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Markings on an 8.8cm Sprgr Shell

peregrinvs

Well-Known Member
Hi,

I’ve been working on restoring an 8.8cm Sprgr and I’m about paint it (RAL 1005 Honiggelb) and stencil it with an off the shelf stencil set from Milcorem. A couple of questions:

- Would an explosive code of 13 be better than 14 for a 1944 dated shell? I’ve read that 14 is an early war code for pure TNT.

- Would the FES marking be black or white on a yellow shell?

I know the 90 on the top date code is wrong, but I’ll just turn it upside down to make 06.

Thanks,
Mark
 

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I am reasonably confident a 1944 manufactured projectile should not be painted yellow. They would only be feldgrau after 1943 (or maybe 1942). The Tiger tank ammo manual shows the 88mm with a "14" explosive code. All my 75mm 1944 HE shells have had a "13" code. I believe FES on a yellow projectile would be in black - all the other markings were in black.
 
I think the easiest and definitely most accurate way would be to find a photo of an original.
This photo shows FES in yellow, but possibly take it with a pinch of salt. As for the change to green, its more obvious for the 8,8cm kwk43 than for the kwk36, probably due to the volume of excess stock. If anyone has a definitive statement on date id be interested .
 

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8,8cm Sprgr. (Pr. Zugz.) (FES)
Repainted post war , this particular one was scraped off apparantly. As you can see , yellow under it. Even though , I personally can’t say what color they were all painted back in the day. I think a lot of things happened in the later stages of the war. So , they might aswell have painted them purple for all I know.

Also , second image is one that was sanded & as you probably can tell , in the manufacturing outline : yellow paint.


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Thanks for all the replies. The impression I get from pictures of surviving shells with original paint + contemporary images is that they were mostly yellow.

Here's an interesting picture off the web. It's B&W, but going by the colour of their uniforms (fieldgrey or black) and the colour of the Tiger E (Dunkelgelb) I am fairly confident that's a yellow shell.

1e72561b57403faac0fad01648c0481b.jpg
 
Another here that (going by the gunner's uniform) is late war. For reference, the helmet colour is probably fieldgrey.

404px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-496-3491-36_Frankreich_Flak-Geschütz.jpg
 
Yeah , just keep in account though that most 8,8 Sprgr (Pr. Zugz.) (FES) that are around came from the same production lot of lots & are marked for use by the Kriegsmarine. As for the number marking on top , 8,8cm Sprgr 41 (FES) , I’ve seen marked ‘13’ , Pr. Zugz. ‘20’. & If I recall correctly , markings in black , often with a kind of greyish border or that what it looks like to me anyways.

& by saying ‘produced for use by the Kriegsmarine’ I do not state they necessarily were only used by the Kriegsmarine. Again , probably a lot of stuff happened in the later stages of the war.

very interesting topic in my opinion.
 
Thanks for all the input. Before and after pics attached.

It came with a solid brass 1938 dated Flak 18 case which has a later steel C/12 primer rusted in place. It also came with a semi-relic steel + Bakelite AZ.23/28 fuze which I decided wasn’t worth restoring, so I merely repainted it Feldgrau. It’ll look better with an aluminium fuze - has anyone got a Zt.Z.S/30 fuze for sale?

IIRC the dealer said it all came from the site of the Kurland Pocket in Latvia.
 

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Marvelous job on the body, but I'm curious why you haven't restored the driving bands?
 
Marvelous job on the body, but I'm curious why you haven't restored the driving bands?
Thanks. Depends what you mean by restoring them. I certainly don’t have the metalworking kit / expertise to make new ones and fit them in place.
 
Thanks. Depends what you mean by restoring them. I certainly don’t have the metalworking kit / expertise to make new ones and fit them in place.

You can fix them the same way you did the body, body filler and sanding...I've done it on a few shells, a pain in the butt but works...also a bit easier if you use a sanding block...then just paint them with a metallic auto paint, they have a ton of different shades of metallic to choose from...
 
All you need to do is find a gray metal color paint. The pitted bands lead one to believe the rest of the projo is that way under the paint.
 
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