Hi All
Another Andy’s Rubbish and Ramblings for you, this time I’m looking at yet another seemingly popular souvenir, the 13mm Mauser anti tank round. They pop up in cartridge collector and antique firearms auctions quite regularly and are moderately priced. Why were they popular? I suspect they were popular due to the impressive size and being so unlike anything the soldiers at the time had previously encountered or used, and also they would have been easy to pack into your kit. So home they came, as reminders of service time, reminders of friends, reminders of specific incidents or moments in time.
The Tankgewehr M1918 rifle or the T-Gew 1918 as it is commonly known as and its 13mm round were developed specifically for anti tank use .The rifles were made by Mauser Obendorf from about May 1918.
The projectile had an armour piercing hardened steel core the specific cartilage details are “13.2 x 92mm semi-rimmed cartridge”
The head stamp is similar on all of the WW1 manufactured rounds and this gives us an excuse to accumulate multiple examples. The following should help decipher the head stamp
P – manufacturer Polte,T67 – the T is derived from abbreviation Tuf for “Tank und Flieger” (tanks and aircraft),67 indicates the brass containing only 67 percent copper compared to the 72 percent of peacetime cases, the 18 indicates the year of manufacture and the 6 and 7 on the pictured head stamps and the month of manufacture, in this case June and July 1918.
I believe head stamps can be found ranging from April to December 1918, it has been suggested that there have been no cases from October (10) observed.
These fascinating rounds offer an interesting addition to a collection and can still be found reasonably easily if you are determined ( or just lucky). A special pouch was made to allow the gunner to carry extra rounds and they offer a lot of additional research opportunity.
I know Gus has always told me that if I have the round I have an excuse to own the rifle…I have four of these amazing rounds and no rifle, they are rather scarce in NZ so I will have to be content with the ammunition only.
Feel free to add info and post images of head stamps.
Apologies, no animal this week…. I had to round up our Kunekune pig that fancies herself as a bit of a Houdini from the neighbours maize paddock before we lost light…entertain yourself imagining the chaos…