Cartridges

The cartridges presented here seemingly look like boring metal tubes. But the opposite is true. If we compare the types of cartridges and their clusters at the places of battles, positions of individual armies, and even from war graves, we can learn a lot about the level of armament of the deployed units, the range of weapons available to them at the time, or even about the raw material capabilities of the warring sides. But among other things, we can also read from the headstamps on individual cartridge cases the stories we all know from history books. From Soviet cartridges we learn about the famous evacuation of the war industry beyond the Urals. We learn of the presence of American cartridges that were made for the purposes of the famous Lend-Lease Act, without which the Soviet Union could hardly have managed the turn of the war in 1941. In the cartridges used by the Germans, we find physical evidence of their domination of Europe. We find cartridges made not only in Germany, but also in Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and even Denmark. In positions that were outside the main battlefields, we find large quantities of then obsolete or looted ammunition, which was used to rearm the secondary units. The saving of precious material was also reflected in the quality of German cartridges. At the beginning of the war we still see brass cartridges, later only galvanised steel pieces and at the end of the war only plain sheet metal. In the sections below you will find the most common types of cartridge cases encountered during archaeological excavations at Second World War sites in the Czech Silesia.