1944 Ammo Crate - BMW
 

I acquired this ammo crate with a date from 1944. Uninformed observation - I have always heard about BMW's involvement in the WWII but never heard about ammunition manufacture. Or someone painted up a box to seem that way?

Thru my Dutch friends, I was able to gain more than the "I don't know anything" knowledge that I have of the German language. As I understood it at first, it was a crate for red tracers but further interpretation led us to believe it was for igniting a larger shell. Igniting a shell with a tracer made no sense to me but triggered my knowledge, having been on an 8" howitzer for a year, in thinking this was actual a crate for primers for artillery weapons?

Any help/ideas/hair-brained ideas are welcome, please.

As always, thanks for your time

Dave

BMW is part of the Quandt group (which eventually included many arms manufacturers).

I have no facts on BMW's involvement, but anything is possible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Quandt

Looks like 100 rounds of 2cm (20mm) red (rot) tracer ammo of a sort. 120 gram geschob (projectile) about a 5 oz projo. The Wa493 may offer a clue as well. May have been for the 20mm flakvierling. internal box dimensions may help also. The 20mmx138B round is 8" long.