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I lucked out today when I was contacted by my local gun store.
He took in a "box" that had some odds and ends of some war stuff, two of which were demilled pineapple grenades. Is there some where I could find the "levers", spoons what ever they were called?
Safety levers are around. Blue for training and green from HE grenades. If you look around here with a WTB you might find some. We'd love to have a look at them too.
OK Jim,
I will get some pix up tomorrow.
If you are talking British "Mills Bombs" type pineapple grenades then the firm Dug-Up here in the U.K. is a good place to purchase any missing parts such as levers, bottom caps, side filler caps etc etc. They get these parts remanufactured abroad somewhere. Their website address is something like dugup and if you google it you should find them. They even make inert fuses for the Mills grenade.
The above link seems to work; look under the inert ordinance section.
The OP is a US citizen, I believe he means the US issue M1 grenade. He'll post pics for you eventually.
Here they are
That's neat, most of the Army Surplus specials I seen as a kid didn't have the base plug, they were just left open. And many of them had a molded plastic fuse body, that's a nice piece.
Those were for practice only. This one needs the new type of fuze assembly to be able to use the newer safety lever. It has no pin at the front to hinge the forks of the lever on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sentryduty
Here's what the one you have should look like...so you know. Mk 2 grenade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thanks Jim,
I fortunately never had to use one.
No sweat on that one...
Be careful with the display of these artifacts.In 1971 a US citizen was reported to have grenades to the ATF.
They raided his home and when he heard the break in he responded with a percussion pistol and he was shot in the head.
His name was Kenyon (Ken) Ballew. It just goes to show you that you can never predict how an informant and your government may behave.
The consequences for an innocent person can be severe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Ballew_raid
Quote:
Originally Posted by aspen80
Hmmm, smells like Ruby Ridge. Yet another reason to mistrust the feds...Quote:
Originally Posted by ireload2
Russ
Maybe one of you grenade-savvy chaps could answer one for me.
Are the fuze threads on WW2-1980s Soviet grenades the same as on the US M1 etc?
The French went from Medieval-looking things with a fuze hanging out the top, through sundry "stick" grenades, to what we know as "modern" grenades in a couple of years. This seems to have influenced British and US grenade design to some extent.
I'm fairly sure the old M1 /2 "Pineapples" have the same thread as the later M-26 (and M-30 Practice) grenades.
The other question I just thought of is the official supply and use of other than "standard" fuzes.
The Soviets certainly used "instantaneous fuzes" for a couple of reasons.
1. They go "BANG" as soon as the "spoon" / handle flies off, making them ideal for booby-traps.
2. Also useful to leave a few to be captured by "unwary' opponents who may try to send them back to the original owners.
They are VERY useful when equipping "lone wolf" terrorist types that you do not want to debrief.
There is a book called "To Live in the Fire", which is sort of a photo essay about the gritty end of life in the IDF and issues for civilians in Israel. One of the more "interesting" pictures is of what's left of a "subject" who tried to grenade an Israeli cinema. There is not much left above the waistline. Best analysis is that the people who "equipped" the assailant did not want him to answer any embarrassing questions and so, fitted his (Russian designed) grenade with an instantaneous fuze. As soon as the lever departed: BOOM! Very nasty for the movie-goers, EXTREMELY nasty for the "wanna-be hero".
I think that when the BATF agents did their incompetent and heavy handed raid on the poor guy with the dummy grenades that it caused a fallout with the NRA at the time. Before then the NRA and BATF were pretty much together on everything. The fellow had converted some dummy grenades to fire caps off when thrown, etc. He was thrilling kids on the 4th of July with it when someone complained. That caused the raid to happen later. They convicted the guy of having illegal explosive devices. The Federal judge said that he had made the devices where they "could" be loaded with explosives an used then. Thus that was when the NRA and the government parted ways.
I got this one example many years ago. Someone made a mold and was casting new iron bodies for the practice grenades. They would drill and tap it for the surplus grenade fuse ends and handles. I was going to make one of those joke "Please take a number"displays. But I took too long and now it would freak people out if they saw it.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../15gwkck-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../28k7e60-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../2rm7gw4-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../34h6m1h-1.jpg
I read somewhere that the surface of the British Mills bomb grenade is not patterned with the raised segments to aid fragmentation but merely to aid grip when throwing. I guess that the U.S. pineapple grenade is fashioned this way for the same reason, to aid grip?
No, it's for fragmentation. Now they serrate inside. And it's still for fragmentation.
I remembered that I read about the serration lines on Wikipedia. Looking it up again, it does reference Mill's notes stating that the serrations were for grip not fragmentation and that in practice they didn't tend to fragment along the serration lines.
When I was a youngster, my dad (a USMC reservist at the time and eventual USN Desert Storm attendee at 55) gave me a "practice" grenade. It was cast iron including the spoon. As I recall it was hollow with a hole in the base. I don't remember if there was a hole for a cotter pin and pull ring or not. Unfortunately it disappeared during the intervening 45 years. It would have been cool to have today.
Dave
I also read that the bumps or pineapple shape along with the serrations was supposed to aid in fragmentation. But the grenades didn't follow the plan though. The modern USA grenade has a long coil of notched wire inside that is supposed to break up into small pieces and generate more shrapnel. But I don't think that it does it very well either. The old fashioned, load them up with little bits and pieces of metal, probably still works well.
I don't think that we can simply ignore what is stated on Wikipedia concerning the raised sections/bumps of the Mills Bomb because it does credit the source/reference back to Mills himself, the man who designed it. Does anyone have any evidence that the raised sections are intended to fragment and if so could we see it, please? At Militaria sales and fairs etc here in the U.K. you do, sometimes, see bits of exploded Mills Bombs that have been dug up. The bits that I have seen, offered for sale in the past, have been fairly large parts of the casing and haven't appeared to have fragmented too well.
I do not have any evidence to share but I do have a good understanding of explosions and am experienced in the use of grenades.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying10uk
Re: Theory of waffle designs in grenades for fragmentation.
It makes sense in a manner, if an iron sphere is cast perfectly with no imperfections and variations in composition it should explode into equal little pieces. By casting in designed weak points in the structure (in a waffle pattern) it would be reasonable that the grenade would split at the thin sections and distribute little injury inducing cubes of iron in a uniform and radial pattern.
However once we leave the simple blackboard, the whole plan falls apart.
Grenades are not perfect spheres.
Casting is not uniform.
Due to the delay fuse, the explosion is not initiated perfectly centre inside the grenade body, it is usually towards a certain side which aids:
The engineered weakness in the waffle casing is not the weakest part of the grenade body, in most cases stress risers will initiate cracking near the edges of the fuze hole or other orifice.
Explosions are just expanding gasses and will try to escape containment, always seeking the path of least resistance, once a crack is formed all of the gasses will try to escape through that one rupture point.
Once that crack has opened far enough, and the explosion has built sufficient pressure the grenade body will break apart along that fault line and disassemble into randomly shaped pieces.
Here is a modern M67 note the "peels" from top to bottom.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...9/ixh9vq-1.jpg
German Egg grenade dig ups:
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...MzlkYjA4-1.jpg
Two piece besozzib design, failed where it screws together and only generated 4 lethal fragments.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...Besozzib-1.jpg
I can't comment on the original intent of Mr. Mills design, but I can say that Grenades (and other sundry offensive explosions) generally kill from blast, while perforation of the body by the casing is obvious if one is unlucky enough to catch one, however other small fragments projected outwards from the explosion can prove fatal after the initial injury.
I have personally been 3 metres away from an exploding M67 fragmentation grenade on open, level ground, and I came away uninjured by simply lying prone. If the same situation were to take place inside an enclosed area like a bunker, or vehicle, I would not have come out unscathed.
Further reading on hand grenade mechanism of injury from this medical incident review, jump to the "discussion" section for summary:
Hand Grenade Blast Injuries: An Experience in Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia
What I always found interesting Darren is that although we were committed to teach the troops the M67 has a coiled, segmented wire inside...you can clearly see it's not. It's a stippled solid steel casing.
We had one go blind in that it only blew the ends out and no more.
Another myth "Exploded" if you will.
I too have pieces but didn't feel the urge to carry on this ridiculous argument.
Thanks for the information. That really bums me that they were telling us that there is a coiled steel wire inside the grenades when there isn't. Another myth killed.
On the side of the people that wrote the books that we had to teach out of, I'm sure that's what they were told or told to teach. Perhaps there's no other way for the manufacturer to describe it...but we sure found a way. Grenades like the one Darren has and loose shrapnel would be collected and run through the ammo wing to be declared safe so we could put it into the training system. I still have pieces...and other stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by earlwb
Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
I would have to go back and look but the "coiled wire" probably still on the books, or at least added to lectures as repeated oral history. I know even military fiction sometimes references "wire" fragments from a grenade.
M67
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...tawayM67-1.jpg
This older M26 "Lemon" grenade might be the source of the wire wrapped myth. They were adopted in the 1950's but I have never used one, they have been replaced in CDN service by the C13 (M67) entirely.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...9/OR034A-1.jpg
I do have a 40mm HELV (M203) cutaway, I should share a photo of it, the fragmentation material in that is about the size of #7 Birdshot, which we know is not a terribly fatal projectile on humans.
Thanks for your informative posts, Darren. I don't know why you call it a ridiculous argument in your Post 22, Jim. All I have stated is where I got my information from regarding the raised sections/bumps of the Mills grenade being for grip not fragmentation. After remembering it was from Wikipedia I stated the fact here. The Wikipedia article gives Mill's, original notes, the grenade's designer, as the source of this information. I don't have the computer skills to reproduce the Wikipedia article here myself but anyone wishing to see it only needs to tap "Mills Bomb" into Wikipedia.
I read the wiki article, and while the article does claim that Mill's notes describe the grooves for grip. However, the wikipedia article does not actually link or cite the source of these notes, I have finished reading the 1915 patent documents of his device and it makes no reference to the grooves in the body at all. The majority of the patent focuses on the fuze design, and method of installation. None of the other cited article sources link to anything of real value, just enthusiast webpages mostly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying10uk
If there are notes from Mr. Mills about this topic, they are not directly quoted or cited in that article.
I trust very little I read on wikipedia, it is an enthusiast website and evolves daily in what "facts" it states on a topic, any person can edit, regardless of how much or little they know of a topic.
As for the No36 '.... not fragmenting well' in spite of the build of the actual casing with its weak points. All I can say is that I have been onto the grenade ranges many times in the No36 era and seen zillions of large and small razor sharp fragments in the danger area. It's also a shrill warning when you hear those xxxxxxg great razor sharp cast iron whizzzzzzzing overhead when you're crouched in the throwing bay.
I went up and collected a small box full of No36 casing fragments from one grenade range before it was moved over a bit, to use in the grenade display. They didn't generally follow the fracture lines/pattern but in a LOT of cases, the cast iron bottom ring part remained as a big fearsome sharp ring. One thing that did bring it home was the depth that the sharp shrapnel dug into the thick wooden sleeper protective walls of the throwing bay - including plenty of the brass fuze bases. So deep I couldn't dig them out!
As a matter of interest, the last factory gate price of a No36 grenade to the UK Military in the early 80's was £1.36p. That's killing on the cheap!
Certainly an interesting thread, as Peter has mentioned the No36, thought some pics would go down well, one of these I've had since I was 15..... the other two a No5 and No36 I picked up at the War and Peace show this year with the intention of moving on.... strange as it sounds the wife actually likes them.......... the No5 was with out the lever or spoon as described in previous threads, but everything else was with it including the striker, the guy around the corner was selling repro bits which I bought the lever and pin, although it really belongs to the No23 but will do the job until I find one.
Pic below the No5 is on the left, the other two are No36, the right one has a No5 1916 base plug, this is the one I've had since I was a kid.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...rv06hqqb-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...wavmpz3t-1.jpg
the main difference between the two is the top
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...9whcu1wh-1.jpg
Parts of the No5
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...tybifp5d-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...gpopkv4f-1.jpg
Peter, have you had any experience of the No69, the black bakelite/plastic, grenade being used/tested? I do have an inert (all explosive material removed) example and these were supposed to be made by the bank note printers, Del La Rue or a similar sounding name. The grenade had a large ball bearing as part of the fuse which was claimed to be fairly lethal to anyone in the vicinity including the person who threw the grenade.
Has anyone seen grenade casings, No5 or No36, made into children's pocket money savings tins/receptacles? Just imagine the Media reaction if someone tried to market such a Politically Incorrect product in today's world.
That's probably it. Things tend to not go away once they start. We didn't have those...we did have M61s though. I used those.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sentryduty
I also have a couple of M36s.
That's a nice showing, I only have the training cutaway which I showcased in another thread earlier this year.
https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=55053
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...48dadd06-1.jpg
The empty one came from an antique shop in Ontario when I was very young. The others, one I've had for years and one came from a shoebox full of stuff that was handed to me...
Didn't the No36 grenades intended for tropical use had a shellac coating applied in the hope of preventing corrosion?
Some light reading on the link below,
Mills grenades
So, I have two Canadian and one English grenades. Now I know.
The base chunk of shrapnel Peter is referring to I got it off that site as a job lot with a solid pin and spoon needed the latter pair for a practice Mills I have.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
I have a pineapple grenade that is all cast iron, handle, fuse and all. Just meant for training. I just got it at an antique shop a few weeks ago, WWII era, US. I have the regular later training pineapple grenade along with a round one also.
The collection to date - L-R Italian Red Devil, USA Pinapple, Mills prac?, 1941 Mills 36 with 1941 Base plate for the grenade launching cup, used flash bang. (All are inert)
Yes, apparently at one time white was acceptable for practice ordnance...
I have this aluminium base plug from an exploded 36m Mills grenade which I believe was manufactured in 1971 at Poole. There appears to be the partial remains of a date, 1971, in the top left of the picture; the one showing the information marked on the base plug.
Presumably, this is one of the last base plugs for the Mills type grenade made in the U.K.?
Regarding the base plug, I had a bag of them years ago that I had doug up on an old WW2 training area......... spent many a summer evening armed with my metal detector and folding shovel scouring the area.
Found everything from .303 cases, live rounds, grenade plugs, also parts of the Bakelite grenade, 2" mortar fins, parachute flares and smoke bombs and a few Live 2" HE mortars that had failed to go off..... back to the Grenades it was not long after the war and the same area as I used to go, a group of the local lads had found a No36 ........cant remember the full story now but have mentioned it before, think one was killed and one lost an eye......
The base plug in post 41 was purchased from a trader/stall holder at an event a couple of years ago for the princely sum of £1. I've always remembered what my Sergeant Major in the cadets taught us, never pick up any spent ordinance found laying around; it's simply not worth the risk. Some cadets ignored his advice when they were not being watched but I never have.
That is still a pretty standard practice in the military today, it's easier to teach not to touch it than it is to teach safe/not safe UXO recognition.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying10uk
There is always souvenir hunting but the risk is life and limb in some circumstances.
Some explosive devices get very unstable with age, while others are somewhat benign.
And then is the Master Corporal D*****l observed idley kicking an old unexploded 2" Mortar bomb he found partially buried in the dirt. Camp Aldershot (Kentville NS) used to have a mortar range during the war, and the impact zone was re-classed as dry training area years after...
A friend of mine was in the USMC in Korea. He was warned never to pick up souvenirs. However he did pickup a PPSH41. It was dewatted when he brought it back to the states. He felt it was safe to pick up since it was partially charred and its former owner was still laying on it and was still smoking from napalm dropped by a A1.
Here's something for the OP to note... https://www.milsurps.com/showthread....679#post375679
Cast iron will fracture wherever it feels like. Thus, unless the web between the "raised tiles” is EXTREMELY thin, you will always get "random" chunks. The base plugs are known to be blown out and fly a fair distance at great speed.
All of that was the motivation for the development of the M-26 and similar "offensive" grenades. The outer casing rips open like a beer can, closely followed by the ejection of a cloud of steel balls or short bits of steel wire that line the inside of the outer body.
The idea of an "offensive grenade" is not that it tells off-colour jokes, but that it's effective / lethal range is limited by the low mass of individual fragments, i.e. high initial velocity, VERY lightweight individual projectiles. Basically, you can throw it FURTHER than the known lethal distance, ALWAYS a good thing with grenades and other explosive devices.
Being whacked by the remnant fuse assembly may vary your mileage.
Also, if used inside buildings with sheeted, timber-framed walls, the smaller/lighter "chunks" are a lot less likely to punch completely though the walls and "get" the thrower. There remain, of course, the nasty effects of instantaneous "over-pressure" inside and adjacent to, said room.
And then, there is your classic German "potato-masher" grenade; essentially a "blast" job.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/158...45206215&qte=1
Seeing as Bruce raised the subject of over pressure the fuel air burst bombs they have or used? was the design to A) Bring the demise of the enemy by over pressure and O2 starvation B) Both and turn everything there to fire.
You talk of the instances of flying chunks I have a doco on battleships which goes into detail about AP main rounds and the effect when it penetrates it always displaces a great chunk on the inside as it moves through called a biscuit like secondary fragmentation to which a 15" or 16" round would create a rather large hunk of shrapnel causing untold grief before the round detonated. As a last one the striking energy of a 15" projectile (Which is measured in Foot Tons) is in the order of 80,000 Ft Tons so pretty much the Mushashi lobbing into the side of your battleship.
The production of "secondary missiles" is part of the job of an effective anti-armour round.
The HESH, ("high explosive squash-head") specifically does this.
The principle is simple:
On impact, a generous quantity of VERY fast explosive detonates on the OUTSIDE of an AFV. The shock-wave traveling through the hard armour causes "spalling" or "scabbing" as it exits the armour on the INSIDE of the target vehicle. Large or small, the detached "chunks" rattling at high speed around the fighting compartment cause unpleasant things to happen to the occupants. On the outside, a bit of a dent and some paint burnt off. Inside? Messy!
Back in 1985 I was being guided around the "New Jersey" by its Dental Officer, who also happened to be the safety Officer for the "B" turret"
His description of the effect of a 16" HE round impacting on a ground target was something like: "Imagine something about the weight of a Volkswagen striking the ground at 20 miles and leaving a crater the size of a tennis court."
He also told us why they ALWAYS fire the main armament in BROADSIDE mode; fired fore and aft, the shockwave of the guns' recoil travels through the ship and knocks people off their feet and breaks things. The other story concerned the "loss" of a helicopter during a fire mission in Lebanon.
Urgent, and copious, fire was called for on short order. After the appropriate number of rounds had been delivered, someone remembered that the ship's helicopter had not been flown off the aft deck, just astern of "C" turret.
Its battered remains were hastily swept up and shoveled over the side.
I have heard it suggested that there was appalling carnage, with many dead and seriously wounded, on the main gun deck of the French flag ship at the Battle of Trafalgar. This was caused by HMS Victory passing the stern* at point blank range and firing just a single broadside into the stern with 50 or so cannons.
*The most venerable part of a wooden warship is said to be the stern.
That's the only way all guns can be brought to bear. Otherwise there's obstacles at muzzle and all guns can't fire.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz
Also quite right. They could do more damage because the ship was narrower that way and there was more likelyhood of destruction. The ball goes in the end and out the other.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying10uk
Ok Chaps... A few misconceptions here...
The whole business of "do the grooves help the fragmentation" is down to the filling.. if it is low explosive, then yes, if the filling is high explosive then no (with an exception!)
What a lot of folk do not understand is that the original US M1 Pineapple grenade was filled with NC rifle powder, not HE! There was no detonation when this grenade went off, simply a pressure build up which caused the case to split along the lines of the grooves.
Latterly, the filling was changed to TNT and a detonator added to the end of the time fuze. TNT detonates at around 6km/sec and cast iron simply shatters at these velocities. They did not make any other changes to the design, but (i think!) the body was painted yellow..
The Mills (36) grenade was always designed to be filled with an HE (usually Baratol which is Barium nitrate and TNT) and the checkers were always just to improve the grip. The fragmentation of the 36M was improved towards the end of its life by using malleable cast iron instead of plain grey cast iron, which gave a more "jaggy" fragment, but the real problem was the base plate! Most of the body fragments only went about 30m however the base plate would go 100m+ which gave the grenade a safety trace with a frying pan/skillet shape.. the problem was that you never knew which way the handle was pointing.. (by the way.. ROF (P) is Patricroft in Manchester not Poole!). The 36 grenade was coated with copal varnish to stop the explosive reacting with impurities in the cast iron. The 36M had a thick coating of lanolin grease to stop moisture entering the body of the grenade, which had to be removed prior to use...!
The combination of HE and cast iron was never that good, hence the adoption of pre formed fragmentation solutions in the latter half of the war.. These were both more predictable to the user and lethal to the prospective target..!
The exception to the "grooves rule" is that you can form fragments with high explosives by putting grooves on the inside of the casing.. what happen is a variation on the shaped charge principle in that the grooves form shock waves in the explosive mass which break up the case along the line of the groove. You get the same effect by stippling the inside of the casing..
The photo shown above of a grenade casing peeled back like a banana skin is the result of an ammunition performance failure.. the explosive has either burned or encountered a low order detonation, possibly as a result of EOD action. If the grenade had performed as designed, the high order detonation would have resulted in a cloud of fine, high velocity fragments, which is what you want!
...hope this clarifies things a bit!
And then later due to complaints of it standing out in combat in the Pacific, it was changed in color.Quote:
Originally Posted by bombdoc
We saw these from time to time on the range. They happened naturally on the range, and were a basic misfire or failure. Most were destroyed as blind ordnance.Quote:
Originally Posted by bombdoc