Sure thing- I should clarify too that what I mean by my understanding being that there were early shells without caps is that I have seen them and there's no indication they ever had the caps- not that I know for sure there was an official type, etc. like that.
The original 8,8cm Pzgr. 39, the type with the large charge space and taking the very big base screw/fuze 'Bd. Z. f. 8,8cm', has a cap and nose that's just a bit more curving than the 39/1 we're more familiar with.
I suppose it's possible there was a stock of unfinished penetrators after the war and perhaps because they were a lot less dangerous to salvage than ones with a charge, that's why they appear? I don't know. But since the cap is supposed to have been soldered on, and itself is a solid piece of steel (only the nose is hollow), it's harder to believe they'd somehow come off and been lost than there to have been an intentional capless type made before the cap was found to be necessary. It's doubtless a function of the armour being penetrated as to whether or not a cap is needed, and early on the armour faced wasn't usually particularly heavy...
That KwK43 looks nice- as we're on the subject, the white nose paint apparently denotes the 39/1 design- i.e, smaller bursting charge and BdZ5127 fuze; although in this case it's a 39/43 but it still has the same size charge and fuze.
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