German Howitzer Shell???

[Doyley]

Hi, I have this old shell casing at home and just needed someone to help me find out where it came from. I recieved it from an old friend a while ago and was told that it was recovered from Gallipoli. I am not sure about this as the shell casing's base reads "Sept 1917" and the last troops to leave Gallipoli was during the January of 1916. There are stamped, on the base, words. They read as follows:

Around the detonator cap: "PATRONENFABRIK KARLSRUHE"
Next to either side of the detonator cap: "SEPT 1917"
Up top: "St 385"
Down bottom: "67% Cu Sp255"

That is what it reads. The diameter of the casing is roughly 77mm, and the height is roughly 22cm.

I know it is a long shot, but it has bothered me for a while, and I am curious about it. Any help on this would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Doyley

[Geoffers]

I have very little knowledge of German ammunition, but this sounds more like a field gun to me. Have you tried entering Patronenfabrik Karlsruhe into a search engine to see if owt comes up?

Geoffers

[peter nicholl]

It looks to be a 77mm shell case made by Spandau, Karlsruhe. The Sp 255 is the Spandau Inspection Mark. The Cu 65% shows that it is High Brass made from 65% Copper (Cu) and 35% Zinc (Zn). The St stands for Stark = Strengthened Case.

Although the land battles at the Dardanelles were over, naval actions were not and in January 1918 the RN submarine E-14 was sunk by shore-based gunfire at some 250 rounds a minute, allegedly. Maybe yours was picked up after the Turks surrendered in October?

HTH
Peter

[Doyley]

Thank you peter nicholl for explaining that. So the Germans supplied ammunition to the Turkish during this period? Fair enough. I did search in the search engine Geoffers and it did show some information, but I was just wondering what a German field gun shell was doing in Gallipoli. Thanks for your help both of you, I appreciate it. Cheers

Doyley