Shell transport - opening in the floor

[wimve]

Hello all,

In some bunker designs the Germans made openings in the floor to transport ammunition to a lower level by means of a chain hoist.
Two questions:

1) does somebody have drawings, pictures of these transport hoists ? Excluding the bigger fixed ones like in Vara, Hanstholm and Todt. So the smaller ones.

2) In what way the holes in the floor where covered ? These openings are big, 200x70cm, so a "simple wooden" hatch would be heavy and not easy to man handle.

Looking forwards to your ideas, solutions.

[wimve]

Common guys, don't be shy !
Someone must have seen remains or more.

[dirk Peeters]

The closing plates in the todt bttr where heavy and made of steel. It was the gun itself who opened these heavy plates by means of a sort of ski . So the munition transport crew knew where the gun position was by looking at the open and closed plates above their heads

[wimve]

Dirk, Thanks.
I know that system. It is well documented in a wochenschau (from 5:15) film.

But what i mean are batteries like Karola, Vogelnest. Both ex ship turrets.
You come in the bunker with your amo cart and then ? how do you get the stuff into to the magasins ?
If you have to unload on the same level you use an overhead conveyor system of any sort. When you magasins are at a lower or higher level, you must hoist the amo up or down. In this last situation you will have a hole in a floor.

Batteries like Hanstholm and Vara have magasins on the same level. I am not well known with Todt.

[AvB]

If you check these pages on Bunkersite you'll see there's a winch which pulls up the shells from the bottom floor through a channel which was closed off with a simple hatch. This was only for filling up the ammo magazines around the turret.

http://bunkersite.com/locations/norway/ ... ndet-1.php

[jopaerya]

Very nice picture Arthur

Maybe this thing was connected to the winch for the vertical transportation ? ( Geschutzkunde Band I )

Regards Jos

[TH]

Batteries like Hanstholm and Vara have magasins on the same level. I am not well known with Todt.

The S 468s at Hanstholm have two floors and a hole for the hoisting mechanism.

[juestr]

Question from Wimve:

"But what i mean are batteries like Karola, Vogelnest. Both ex ship turrets.
You come in the bunker with your amo cart and then ? how do you get the stuff into to the magasins ?
If you have to unload on the same level you use an overhead conveyor system of any sort. When you magasins are at a lower or higher level, you must hoist the amo up or down. In this last situation you will have a hole in a floor."

The (manual) handling of shells to fill up the shell storing-room can be seen in all details in the video "Ammunition handling Turm at Austratt" (Google).
As we could explore (JLM and me) a couple of days ago it worked exactly in the same way at Karola (Anton). Only differences to Austratt are size and weight of the shell (ca. 120kg / 350kg) and shell room below instead of above. It might be that a more effective "elevator" system was planned at Karola but never delivered and installed. Items to be discussed later on when I am at home

Gruß Jürgen

[kstdk]

Hello

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcwW-qSeqw0

Regards
Kurt
kstdk

[juestr]

Very nice picture Arthur

Maybe this thing was connected to the winch for the vertical transportation ? ( Geschutzkunde Band I )

Regards Jos

I´m still learning all the days............
This hole for vertical transportation takes part of the turret itself.
It´s an auxiliary opening between the powder-platform (above) and the shell platform (below) and is not used under normal conditions.

So this devive has nothing to do with Wim´s question (even similar), neither the arrangements of the so called "turrets" like Hanstholm, Todt, Vara etc.
We have to look only to the very few original ship-gun-turrets (>20cm) built in a Bunker like Austratt, Fjell, Grognon, Karola, Vogelnest (5 ? only)
Gruß
Jürgen

[juestr]

To illustrate here the actual situation of 20,3 cm shell handling inside the Bunker S473 (Ro 429 01-02, Anton) .
We can see an opening in the 30 cm ceiling between ground floor (powder storage) and basement (shell storage) normally closed by a cover (image)

The big gun turrets 20,3 cm, 28 cm and 38 cm are technically and in design similar (with size and weight depending distinctions) so the only still existing 28 cm turret at Austratt (Oerlandet) is a very valuable source for any information about functionality and mode of operation.

1. cover in the floor at the end of the rails. This years ago always "invisible" cover has been found thanks to my grandchild searching for a hole...........
The door is the entrance to the powder storage and to the turret:


2. transfer section in the basement from opening above to shell storage room behind the "lock" at the right.
The wooden door belongs to the room (not visible) on the left side:



Gruß
Jürgen

[wimve]

Jürgen,

Nice pictures, thanks for sharing.

[jazote]

Jürgen,
Nice pictures, thanks for sharing.

I guess, I can share this photo (Karola/Anton) from me with comments from you Winve:

vue générale.jpg

And thanks Jürgen.....

[wimve]

Jürgen,
Nice pictures, thanks for sharing.

I guess, I can share this photo (Karola/Anton) from me with comments from you Winve:
And thanks JÜrgen.....

Yup that where my question to you some time ago.

Problem I have/had was that there is a track which would have had lorries of some kind on it.
So if you want to unload a shell or cartridge, you also need a crane or at least a (ceiling) hook. Question was/is: are there any remains to could point to a crane or overhead system ?
And there is not much space or better no space left/right of the tracks.

But even then You are at the dead end of that track, so you can only unload the last lorry. Then you must roll it back and the next one rolled in. This seems to me as a very time consuming process.

On your inital picture we see a "window"in the wall to a space without floor: was there a elevator planned bit not build ?

[jazote]

Jürgen,
Nice pictures, thanks for sharing.

Yup that where my question to you some time ago......
....On your inital picture we see a "window"in the wall to a space without floor: was there a elevator planned bit not build ?

Have a look at Jürgen's anwer before...:
"It might be that a more effective "elevator" system was planned at Karola but never delivered and installed."