Unit floor
The unit projectile was a special form of ammunition for the field artillery , which was a mixture of high explosive grenade and shrapnel grenade and was used in the First World War .
The unitary bullet was a shrapnel bullet, in which the space between the lead bullets was filled with explosive instead of a smoke-generating filler , which exploded when fired with a grenade, but only burned in the air when shot with shrapnel and generated a cloud of smoke.
The basic idea was that the artillery should only be supplied with one type of projectile instead of two in order to simplify the replenishment. However, this was offset by numerous disadvantages that resulted from this compromise solution:
- Compared to the normal high-explosive grenade, the standard projectile was significantly more complicated and expensive, but had a significantly lower explosive effect, since the lead bullets were just dead ballast.
- With shrapnel the effect was no better than with conventional shrapnel grenades; on the other hand, the use of high-quality explosives as filler material was pointless waste.
- The detonators were complicated and expensive because of the diverse requirements.
Standard bullets were therefore only used by the German and Austrian armies, even if a corresponding bullet had also been developed in France before the war. After the outbreak of war, the shortage of materials quickly forced the German army to return to conventional ammunition.
literature
- Hans Linnenkohl: From a single shot to a fire roller , Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-7637-5966-2