Flipping through my favorite channels Monday night and almost spewed my soda all over the living room. During a show about tanks a gentleman held up a shell from what he said was a British 2 pound cannon. Next to him on the floor stood what he patted and called an 88mm shell.

It was like holding up a 22 caliber rimfire round next to a 50 caliber machine gun round!

Could someone with a good reference post some pictures of the comparitive size of the different AFV armaments from the war? That just blew me away.

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL

Figured I'd see if I could pull anything up on this one- Google image search is one of the most vastly under-rated tools on the web.

I came up with a gem- straight from the webpage of WW2 forum member Tony Williams!
(all credit obviously goes to him, and I hope he dosen't mind me linking to the images from a couple of his pages. If so, I'll obviously edit the page!)
((figured it was just as easy to add the image tags on the link as it would be to simply list the link- again, with all respect and credit to Mr. Williams!))

British tank rounds-

German tank rounds-

I remember waaaay back checking out his webpage- but good lord, if anyone's looking for info on ammunition- his page is your one-stop shop.
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/index.htm
Can't wait till later tonight when I have more time to really go over it and see what he has put together. SUPERB effort and webpage!

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Seriously, all today is missing is free cotton candy and the annual Bay State Hooker Parade to make it any better.

One of those 88s ( the one 2nd from right ) still stands on my living room floor where it excites much horrified comment from guests

Bigiceman is right - that 2-pr looks quite pitiful....

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Thanks for the pictures and the link Crazy. I will have to pull those off and see if I can photoshop them into scale. I will definitely be looking at Tony's web pages tonight.

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL

No problem CrazyD. I should point out, however, that the two photos are not to the same scale - the German ammo was relatively bigger than it appears here. You can compare the scales by looking at the measurements; the second number (e.g. the 350 of 75x350R) is the length in millimetres of the cartridge case (not including the projectile stuck in the top).

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Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website

Excellent- glad you didn't mind the linking, Tony! Some absolutely superb stuff you've put together there.
Not to scale? You mean the 6pndr round wasn't as large as the 88/L56?

I did just notice an amusing coincidence tho- the two images I linked are apparently the only ones NOT part of Tony's collection!
(Which is clearly one heck of a collection, to say the least...)

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Seriously, all today is missing is free cotton candy and the annual Bay State Hooker Parade to make it any better.

Crazy, when I said not to scale I meant that the two pictures are taken at different distances. It makes the 583 shell look almost as tall as the 882.

Went to Tony's site and looked around. Wonderful sight full of all kinds of wonderful information about ordenance. It is impressive that he has all of them except a few of the ones shown in the pictures Crazy linked.

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL

:smile:
Ice, it was sarcasm- I'm well aware of the size difference between and 88/L56 and a 6pndr round!

I love the picture from Tony's site labeled "Collection 1"- somehow, I doubt my wife would let me have a closet like that!!

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Seriously, all today is missing is free cotton candy and the annual Bay State Hooker Parade to make it any better.

I know that would not happen at my house. I am doing good to have swords hanging on the walls. Modern weapons and munitions have to be out of sight, they are too scary.

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL

Honestly - you guys are such lightweights !

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Martin, at least you should spend a few hours and put those books straight and sorted out! At least like the After the Battles we can discern on the top shelf

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I saw those two tank round images, and I was very curious to see what they would look like side-by-each. I loaded the images into a photo editor, did a couple pixel measurement, a quick bit of math, resized the images and voila: a scale image of the shells. The 88 looks terrifying!

This truly demonstrates the massive amount of propellant behind the German rounds, (I hope Tony doesn't mind the image edits).

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"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance." Socrates

No problem - I may pinch that photo back again for my site, if you don't mind!

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Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website

No worries Tony, the images were yours in the first place, pinch away.

I just went throught your site again by the way, what a terrific job.

__________________

WWII Forums Rogues Gallery - send in your photo!
Comments, questions or feedback? Contact me at

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance." Socrates

Wow !
I already knew your site, M. Williams, which is one of the most respected and quoted reference in the WWII flight simulators community, but I did not knew its scope extended to other subjects than airplane weaponery.