Unknown Turkish shrapnel fuze

[Darkman]

My mate Ron has this presumed Turkish shrapnel fuze. It is 58mm diameter and 58mm tall (about 2.25 inches). Diameter across the thread is 38mm (about 1.5 inches).

It is smaller than other Turkish shrapnel fuzes he has, so not sure what it's from. We would appreciate possible identification of the fuze, translation of the writing and any ideas what shell it may have been fitted to.

Thanks, Graeme

 

[MINENAZ16]

Hello,

On this forum we know several Turkish fuzes made by Krupp but this one really looks like a fuze made by Erhardt for export.
A thread here on Erhardt fuze series : http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threads/89078-Unknown-Projectile-22-Sec-fuze?highlight=turkish+erhardt
I think Alpini can give us more informations.


Regards

 

[Alpini]

your fuze is for 8,7 cm shrapnells - sorry, that's all I can tell you. The fuze thread was used by Krupp too. I tried to find someone which is able to translate the markings, but I more and more think it's impossible to find such a person. Turkish people use latin letters today and 95% are unable to read the old arabic letters. The people who know the arabic letters don't know anything about military terms so they also can't understand the meaning because the markings are abbreviations and no full words. Arabic speaking people can read it but don't understand turkish language (and still don't know the military terms). For the markings it seems you must find an old turkish man who served in turkish artillery and can read turkish in arabic letters. I also read somewhere in the net that young turkish people understand nearly nothing when reading old (around 1900) turkish texts even if they are written in latin letters because also the spoken language changed much since this time. It's really hard to immagine if I could not read any german or english book of that time. Turkey seems to loose it's history this way...

 

[Snufkin]

A while ago I tried to decipher the writing on a similar fuze, shown in the link in post 2 above. The Ottoman Turkish script

٨,٧ ما شللى

is read from right to left and, as far as I can make out, reads: 8.7 ma silah. I interpret ma as abbreviation for Mantelli, and silah is gun, so 8.7 Mantelli Gun.

Checking out WWI Turkish artillery at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=109530&start=45, a post dated 3 Feb 2012 shows a Krupp 8.7cm field gun and referred to as Mantelli - which is the source where I make the connection ma = Mantelli. The following post of 4 Feb discusses the term Mantelli as meaning mantled, or reinforced barrel.

Then again, it might be something totally different...




Tom

 

[Alpini]

Hello Tom, that's great information! I also tried to find out which arabic letters but always failed with the "ma". On most other turkish fuzes it looks like a latin "L" - a simplified variant? This "L" ~ "ma" can be found on all turkish fuzes and it is written always behind the caliber. So I thought it could be the ottoman word for "cm" . Do you know whats the arabic/turkish word for "cm"? Do you have any idea about the letters on the time ring? I don't find any suitable arabic letters which look like these.

//Edit: After some more googling it seems that ما is indeed the abreviation for متر which is "meter".

 

[Snufkin]

Hello Alpini,

As far as I can determine, the Turkish for centimetre is santimetre (sounds similar in most languages). On the cap of a 7.5cm fuze there is what appears to be a stylised س L after the 7.5 ( ٧,٥ ). Since س represents S, and if L is metre then س L may be the abbreviation for SantiMetre. Perhaps...?

I think the L on the 7.5cm fuze may be different to the ما on the 8.7 (here ما is two letters, ا and م , joined).

As for the Erhardt 8.7 fuze, the time ring is marked from 3 (٣) to 47 (٤۷), so it would appear to be seconds of burn. I don't know what the symbol is to the left of the 47 graduation , but it may be an abbreviation for timing?





Tom.

 

[Alpini]

Hell Tom,

the graduation of this fuze is hectometers 47 is 4700 m. I have the Krupp equivalent to this 8,7 cm fuze here which is also in hectometers but it reaches to 49.

About the word meter متر I found it in the arabic lanquage version of the wiki article about the Burj Khalifa building which has a height of 828 متر (m). Then I googled for the abbreviation ما in combination with some arabic numbers and found many hits. But I also wonder how they distinguish between mm, cm and m in arabic lanquages.

About the س I know 3 types of different markings on the 7,5 cm fuzes. Only two of them contain the س. Krupp 8,7 cm and 15 cm fuzes don't have the س. I could immagine that is has something to do with the type of gun.

 

[Snufkin]

Hello Alpini.

Thanks for the correction as to the graduations (distance, not time). That makes sense.

I agree with your findings regarding the arabic words for metres. The best Arabic script I have for centimetres is the Persianسانتی متر, but it doesn't correspond to the Ottoman Turkish fuze markings, even with the substitution of ما forمتر.




Tom.

 

[Andysarmoury]

Thanks Guys, i was wondering what the writing was on my fuze, now i know, brilliant thanks
Andy

 

[Darkman]

Yes, thanks for the great information guys.

 

[Hoeksel]

Hello Alpini,

As far as I can determine, the Turkish for centimetre is santimetre (sounds similar in most languages). On the cap of a 7.5cm fuze there is what appears to be a stylised س L after the 7.5 ( ٧,٥ ). Since س represents S, and if L is metre then س L may be the abbreviation for SantiMetre. Perhaps...?

I think the L on the 7.5cm fuze may be different to the ما on the 8.7 (here ما is two letters, ا and م , joined).

As for the Erhardt 8.7 fuze, the time ring is marked from 3 (٣) to 47 (٤۷), so it would appear to be seconds of burn. I don't know what the symbol is to the left of the 47 graduation , but it may be an abbreviation for timing?





Tom.

Great fun! Here you came to the same conclusion as me for how "centimeter" is written in Ottoman. I stated the same explanation in my article (https://www.bocn.co.uk/threads/article-on-the-krupp-shell-case-drawing-numbering-system-v2-0.108785/) independently of you. You were just earlier to the party ;-).

 

[Alpini]

٨,٧ ما شللى

is read from right to left and, as far as I can make out, reads: 8.7 ma silah. I interpret ma as abbreviation for Mantelli, and silah is gun, so 8.7 Mantelli Gun.

@Hoeksel: Thanks for waking up the tread, I also can contribute something to the thread after that long time:

@Tom: it doesn't read Mantelli & Silah. What looks like two words is one word: مانتللی. All together reads "Mantelli" so it's just "8,7 Mantelli". A Persian friend translated it for me a few weeks ago.

 

[Snufkin]

Hoeksel - good to have another supporting voice along with Alpini in confirming a few Ottoman fuze, case and primer scripts. And a great piece of work on the Krupp cases.

Alpini - thanks for finally narrowing down the Mantelli nomenclature.

 

[Alpini]

I think the L on the 7.5cm fuze may be different to the ما on the 8.7 (here ما is two letters, ا and م , joined).

Some additional info (my time was much limited when I wrote the last answer):
On your fuze the ما = "Ma" are the first two letters of "Mantelli".
On other (mostly Krupp) fuzes the "L" - like symbol are actually the two (much simplified) letters سا "Sa" = abbreviation for "Santimetrelik". In old documents it becomes clearer:

As for the Erhardt 8.7 fuze, the time ring is marked from 3 (٣) to 47 (٤۷), so it would appear to be seconds of burn. I don't know what the symbol is to the left of the 47 graduation , but it may be an abbreviation for timing?

The scale is in hectometres. The short word on the time ring means(what surprise) "Meters". Also you'll notice that it is a progressive scale which means it's a distance scale. Time scales are constant scales.

What I am still unsure about is the 8,7 cm Mantelli Sahra Top (which probably means "Mantled Field Gun"). The original 1887 8,7 cm Krupp guns had no reinforced barrel. This Ehrhardt "Mantelli" fuze dates around 1900. So the question remains, if Turkey later used an improved 8,7 cm Ehrhardt gun around 1900 or if there was a newer Krupp type at this time and Ehrhardt just made ammunition for it.

Thanks a lot for your post. I am very happy that you found the link to axishistory.com mentioning the Mantelli gun. When my Persian Friend translated the word on the fuze as Mantelli I had no idea what it could mean and thanks to this forum post it all makes sense now. An interesting coincidence that all comes together within a few weeks

 

[ron3350]

It is great to see my fuze getting more attention and inscriptions being translated as I did not own a computer at that time. Thanks.

 

[Snufkin]

When my Persian Friend translated the word on the fuze as Mantelli I had no idea what it could mean and thanks to this forum post it all makes sense now. An interesting coincidence that all comes together within a few weeks

Just a few weeks - plus the nearly 10 years since the thread began

The Mantelli 8.7cm is mentioned in Turkish lists of units in the 1915-6 Gallipoli campaign. The attached excerpt shows 8 Mantelli guns in the 1st Battalion of the 39th Artillery Regiment, eight Grupp (Krupp) field guns with the 2nd Bn, and 4 Grupp field guns with the 3rd Bn.

One Mantelli gun used by the 27th Infantry Regiment (positioned at Kabatepe) was recorded by the Turks as inflicting heavy casualties on the Australians on the first morning of the ANZAC landings.