Question on German shells

[jozefb2009]

Hello,

I have some questions on some shells (230mm by 77mm). I already found some information in the following thread http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threads/87598-Pre-WW1-77x230-German-Cases which seems to conflict with some of the information I already had.

See attached pictures 430a and 319a. The weight of these shells is very light compared to similar sized shells which have been marked with 'St'.

1. According to the information I found, the letters 'GM' on shell 430a stands for "Grneberger Metallwarenfabrik" while on the other post it mentions to be 'Artilleriedepot Germersheim on Rhine river'. Which one is correct?
2. I found that the letters "AWS" stands for "Artillerie Werkstatt Spandau" which is manufacturer mark. According to the other post the shells are produced in the "bavarian Hauptlaboratorium in Ingolstadt". Again which one is correct?

According to my information the letter 'd' stands for "Vereinigte Deutsche Nickelwerke A.G., Witte & Co., Werk Laband, Oberschlesien". Is this correct?
And do the letters "H.L." stand for "Haniel Luege Dsseldorf (=copper plant)". Is this correct?

Thanks,
Jf

 

[Alpini]

It's no criticism, but I think you should do some (internet-) research about the structure of the prussian / bavarian and saxonian artillery. If you logically combine your results you are able to answer the questions yourself. You also can't trust any of the websites regarding german WW1 manufacturer stamps - all of them copied the failures from other websites. They all took information wich they heard somewhere without checking the truth.

Some tips: The two or three Letter stamps with a number like "AWS 10" or "GM 10" are always acceptance stamps from state owned acceptance places. In most cases these acceptance points were situated in the large state-owned arsenals. For better efficiency the two largest private factorys, the DWM Patronenfabrik in Karlsruhe and Polte in Magdeburg had for limited time acceptance points situated in their cities (I guess they could save transport costs this way). These stamps were either abbreviations of the state arsenals name like AWS, AWDr, Sp, Sb, HL or they were showing the first and last letter of the acceptance points city like "Ke" for Karlsruhe, "Mg" for Magdeburg, "Gm" for Germersheim. If you have an unknown acceptance stamp you must research which state arsenals did exist (until end of 1st WW the number of them was very limited).

About the research, for example you'll easy find also find out that that Grneberger Metallwaarenfabrik was founded in 1931. Or you will find out absolutely nothing about "Haniel Luege" as this company never existed.

Btw. where did I wrote that AWS means Hauptlaboratorium Ingolstadt? It's of course Artilleriewerkstatt Spandau. Please don't mix up the AWS-manufacturers stamp (without number) and AWS-Acceptance stamp (with number).

The single "d" must have something to do with the conversion of the case as only converted cases have this letter. A case has generally only one factory stamp. In case of conversion they have a second manufacturers stamp (only seen on 77x230), but they don't have a third factory stamp, especially not a single letter.

 

[jozefb2009]

Hello Alpini,

Thank you for your awnser. English is not my first language so it's very hard for me to research these things.

Here is a source of information that I used where they mention Grneberger Metallwaarenfabrik existed before 1918,

http://www.waffen-welt.de/bilder/DiePatrone7.92x57.pdf

Regards,

Jf