Talk:Mine shell

"Drilled cavity"?

I was under the impression that shells were usually CAST from metal, not machined. I can't imagine them drilling every single shell out to make it hollow for an explosive filler somehow... AnnaGoFast (talk) 01:59, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Renaming of the article.

So i want to suggest renaming the article to Mine shells as this type of munition has been used by several other countries besides Germany. The Brits called them Mine shells with very similar names in other languages. For example mingranat in Swedish which translates to mine grenade.--Blockhaj (talk) 00:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Seems this has been done, but I would agree (per WP:UE); there's no reason to use a non-English term when an English one exists. Xyl 54 (talk) 23:41, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Name

The Name section needs clarifying, I think. This currently states that the term "does not refer to the modern use of the word, for example land mine and naval mine" (of which it says the meaning "is more defined"), but that it "originates from the original meaning of the word mine which originally meant something along the lines of explosive ordnance".
First off, I can't find anything in a dictionary to verify this use of "mine" in its original language (I drew a blank with this online German dictionary), so what is the exact definition and where is it found?
Second, the use of the word "mine" in English does cover ordnance that relies on blast, viz. air mines. How is the German/Swedish word different/more specific? Xyl 54 (talk) 23:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

As the writer of this section i should first say that English is not my first language and i had a hard time trying to write a viable explanation to why the shell is named the way it is. My knowledge at the time was limited to German and Swedish sources but i (with help from others) have discovered a lot more info since then. Here is the current understanding and the way i would formulate the segment today: The term "mine shell" is often misunderstood or seen as confusing by the uneducated as the use of the word mine most often refers to land and sea mines. But the term mine actually refers to a munition effect (such as incendiary or armor piercing) rather than a hidden explosive. Why the munition effect was originally named mine is not really known as mine shells first appeared over 150 years ago which makes research problematic. The first known use of the term comes from Italy who called them mina-granata as early as 1870. However, it is possible that the ammunition type existed previous to this as the French during the same period had two names for the shell-type which indicates that one could be a new modern replacement name. Name number 1 was "obus fougasse", obus meaning shell and fougasse being an old word for land mine. Name number 2 was "obus à mine" which ruffly translates to mine shell. In any case, the term and shell type saw fairly big spread during the late 1800's and was adopted by most of europés modern armies. Some known names besides the previously mentioned ones are: Granada-mina in Spanish, Minengeschoß (Minengeschoss) in German, Mingranat in Swedish and Minegranat in Norwegian.

Anyway this subject is still full of mysteries.

Here are a few links of interest.

http://www.museotorino.it/resources/pdf/books/235/files/assets/common/downloads/publication.pdf

https://books.google.se/books?id=tu_yC7IWSw8C&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=%22obus+fougasse%22&source=bl&ots=gfPZT3VTpY&sig=ACfU3U2gF6zqXwb5lYDQr5b89c5KGUzM7A&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjm2Yu4uZTpAhXQD5oKHRA6BwwQ6AEwCnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22obus%20fougasse%22&f=false

https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/history-of-mine-shells/36548/13

--Blockhaj (talk) 06:27, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Various

• 1 Why does Minengeschoss not redirect to this page?
• 2 Concrete is "easy to penetrate" and "more vulnerable to blast"? Then why did the Allies, and later the US go to such great lengths to develop very heavy, thick walled bombs that could penetrate through concrete bunkers (i.e. the Tallboy, Grand Slam, GBU-28, etc, etc) because conventional thin-walled HE/Frag bombs didn't scratch the concrete? This seems totally counter-intuitive to the point that it makes me wonder about vandalism. Sheet metal and concrete seem like vastly different substances. My impression was the AP and heavy wall shells are more effective against solid substances like concrete and armor plate, while blast is more effective against thin sheet metal and light, high-surface-to-mass targets.
• 3 It's not "shrapnel", it's "fragmentation". Shrapnel is an informal term, although I might as well give up since it seems to have become established usage.
• 4 "An additional advantage of this approach is that, explosives being lighter than metal, the projectiles weigh less, which gives them higher muzzle velocity compared to heavier shells. For the same reason, they also generate less recoil. "

This seems questionable, although I am not at all sure. Although the projectile is lighter, it is also accelerated to a higher speed. So therefore the reaction impulse ought to be the same for a given powder load. I have read that special guns were needed to fire the M-shells, but I suspect it has more to do with the recoil profile rather than the total amount of recoil generated. Or even that they had to download the propellant cases to stay within safe velocity levels, or to retain the same ballistic profile. A .284 Remington is a smaller round than many larger calibers, yet it generates a high amount of recoil.

Idumea47b (talk) 04:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

To answer Idumea47b's qustions.

• 1 It does now?
• 2 Mine shells were developed prior to modern style bunkers and fortresses. Basically prior to rebar becomming effective. During the mid 1800's fortresses were simple brick and concrete constructions, often lacking rebar, which were designed to withstand the classic cannonball firing muzzle loading cannons of the previous centuries. However munition development advanced much faster than expected and mineshells was a result of this. The mine shells of this era were designed to penetrate into these forttress walls and then explode inside them using a delayed fuse. As these lacked effective rebar mine shells could easily demolish fortresses with just a few effective hits.

Because of this fortresses became borderline obsolete over night. A great example is the Vaxholm Fortress which was built between 1833 to 1863. Once finished a Swedish ironclad with modern guns for the time was sent out to make a test fire against its walls to see how they would hold up and it shot right through it with ease. This was just a regular armor piercing round. A mine shell could easily have demolished a large part of the wall as its designed to explode inside it. High explosive shells on the other hand classically explodes upon impact and are meant against soft targets like infantry due to its thicker shell walls giving of more fragmentation.

However a result of this was the implementation of modern style rebar into concrete fortifications. Once fortresses had effective rebar mine shells became obsolete and replaced with semi armor piercing high explosive (SAPHE) and armor piercing high explosive (APHE) ammunition which instead penetrates through the fortification and detonates behind it, hopefully killing infantry and material behind it. This change happened around the turn of the century (1800-1900). Once SAPHE and APHE became the standard the only thing that could be done to make fortresses and bunkers unpenetrable was to make the walls and roof thicker. This arms race technically continiues to this day and that is the reason that the allies developed what is commonly called bunker busters.

However mine bombs still have some use compared to HE and Fragmentation bombs. They deform the ground a lot which is viable when attacking train tracks and roads for example but also tanks as they can get stuck in the foxholes. Mine bombs are also more effective against common buildings due to the heavier blastwave. Fragmentation usually only penetrates buildings instead of bringing them down.

• 3 Fragmentation is a munition term to describe the effect while shrapnel is a word to describe the actual objects which fragmentation consists of.

• 4 As for the recoil of guns firing lighter ammunition all i can say is that that is the official reason that the Germans developed the 20 mm MG FF/M, M standing for minengashoss. But from my understanding it makes sense. Since the bullet is lighter it should in theory generate less recoil as it takes less effort to push it out the barrel so to speak. However there are a lot of factors which have to be checked to conclude this. For example the charge of the MG FF/M mine shells and the recoil function of the MG FF/M. I should also note that the German mine shells were extremely high capacity ones so to speak and thus weighed less than most other mine shells etc. For example a German 20 mm mine shell classically holds 17 grams of HEI-mass, while for example a Swedish one only holds 14 grams of HEI-mass. Basically what im trying to point out is that the Swedish might have limited the HEI-mass to keep the weight high enough to were they did not have to modify any guns to fire it.

Wops forgot to post signature.--Blockhaj (talk) 19:59, 15 September 2020 (UTC)