Question..electriclly tested Arty Ammo????

Dean (Ajax) · #1 26-08-11, 12:51

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 · #2 01-09-11, 20:43

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 · #3 01-09-11, 21:42

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) · #4 02-09-11, 00:56

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 · #5 11-09-11, 05:32

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) · #6 11-09-11, 10:35

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

Thank you again
Dean

Marc Montgomery · #7 11-09-11, 15:18

Dean, are you sure about it being the biggest? Camp Bouchard in Blainville (about 20 min from my house) was several km sq in area. Its now a major equestrian area, lots of housing (of course) and the site of an automaker test track (closed to public) which you can easily see on google earth. When I was there several years ago, you could still find in the wooded areas remnants of foundations and some of the small calibre filling stations.. These were rows of three sided concrete cubicles..so that if one blew..it would up and back through the wood roof and rear but not forward into the building or beside into the other cubicles. (a blast wall would be outside building-see photo) I have somewhere in my collection “then and now” photos..but these are not available to me at present (were they in a Convoy Mag??)

In walking the still wooded areas (again several years ago) you would come across other vestiges of the past including for example fire hydrants in the middle of the woods..

There was daily train service for the thousands of workers to and from..and of course other train tracks into the plant itslef to transport the vast amount of munitions…train evidence all gone now. And the plant even had its own bus service.

The other major plant was Cherrier, now Le Gardeur..also about 20 min from my house in the other direction, but I’ve never been there. Its now all new boring soulless suburb. I doubt anyone there knows anything at all about the plant/war effort there. Probably any evidence of its existence is long gone.

Quite some time ago I somehow came across medical reports (online somewhere) about worker health.. Seems after awhile, it was discovered that many workers began to suffer from TNT poisoning in spite of precautions of mandatory showers, washing of work clothes etc.. (this was also the case in WWI) I seem to recall that they began to limit the time workers spent directly with the explosives to a period of several months before switching to other functions

**(veterans affairs website) ***= For example, Quebec, one of the main suppliers of arms to the Allied forces, alone provided up to one third of the country's civilian workforce, earning it the name of Canada's Arsenal! Quebec had the country's two tank factories, five main shipyards, two of the four largest gun manufacturing plants, practically all the plants producing small calibre ammunition, ten plants manufacturing shells, the only plant producing air bombs, almost half the explosives and chemical factories, and three out of eight aircraft plants. The armament plants were literally industrial cities. The largest, Defence Industries Limited's Cherrier plant, located in Saint-Paul-L'Ermite (today known as Le Gardeur, just outside of Montréal), alone had 450 buildings spread over 15 square kilometres! ****

Also in one of the old Convoy Magazines, there is a big story on the Angus Yards tank plant in Montreal. Lots of then and now photos. Mostly housing development now. Part of the main plant is now a big supermarket, another part is converted into office space

Bouchard and Cherrier photos
1- Blast wall outside a shell filling building
2- Inspection window into one of the filling cubicles ( I have a fragment of the triple layer armoured glass window)

3- Filling a torpedo warhead
4- One of the filling cubicles mentioned
5- Stencilling 25pdr shells

Marc Montgomery · #8 11-09-11, 15:27

PS- there seems to have been a great deal of quality control too..

testing of explosive charge weight, exact dimensions, effort to separate shell from cartridge, defects etc etc etc

Dean (Ajax) · #9 12-09-11, 11:26

THANK YOU!!! I have found over 300 photos of the D I L Plant in Ajax..but yours are the only photos I have seen shown the blast walls.

I have found many photos of the entire process for filling, painting the shells and projectiles..and the many inspections also..even a copy of a workers photo album

One thing you mentioned also explains a photo I have seen reproducted many times..listed as being DIL Ajax, but I knew it could not be from that plant....The famous photo of the 500 LBS air dropped Bombs.
I will pass this info on.

Thank you aain
Dean

Marc Montgomery · #10 12-09-11, 13:01

Hi Dean all these photos are available online from archives Canada
I have others not so readily available but alas are difficult for me to access

1- bouchard or cherrier filling 20mm shells

2- pull test..(effort to separate projectile from casing

3- bundling cordite

4 weighing cordite

5 cherrier plant- working on 500lb aerial bomb

Dean (Ajax) · #11 12-09-11, 21:55

Sorry, I found over 600 photos..check out this link http://www.pada.ca/search/results/?txt_a=DIL

Also there are many more not on this site....A bunch were found of DIL Ajax in Shilo early this year or Late last year...I have seen them..but they are not on that website yet.....the archives here have a lot of DIL items..but the archives are being redone..so it is quite a mess right now..

DIL Ajax, was the largest shell filling plant in the Commonwealth..and perhaps the world..less Russia at the time....not bad for a place that was just farm land in 1938!!!

However..there are still many unanswered question...about the little things.
The 3 Shifts ( the women) wore Red for morning shift, white for afternoon shift and blue for late or night shift ( their headbands)
Just a neat bit of info.

Thank you again

Dean

Marc Montgomery · #12 13-09-11, 12:39

it is interesting to note that these plants had organized recreation facilities and even chapel(s).

in your archives link is a photo of a burned building.. From my expoloration of what was left of the huge Bouchard site, it is quite clear the individual buildings were all built quite far apart...for obvious safety reasons

Marc Montgomery · #13 15-09-11, 04:59

well I'll be .. searching for something COMPLETELY different and not connected with militaria and not seeking photos AT ALL..

i came across this !!! photos of the ruins of Camp Bouchard...presumably relatively (?) recent..

the attached photo shows some of the row of small calibre shell filling...or now that I think of it..more likely these were explosives mixing chambers
this would have been connected with photos 1=2 and 4 of the previous set

a link below to a couple other photos and the google earth map of the site

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/41022148