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German Shell Case 1916 - Mystery Marking?

S

SimonBrown

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Premium Member
In my intro I did say I wasn't much of a collector of ordnance...then I looked around the office and realised there was 5.56, 9mm, .50 cal, 20mm, 76mm and 4.5in cases and cartridges lying around. Funny how it creeps up on you?

Anyway, in the 'collection' is a German First World War shell case I picked up at an antique shop last year. It has clearly been polished for best part of 100 years and the stamps on the base are fading. Normally I would pass this by, but something caught my eye - the primer had something that looked very much like arabic script or writing on it. I believe the Ottoman Empire used arabic at this time, so was it Turkish?

Its a Patronenfabrik shell from Karlsruhe dated 1916. I have showed the script to an Egyptian friend who confirmed it was arabic but had no idea what it meant and passed it on to a friend of his who was studying Turkish and Ottoman literature. Their conclusion was it meant nothing in Persian, Turkish or Arabic.

So, has anyone ever seen such a script on a shell case? And is there any idea what it means?

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Did you look to Laotian alphabet (or larger view on other asian alphabets, khmer, Thai,...) ? It's very similar !


Alphabet lao.png




Yoda
 
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Snufkin said:
Previous threads with similar Ottoman primers:

The script is old Ottoman Turkish, more akin to Persian.

Tom.
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Tom - many thanks for this. I guessed that a) this case was not unique and b) someone had trod the path before me and would know.

Any idea what it actually says or translates to?
 
SimonBrown said:
Its a Patronenfabrik shell from Karlsruhe dated 1916. I have showed the script to an Egyptian friend who confirmed it was arabic but had no idea what it meant and passed it on to a friend of his who was studying Turkish and Ottoman literature. Their conclusion was it meant nothing in Persian, Turkish or Arabic.
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Hello Simon,

I did the same some months ago and asked a Syrian colleaque at my work for the meaning of this word on the primer (knowing that he can read the letters but don't understand the turkish language itself). He responded that he can read the letters but they don't make any sense to him and he think the word is a name. I than asked him how he would speak the word and it sounded like a english "group" or german "grup". That I asked him if it could simply be the name "Krupp" in arabic letters and he said yes. Maybe you can ask you Egyptian friend the same questions? It would be nice to have a second proof (or not) if it means Krupp. I wouldn't be surprised if it means Krupp because many primers have the latin letters stamp "Fried. Krupp AG".

Todays arabic writing of Krupp is: كروب. The 2nd (u) and 3rd (b/p) letter (right to left) could be the same like on your primer but first is different. It looks more like a فـ which is like a "F" in "Friedrich". But where's the "K"? :). So when I read it it would be a "Fup" فروب and not Krupp or F.Krupp but there are at least some small similarities.

Regards, Alpini
 
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Alpini said:
Hello Simon,

I did the same some months ago and asked a Syrian colleaque at my work for the meaning of this word on the primer (knowing that he can read the letters but don't understand the turkish language itself). He responded that he can read the letters but they don't make any sense to him and he think the word is a name. I than asked him how he would speak the word and it sounded like a english "group" or german "grup". That I asked him if it could simply be the name "Krupp" in arabic letters and he said yes. Maybe you can ask you Egyptian friend the same questions? It would be nice to have a second proof (or not) if it means Krupp. I wouldn't be surprised if it means Krupp because many primers have the latin letters stamp "Fried. Krupp AG".

Todays arabic writing of Krupp is: كروب. The 2nd (u) and 3rd (b/p) letter (right to left) could be the same like on your primer but first is different. It looks more like a فـ which is like a "F" in "Friedrich". But where's the "K"? :). So when I read it it would be a "Fup" فروب and not Krupp or F.Krupp but there are at least some small similarities.

Regards, Alpini
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Alpini - that is nothing short of remarkable, and makes a lot of sense. My Egyptian friend said exactly the same; the characters were known but the word made no sense whatsoever.

So it could simply be the name of the manufacturer...which if you think of someone trying to understand a word like "Lego" but being completely unaware of the company then the same conclusion would be reached?

I will ask my friend again and lets see if he agrees.

Thank you!
 
SimonBrown said:
which if you think of someone trying to understand a word like "Lego" but being completely unaware of the company then the same conclusion would be reached?
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Yes - I think this is exactly the problem.

The stamps on the turkish fuzes are even more complicated. My syrian colleaque could not read anything there. The letters on the fuzes seem to be very simplified (maybe because of less space) and the words are abbreaviations and then there are small differences between normal arabic alphabet and the ottoman alphabet. Is a mixture between arabic and persian alphabet with some turkish specialities. To make it even more complicated under Kemal Pascha they not only switched to the latin alphabet, they also had some commission which had to clean the language from "old" words (mostly of arabic influence). All in all a big catastrophe. It seems to be easier to find a translator of old egyptian hieroglyphics than for ottoman language.

Thanks for asking your friend again.
 
Alpini et al, my Egyptian friend has confirmed the Arabic text sounds phonetically very much like the word "Krupp" and your original thoughts about the first letter sounding "F" have been confirmed.

So what we appear to have is a makers mark translated to and stamped in Arabic. Would anyone know or like to hazard a guess as to why Krupp might have gone to such lengths?

I am guessing Krupp would have made the fuses for such a shell case?
 
Hello Simon,

Thanks for notification - very interesting to hear.

Krupp made the complete cartridges, case, shell/shrapnell + fuzes. It seems at this time turkey had no own industry which was able to produce artillery ammunition. Krupp was the main contractor of the ottoman empire until end of 1st WW. Just a few things came from british and french companies. Also Skoda made some guns + ammunition for them.
 
I have 3 different primers with what I assume is Turkish text. Two out of three are known. The one discussed here (phonetic writing of Krupp), the second one stating "7,5 cm" but I also have this one as shown. Anybody an idea what is means?

It is on a primer on a Berndorf 1895 export case for a 7,5 cm Krupp L/30 field gun, case measures 75x278R90.
 

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I have another image with the same text, but better visible.
 

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Hoeksel said:
I have another image with the same text, but better visible.
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With help of my Turkish/Persian colleagues I was able to figure it out! The hard part was to realize it is an abbreviation, and then it states "Rh" which is very likely, as Rheinmetall did make primers.
 
Well, I have learned by now how difficult Ottoman is. I am lucky to work at a large company with many nationalities, so several Turkish and Persian collogues have been helping out translating Ottoman on primers and sub-calibres for me. Guess what? For every Ottoman line 5 people come with 5 different potential meanings ;-). So although the above (Rh) is relatively logical, I got an update from an academic Turkish linguist who came, again, with several alternative options including ........ C/12. To be honest, that is more logical than "Rh" as Rheinmetall used R.M.F. on primers. Especially as I have not hinted towards C/12 in any way. Ottoman is not exact science. But I opt for C/12!
 
There seems to be a very small 12 in the stamp. Do you have a better resolution of the picture? And it would be enough letters for both "Rh" and "C12".
 
Unfortunately I have only 2 images of bad resolution, I do not see a 12 if I zoom in. This Sunday I am visiting a collector where the chance is likely he will have such a case. If so I will make good pictures.
 
I just examined closer and no, it can't be a 12. Also it would be unusual to write the digits that much smaller than letters.

If you rotate the picture by 180° the lower two letters can be "Rh". But if you take the small point above into account it's a "Zh" :)

Finding a translation for Egyptian hieroglyphs would be much easier.
 
I am not able to verify anything here, I just want to repeat that knowledgeable people (not me) have indicated several explanations and C/12 is for me most logical and Rh second most logical.
 
When playing with chatGPT I actually think "R.M" (ر.م) is even closer to this writing then "R.h" (ر.ه).
 
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