was of a Traing Aid...so they used thick string for the cordite...limp stuff!!!

Well, Do what you can to make it closer to right..maybe next time!!!

Dean

[motto]

One of the contributors to the Australian Shooters Journal was an ammunition tester during WW2 and has referred to some of his activities in his articles for the magazine. He worked in South Australia and for one of the tests they used a huge flat area in which they fired vertically so as to recover the projectiles with as little damage as possible. I think it was on the coast somewhere. Perhaps they were doing something similar at Ajax
As regards electrical firing. In this instance it probably refers to remote firing of the weapon as most artillery and probably all was percussion ignition. Electrically ignited munitions have been around since the late 1800s but were to my knowledge confined to shipboard or fixed shore installations.
David

[Dean (Ajax)]

Thank you....wish I could find photos of them doing this.

Thank you again
Dean