Armor-piercing shell 16.5 inches (42 cm)

This shell was fired by a 420 mm German Krupp howitzer, a piece of artillery that was given the nickname Dicke Bertha (Big Bertha).
It landed without detonating among a battery of ally naval artillery located along the Belgian coast, on August 15, 1917, in the middle of World War One. Buried in the sand at a depth of 9.8 feet (3 m), the shell was defused and discharged before being transferred to the Musée de l'Armée. Destroyed on impact, it no longer has its artificial warhead in light sheet metal.