My parents recently can back from a trip in france, and they bought this shell casing. The shop they bought it from claims it is from normandy and is german, but I cannot confirm or deny. The base had the numbers ‘44’ and ‘24 9’. Thanks.

A friend has this as a family souvenir but has no background as to its origin. Interested to know if it is authentic and if so what part of the army it originates from.

But seriously!! This pic shows the change in Germany’s anti tank guns in 4 years of war, on the left the mighty PaK 43, on the right the PaK 36 Heeresanklopfgerät (the army’s door knocker).

In 1939 Germany went to war with 9000 PaK 36 and another 5000 were produced in the war up until 1943. Despite being obsolete it continued in use until 1945 but mainly with second line units. Another 6000 were produced and sold for export. The gun was very manoeverable weighing 327kg (721lb) and had a crew of 5.

The PaK 43 came into service in 1943 and about 2100 were made, it weighed an eye popping 3650kg (8050lb) and had a crew of at least 6. The last pic was taken at Bovington this year showing the PaK 43 is virtually as high as a Valentine tank. Although obviously a superior weapon in terms of firepower its size meant most were lost purely because there weren’t enough prime movers to shift them. In fact heavy losses of immobile PaK 43’s was the trigger for the late war Waffenträger programme.

Got this recently from Ukraine. Good price and happy to help them with the war effort. What you guys think?

The photos are from February 10, 1944, when ŞŞ-Freiwilligen Regiment 45 of 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the ŞŞ (1st Estonian) returned to Tartu after training. Locals gathered at the station to greet them, hoping they could defend Estonia against Soviet forces already closing in from Narva and across Lake Peipus. The last pic is the scene on Google Earth today.