US 90mm M12 Drill Cartridge 1944

General Ammunition Discussion
#1

I was recently given this 90mm M12 Drill cartridge dated 1944.
P1070331
P1070330
P1070338

P1070339
P1070339.JPG2871Ă—1660 540 KB

The headstamp is:
DRILL CARTRIDGE BASE 90 MM M12
MMC 1944

The manufacturer (initials MMC) is:
Machined Metals Company
West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania

Thanks to Fede for identifying the correct manufacturer.

The materials of construction are curious. In TM 9-1901, Artillery Ammunition, 1944 (pages 165 & 166 below), the assembly was changed from bronze and brass to malleable iron at some point up to 1944 (the dummy fuzes can be made of one of several materials listed below). My cartridge appears to have a main body of malleable iron and the fuze is probably brass. But the base plate has the appearance of clad steel and brass. Possibly a mix of parts (brass/bronze, steel/iron) was used until old stocks were used up. The bottom of the base looks like steel about 3mm thick with brass above (See photo of rim below. Somewhat visible are the two layers that make up the rim itself [not the turned step, look at the edge of the rim]). Perhaps there is some other explanation for this (brass-plated steel?). I have not checked the various parts with a magnet yet, but the steel/iron parts are rusty.

image
image.jpg825Ă—303 74.3 KB

image
image.jpg865Ă—543 113 KB

image
image.jpg859Ă—497 126 KB

Below is page 2-68 from TM 9-1300-203, Artillery Ammunition, 1967.
image
image.png994Ă—907 148 KB

Below is the 90mm Anti-Aircraft gun M1A1 (I believe) from wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90_mm_Gun_M1/M2/M3)
90mm-aa-gun-okinawa

Edited to correct manufacturer.

3 Likes
#2

Larry, nice find!

The manufacturer is Machined Metals Company, West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.

Regards,

Fede

#3

Fede, thanks for the correction on the manufacturer! The oldest revision of MIL-STD-1461 I have is from 1980. That makes more sense now.

#4

Additional info from TM 9-1901, Artillery Ammunition, 1950:

50
50.jpg1390Ă—783 499 KB

#5

Your identification of the “MMC” symbol is correct, because durign WW2 it was already assigned to Marquette, but they didn’t manufactured drill cartridges but welding electrodes and rods.

The problem with the identification of many WW2 items is that many manufacturers used initials instead of assigned symbols.

#6

Thanks Fede. I guess I should have realized this because I have a Vietnam era 5"/38 HC shell with the initials AMCOT on the base (American Manufacturing Company of Texas).

I’ll edit the original post to indicate the correct manufacturer.