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Cartridge ID

Burney Davis

Moderator
Premium Member
Attached are pictures of three cartridge cases.. The smaller one, 8cm, is marked BWS 4 on the base, the other two, 13cm, are unmarked. Could anyone please ID these, age, use, country etc. Like many things, not in my area of knowledge :)


20210914_100821.jpg20210914_100931.jpg20210914_100448.jpg
 
Looks more like R.W.S. - Rhinish-Westphalian Explosives Stock Company.

TimG
 
R.W.S. = Rheinisch-Westfälische Sprengstoff A.G.
4 = 1944

You don't give diameters, but I think these are propelling cartridges for German mortars.
Long ones are for the 12 cm Gr W 42, short one is for the 10 cm Nb W 35.
 

Attachments

  • 12 cm Wgr 42 - drijfpatroon.jpg
    12 cm Wgr 42 - drijfpatroon.jpg
    38.4 KB · Views: 11
  • 10 cm Wgr Patr 39.JPG
    10 cm Wgr Patr 39.JPG
    40.9 KB · Views: 9
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These look like normal German signal flares to me. They can have brass or steel bases.
Case lengths are usually 80mm for single star and 135mm for a double star.
The left case has grooves on the base to identify a green double star ?
The right case has pie crust rim marks to identify a red double star.

If mortar primary cartridges they would have holes in the case after firing.
 
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Hallo,
the first one on the left seems to be a "Signalpatrone Doppelstern Grün" (2 green stars) and the last one a "Signalpatrone mit Doppelstern Rot". These type of cardboard cases and markings were used in germany in the beginning of the 20th century up till 1918. By the way, mortar cartridges had green coloured cardboard (5cm was the only one I have a description of) and had no holes. Gasescape holes were in the shaft of the round just above the mouth of the inserted cartridge.
Bellifortis.
 
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