Decisive millimetres. Ammunition standardisations in the long 20th century

• Applicant: Dr. Benedikt Sepp
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 561535129

Every day, 700 people fall victim to firearms, accounting for 45% of all violent deaths worldwide. In recent years, this has led to an increasing research interest in firearms, but studies often miss the mark by focusing on the gun itself rather than the actual functional agent—the ammunition inserted into the firearm. The centerfire cartridge, in use since the 1880s, consists of a brass casing containing the projectile, a primer, and a propellant charge; its structure and function have remained unchanged since then, with nearly all small arms worldwide operating on this principle. However, not all cartridges are identical; they primarily differ only in length and width. These two measurements, however, impact a range of factors from range, penetration power, noise, and lethality of the shot to the usability of the weapon, as well as the volume, weight, and cost. As a result, they serve as critical markers for future expectations, self-perceptions, and constructed adversaries. Put more pointedly: two dimensions reveal whom, where, and with whom the decisive agent plans to shoot, and when. The project focuses on the continuity and adaptation of the cartridges, opening avenues for analyzing the entanglement of technological “progress,” temporality, and violence from the 19th century to the present. Certain types of cartridges also circulate specific forms of violence enabled by their design: with a caliber originating from Imperial Russia, the Taliban inflicted significant losses on NATO forces in Afghanistan due to its extensive range, while drug cartels today repurpose a World War I cartridge to attack helicopters of the Mexican army. This process of continually reimagining what already exists offers a counter-narrative to the idea of steady technological progress or the perpetual increase in the efficiency of violent force. At the same time, this long-term perspective shifts the focus away from the military, which might typically be considered central in such a history. Instead, it highlights intersections between military, police, mercenary, and criminal domains where violence practices linked to specific calibers circulate. Given the long lifespan and operational duration of firearm ammunition, it emerges as a fitting object to investigate the complexities of continuity, transfer, and transformation of specific violent practices over vast temporal and spatial distances. The project follows a central theme: using a specific caliber type, the so-called intermediate cartridge, to write an “entangled history” of lethal violence, examining how originally military forms of violence, since the 1980s, have diffused into non-military spheres of society.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants