Sunken Shells Found Almost Intact
History pops up where you least expect it.
In Helsinki, the capital of Finland, Wednesday a harbor dredge pulled up more than a dozen Tsarist era artillery rounds. Finland was part of Russia from 1809-1917, much to their dismay. The rounds were found only 100 feet (33~meters) from shore stuck in the mud. According to a military spokesman, the shells were well packed in rusty metal boxes and had markings dating from 1913. The spokesman stated, “The shells were in good shape and they were shining”.
Looking at the picture they appear to be light shells. Large numbers of small Nordenfeld and Hotchkiss Gun were removed from Russian destroyers in 75mm and 57mm caliber. These guns were posted around the sea line for use by Tsar Nicholas II’s army as ranging guns for coast defense batteries and counter Zeppelin/anti-aircraft weapons in the latter part of the war. (St Petersburg and the surrounding large cities in the Baltic Sea area were often targeted by German Zeppelins and large reconnaissance aircraft). The Finnish coastline was sprinkled with Tsarist artillery batteries, due to the fact that the Kaiser’s large navy enabled him to embark a potential amphibious assault almost at will. Vladimir Yakubov’s page on the Russian 75mm Canet gun lists the cartridge for that weapon as having a projectile length (not the entire round just the part that flies out of the barrel) of some 2.7 calibers minimum, which would be on the order of almost nine inches long. From the scale of the picture included in the linked news article above these could more likely be 57mm rounds.
Kind of interesting, too bad they are undoubtedly getting blown up as unexploded ordinance, they would make a nice display piece somewhere.