
was a form of ammunition: a
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
-era combined
shrapnel
Shrapnel may refer to:
Military
* Shrapnel shell, explosive artillery munitions, generally for anti-personnel use
* Shrapnel (fragment), a hard loose material
Popular culture
* ''Shrapnel'' (Radical Comics)
* ''Shrapnel'', a game by Adam ...
and
incendiary anti-aircraft
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...
round used by the
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
. The type of layered construction of the warheads were generically referred to as Beehive rounds. The shells were intended to put up a
barrage of flame through which any aircraft attempting to attack would have to navigate. However, U.S. pilots considered these shells to be more of a pyrotechnics display than an effective anti-aircraft weapon.
[These shells may have been nicknamed "The Beehive" while in service. See: ]
The Sanshiki anti-aircraft shell was designed for several gun calibers, including the
46 cm (18.1-inch) guns of the
''Yamato''-class battleships.
Specifications
46 cm (18.1 in)
The 46 cm (18.1 in) Sanshiki Model 13 round weighed 1,360 kg (2,998 lb) and was filled with 900 incendiary tubes and 600 steel stays. The round was equipped with a
delay fuze set before firing that detonated the shell at the set altitude; on explosion, the steel stays and the incendiary tubes were ejected in a 20-degree cone forward, with the shell fragments from the explosion itself further increasing the amount of debris. The incendiary tubes ignited about a half-second later and burned for five seconds with long flames. Each of the incendiary tubes was a long, diameter hollow steel cylinder, filled with
rubber thermite (
phosphorus
Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ea ...
,
vulcanized rubber
Vulcanization (British: Vulcanisation) is a range of processes for hardening rubbers. The term originally referred exclusively to the treatment of natural rubber with sulfur, which remains the most common practice. It has also grown to inclu ...
,
natural rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, a ...
,
stearic acid
Stearic acid ( , ) is a saturated fatty acid with an 18-carbon chain. The IUPAC name is octadecanoic acid. It is a waxy solid and its chemical formula is C17H35CO2H. Its name comes from the Greek word στέαρ "''stéar''", which means tall ...
,
sulphur
Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...
and
barium nitrate
Barium nitrate is the inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ba( NO3)2. It, like most barium salts, is colorless, toxic, and water-soluble. It burns with a green flame and is an oxidizer; the compound is commonly used in pyrotechnics.
Man ...
) and ignited through holes on both sides. The rounds were similar to conventional shells, except for their wood-filled
ogive
An ogive ( ) is the roundly tapered end of a two-dimensional or three-dimensional object. Ogive curves and surfaces are used in engineering, architecture and woodworking.
Etymology
The earliest use of the word ''ogive'' is found in the 13th c ...
and several layers of assembled fragments.
41 cm (16.1 in)
The
41 cm (16.1 in) round contained 1,200 incendiary tubes and on explosion burst into 2,527 fragments. By contrast a 46 cm round burst into 2,846 fragments.
20.3 cm (8 in)
The
20.3 cm (8 in) round weighed and contained 255 incendiary tubes and a burst charge in its base. It used the
91 Shiki 91 may refer to:
Years
* 91 BC
* AD 91
* 1991
* 2091
* etc.
Transportation
* List of highways numbered
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an ...
delay fuze. Its maximum altitude was . The burst charge scattered the fragments in a 12 degree cone. The maximum effective distance from the shell burst was about , where the fragments reached dispersion diameter of .
12.7 cm (5 in)
A 12.7 cm (5 in) round contained 66 incendiary tubes and had a 10 degree dispersion angle with dispersion diameter of .
Operational history
The Sanshiki anti-aircraft shells were used for shore bombardment during the
Battle for Henderson Field
The Battle for Henderson Field, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal or Battle of Lunga Point by the Japanese, took place from 23 to 26 October 1942 on and around Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The battle was a land, sea, and air battle ...
. On 13 October 1942, in order to help protect the transit of an important supply convoy to Guadalcanal that consisted of six slower cargo ships, the Japanese
Combined Fleet
The was the main sea-going component of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Until 1933, the Combined Fleet was not a permanent organization, but a temporary force formed for the duration of a conflict or major naval maneuvers from various units norm ...
commander
Isoroku Yamamoto
was a Marshal Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II until he was killed.
Yamamoto held several important posts in the IJN, and undertook many of its changes and reor ...
sent a naval force from
Truk—commanded by Vice-Admiral
Takeo Kurita
was a vice admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II. Kurita commanded IJN 2nd Fleet, the main Japanese attack force during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history.
Biography Early life
Takeo Kurit ...
—to bombard
Henderson Field. Kurita's force—consisting of the battleships and , escorted by one light cruiser and nine destroyers—approached Guadalcanal unopposed and opened fire on Henderson Field at 01:33 on 14 October. Over the next 83 minutes, they fired 973 shells, of which 104 were Type 3s fired by ''Kongō''. The rest of the shells were 189 Type 0 "Common" shells and 625 Type 1 "HE" shells which fell into the Lunga perimeter, most of them falling in and around the area of the airfield. The bombardment heavily damaged the airfield's two runways, burned almost all of the available aviation fuel, destroyed 48 of the CAF's ("
Cactus Air Force
Cactus Air Force refers to the ensemble of Allied air power assigned to the island of Guadalcanal August 1942 until December 1942 during the early stages of the Guadalcanal Campaign, particularly those operating from Henderson Field. The term ...
") 90 aircraft, and killed 41 men, including six CAF aircrew.
During the
First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, sometimes referred to as the Third and Fourth Battles of Savo Island, the Battle of the Solomons, the Battle of Friday the 13th, or, in Japanese sources, the , took place from 12 to 15 November 1942, and was t ...
on 13 November 1942, another Japanese naval force attempted to bombard Henderson Field but before they could reach their target they were intercepted by American cruisers and destroyers. The first few salvos from the battleships ''Hiei'' and ''Kirishima'' consisted of the Sanshiki anti-aircraft shells, as their crews were not expecting a ship-to-ship confrontation and took several minutes to switch to armor-piercing ammunition, with several Sanshiki shells hitting the cruiser USS ''San Francisco'', causing less serious damage than that which would have been inflicted by armor-piercing shells.
Even though the ''3 Shiki tsûjôdan'' shells comprised 40% of the total main ammunition load of the ''Yamato''-class battleships by 1944, they were rarely used in combat against enemy aircraft.
The blast of the main guns turned out to disrupt the fire of the smaller antiaircraft guns. In addition the copper drive bands of the rounds were poorly machined and constant firing was damaging to the gun rifling;
[Steinberg, p. 54] indeed, one of the shells may have exploded early and disabled one of ''Musashi''s guns during the
Battle of the Sibuyan Sea
The Battle of Leyte Gulf ( fil, Labanan sa golpo ng Leyte, lit=Battle of Leyte gulf; ) was the largest naval battle of World War II and by some criteria the largest naval battle in history, with over 200,000 naval personnel involved. It was f ...
.
''Yamato'' fired these shells in two separate instances during
Operation Ten-Go
, also known as Operation Heaven One (or Ten-ichi-gō 天一号), was the last major Japanese naval operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The resulting engagement is also known as the Battle of the East China Sea.
In April 1945, t ...
, first against PBM Mariner flying boats shadowing her, and later against the attacking aircraft of Task Force 58.
See also
During repairs after
Operation Tungsten
Operation Tungsten was a Second World War Royal Navy air raid that targeted the German battleship ''Tirpitz''. The operation sought to damage or destroy ''Tirpitz'' at her base in Kaafjord in the far north of Norway before she could become ...
, the
38 cm SK C/34 naval gun
The 38 cm SK C/34SK – ''Schnelladekanone'' (quick loading cannon); ''C – Construktionsjahr'' (year of design) naval gun was developed by Germany mid to late 1930s. It armed the s and was planned as the armament of the s and the re-armed s ...
s of the
Tirpitz Tirpitz may refer to:
* Alfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930), German admiral
* German battleship ''Tirpitz'', a World War II-era Bismarck-class battleship named after the admiral
* Tirpitz (pig), a pig rescued from the sinking of SMS ''Dresden'' and ...
were modified to allow their use against aircraft, being supplied with specially-fuzed 38 cm shells for barrage antiaircraft fire.
Notes
References
{{reflist
Ammunition
Incendiary weapons
Anti-aircraft weapons
World War II weapons of Japan