Cartridge Total Weight

Hi lwd, its mainly for my own enjoyment, what started off as being part of a wargame has now turned into a collection of data, my goal was to list all the main weapons used between WW1 and Korea starting with Infantry, Artillery and AFVs (no navy or air force), and to be honest I am about 75% there.

It’s also nice to be able to help someone else too, and I have tried to establish a data base of Infantry Companies from 1939 to 1945, so if anyone needs any data I may be able to help, just got my hands on a Yugoslav Infantry Company 1941.

Yan.

 

Ok. Sounds like multi digit precsion is hardly required. I suspect you can get some cartridge weights from collectors. Getting individual weights of a number of cartridges could be useful as a measure of variance.

One pet peeve of mine is people not being aware of significant digits. There is a difference between 2. g, 2.0 g, and 2.00 g for instance. The first implies you measurement is accurate to the gram the third to 100th of a gram.

If have a weight of 1. kg and convert it to lbs you shouldn't say the object weighed 2.20462 lbs 2.2 lbs is as precise as the data will support. PLS keep that in mind for you tables, especially if you publish them.

 

I also collect data for wargaming purposes though I went the the extreme of including everything I could find data on from battleships to ammo (my database even includes a table on aircraft and tank engines). I have some 30 records for infantry cartriges but as I failed to track the sources they are little use as IIRC some data there is just "guesswork", put into it so that the program on top wouldn't generate errors. I envy your 75% at best I'm around 40% and the first versions othe DB were in flat files on an Z80 PC on 8" diskettes (so you can guess since when I'm collecting data). I always referred to the thing as "Tela di Penelope", it's not really meant to be ever finished , once it served to sharpen my programming skills, but it's been yers since I last wrote code for a living so now I just do it for fun.

 

Hi lwd, your pet peeve is well noted my friend, I had a similar problem with Artillery Barrel lengths, the Italians were the worst;

47mm L/32 Modello 35 Anti-Tank Gun (L/36)
75mm L/46 Modello 34 AA Gun (L/50)
90mm L/53 Modello 41 AA Gun (L/58)
75mm L/13 Modello 15 Mountain Gun (L/15)
75mm L/18 Modello 34 Howitzer (L/25)
75mm L/27 Modello 06 Field Gun (L/30)
75mm L/32 Modello 37 Field Gun (L/36)
100mm L/17 Modello 16 Mountain Howitzer (L/19)
100mm L/22 Modello 14/19 Field Howitzer (L/24)
149mm L/19 Modello 37 Medium Howitzer (L/20)
149mm L/40 Modello 35 Heavy Gun (L/44)
210mm L/22 Modello 35 Heavy Howitzer (L/23.8)

Now I know that this is down to how the Italians measure their weapons but I sure find it confusing especially when you are trying to keep you data in all the same lengths.

Yan.

 

IIRC the Italians mesasure the barrel lenghth like most othe countries, it's the Germans that measure differntly getting higher numbers. This has led me off track more than once the Krupp Flak 36 is an 8.8cm L56 so the 88/55 used by the Ariete division is a different weapon ..... wrong it's the same gun though the Italian ones had no shields. It's even worse with naval guns Bari (ex German Pillau) was armed with Krupp 15cm L45 guns that became 149mm /53 in Italian use.
But the allied system was closer (or the same) as the Italian one (no big surprise as Ansaldo and OTO initially licensed Armstrong and Schneider not Krupp or Skoda designs.

If anyone has found a site that details the differences I would be very glad for it, I recall reading a good description about in in an Ian Hogg book but it got lost a long time ago.

 

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliber

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/Gun_Data.htm
states:

 

I think you may be confusing the issue. The use of 'calibers of length' is limited to various artillery or naval guns rather than rifles.

 

Thanks, I recalled there was a difference between bag and cartridge guns and as the Germans preferred sliding block breeches and cartridges.
So the various methods included a portion of the firing chamber and how much they included made the difference. Terms like "inner breech face" and "top of the mushroom head (vent axial) of the breech" are a bit confusing ... this is a case where a picture may be worth 1000 words, will try creating it.

Yep calibers are not used for small arms, more than confusing the issue we plainly went off topic :-(

 

The first souce noted that the difference between measuring the diamter from the depth of the grooves in some cases vs the top of the grooves in others.

 

I think the Germans and Skoda were the only ones that measured the bottom of the grooves, which is why their 15cm became a 149mm in Italian use

But the NavWeaps explanation is unconvincing when it gets to barrel length, if you look at the pic I made (sorry my drawing skill are poor) it would explain the 88/L56 becomming an 88/55 as 9cm is a reasonable thickness for the sliding block, but the 150 L45 becoming a 149/53 assumes a 30cm thick sliding block and it gets even worse for bigger guns like the Bismark's ones, 3 calibers of a 15" gun is over a meter, something I don't understand here.

 

Note that the NavWeapons author also expresses a lack of understanding on this issue. Between you and him it looks like I'm in good company.