Ola Guys

From a good friend of me who is a metal detector fanatic I got this shell. Sadly I don't have the digital camera at home now so I made a diagram of it and a detail drawing of the bottom of the shell.
The central part (Ignition thingy I know it is "Slaghoed" in Dutch, English word does not come to mind) contains the following as it is a little small in the drawing. The roman Number I, to the left of it PL11-38 to the right of it N11, On the top of the central part stands 305 under the 305 stands W3-39 and under that is a sort of key symbol

On the top where the grenade sits in the shell there is a ring of rectangular indentations 2 cm under the top of the shell.

I hope somebody can help me on what kind of shell it is. Looking forward to your expertise here.

my guess is a 37mm anti tank round
http://www.historicreproductions.com/restore3.htm

http://cgi.ebay.com/WWII-US-Empty-37MM-Shell-Casing-Dated_W0QQitemZ6595637147QQcategoryZ4721QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The word is Primer

Ola Matt

Looking at the profile of the shell in that E-bay link this is definately not the shell I have. I don't know about the US 37 mm Shells but the GErman 37mm shells are definately not that big as this one.
Also the profile of the 37 mm Shell differs, The neck (As I will call the narrowest part of the shell) is longer then the shell I have.

Clueless

Robert:

Are you sure about the length?? 68 cm is more than half a meter long!

EDIT: 68 mm long is too short to be right. My guess is it is probably a 37mm round fired from an M4 or M9 aircraft gun. My references aren't detailed enough to be conclusive.

This case is 26" tall, the height of my desk - surely that's way too big for any normal 37mm gun of any description? What's the bore of the case? Is it possible it could be a 3.7" case from an AA gun?

Ola guys

Let me start fo by sayign thanks you will drop in in this debate.

Second thing I want to say. The drawing is by no means a drawing in scale. Even so the drawing i have on my PC is even bigger. But the gallery scaled it down.
For information. The height of the shell is without any form of lies around the 68 CM. The opening where the grenade normally sits is just a bit too small to put my fist in. The bottom is roughly the size of a CD

So yes we are speaking of a large caliber shell here.
I will see if I can make a picture holding the thing so you can get an idea of what size we are talking about

Robert,

Did you measure the calibre, this could narrow down the weapon it came from.

Its almost certainly from a British or US weapon.

From the shape of the case and the fact its slighty too small to get your fist in, it looks like it could be a 17pdr round, although im not an expert on WW2 ammunition.

Regards

Joe

OK ... I misunderstood the initial post. This thing is a lot bigger than I thought.

Here's a link to a page on British artillery cartridge markings. http://web.ukonline.co.uk/stephen.johnson/arms/stamp.jpg

From this, we can surmise that the shell was made in 1939 by contractor "ECC" for a "37 Gun" -- likely a British artillery piece.

My new guess: It's from a British 3.7-inch anti-aircraft gun.

Ola guys

sorry that I did not give the information earlier that the drawing was not a scaledrawing

Thanks for entering this debate and answering my question.
I asked this question on another (Dutch) forum and the outcome was also that it was about a 37 inch AA grenadeshell. But they posted a picture of a much larger gun: This one:

from this page
http://www.hypospace.net/equipment/AA%20Guns.htm

IS this the same gun as in the picture of Bob? That is a pretty impressive toy. Till today I did not even knew the Brits had such weapons. When I read the link I got from the other page it makes you wonder why they didn't go on with it in the AT role as it probably was just as effetive as the 88

Great job guys in answering my question

Interesting that it has a 1939 manufacture date - ex BEF?

Aha! Vindicated! Do I get a prize? BTW a guy who I lived next door to years ago commanded a battery of 3.7" guns in the Desert. He says they were specifically prohibited from using them in the ground role because of the stresses it would place on the carriage. Since 3.7" = 94mm, this gun would have been a real tank killer, may even have taken out a Tiger! Frankly I'd have thought that faced with being overrun by enemy tanks, most gun crews would have said to hell with the regulations lets brew some panzers!