Propaganda shell

Shell fired from the standard German field gun of the First World War. Feld Kanone 1896 neue Art and the longer-barrelled Feld Kanone 1916 fired a 7.7 millimetre diameter shell several kilometres at supersonic speed. Anyone who survived the shell's arrival heard it pass overhead before the noise of the gun firing. Hence 'Whizz-bang', its British Tommys' slang name. Most of the hundreds of millions of shells fired on the Western Front contained explosive or gas, not propaganda.