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75mm/12½-pr Maxim-Nordenfelt QF Ammunition
Side of shell with VSM factory marks, giving it a manufacture date of after Oct 1897 (the month of the Maxim-Nordenfelt / Vickers merger).
Photographs courtesy of Dougie McMaster
Fuze manufactured by Krupp for Maxim-Nordenfelt, marked "FRIED. KRUPP ESSEN GERMANY" (courtesy of MC Heunis)
Dinner gong, made from M-N cartridge case, probably picked up after the Battle of Klipriviersberg [Doornkop], but simply engraved "BOER SHELL CASE / JOHANNESBURG / 1900". This was almost certainly fired by Majoor von Dalwig's Maxim-Nordenfelt (No. 4116). See last post for photograph of von Dalwig with this gun.
Two cartridges, one with Maxim-Nordenfelt headstamp, the other unmarked. Both apparently fired by von Dalwig's No. 4116 gun (the first at Mafeking, the second at Klipriviersberg). The plain case is probably from one of the Boer consignments, where the manufacturers (Vickers, Sons & Maxim), didn't want to be seen to be overtly arming a potential future adversary. Boer VSM-supplied Pom-pom shells are similarly unmarked.
Another headstamp in the form of an "N". MC Heunis wonders whether this cartridge (on the right) could be from an earlier batch, perhaps from the Jameson Raid.
Photograph of shells from the Ladysmith area. Maxim-Nordenfelt common shell lying on its side, with pre-Oct 1897 "MN" factory mark just visible on projectile.
Von Dalwig's Maxim-Nordenfelt Gun No. 4116 in the field (second from left). Courtesy of MC Heunis.
Note: the artillerist standing on the waggon carries one of the 50 saw-back bayonets that were delivered to the Transvaal in Feb 1899. Only two photographs of men with this bayonet are known to exist, this being the only one that includes the distinctive white buff leather belt and frog. See:
The Undelivered 500 Bayonets.
75mm (12½-pr) Maxim-Nordenfelt QF (No. 4408) on display at "FIREPOWER", Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich. Described as "one of two captured from the Transvaal army at the Battle of Elandslaagte, South Africa on 21 October 1899. It was subsequently used by the British against the Boers during the Siege of Ladysmith".
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