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Had this for a while colors are my own choosing so may be incorrect, the det is a repro and stamped as such. By chance the grenade launcher plate matches the grenades manufacture date a pure jag but a good one at that.
Can anyone tell me who the manufacturer is Aust or British. TIA
That is really neat!
Very nice. It's getting harder to find them with all the parts...
I wonder of Bombdoc could tell us when the last ones were contracted for, certainly in the UK. I seem to recall that the last cast casings I ever saw were marked BFL. There never seemed to be a shortage of them for training.
Gawd Peter.. you are making me dredge up stuff from a long way back...!
I THINK the last filling plant was at Gascoed, as I am sure I remember looking at it in '81! I don't think it was still running at that time, but it had been retained because of all the problems they were having with the L2 grenade... I will have a look and see if I can find my "Boys Book of filling/manufacturers codes" and see if I can find it..
Just for passing interest, the problems with the L2 took a long time to unravel.. The L2 was basically a UK version of the US M62 grenade, which is a good grenade, with a pre-fragmented wire coil. The problems arose because the UK Ordnance Board would not allow the grenades to be stored fuzed, unlike the M62 which came "ready to use" sealed in a can. To be able to remove the fuse, an additional threaded housing had to be fitted to the grenade body. The fuzes were packaged separately and had to be screwed into the grenade body when they were prepared for use..
Now screwing down what was a plain detonator into a blind housing came with a certain risk, therefore a strict minimal length was specified for the housing, which was tested on assembly and inspection. This, along with strict limits on the maximum length of the detonator assembly ensured that our user could not screw a detonator into the base of the housing, which would probably have been an exciting, if short lived experience!
Soon after the grenade came into service, there was a steady trickle of ammunition failure reports.. grenades were failing to function or going off with a very much reduced performance.. indeed I suspect the only reason it got reported was that collections of the (intact!) coiled spring fragmentation sleeves started to get noticed on the grenade ranges. It should be said at this time that grenade performance failures do not often get reported by the Infantry, mainly because they don't like doing the paperwork, and tend to just blow any blinds up so as to get rid of the demolition box...!
The reason for the failures took some time to unravel.. it came down to two issues.. the first was that although a very tight spec was specified for the minimum length of the detonator housing, there was no such spec for the maximum length! The contractor therefore added an additional allowance to the length of the tube thereby ensuring that none of the housings failed inspections. Secondly someone had specified that the inside of the grenade had to be coated with a wax preservative prior to being filled. This is normally done on explosive shell to key the explosive filling to the shell body to stop it moving on firing. This was not really an issue with the grenades, however it was a standard filling specification, so it was done. This wax was a black goo somewhat similar to the material that your grandad used to get sprayed to the bottom of his car to (try to) stop it rusting. The empty grenade bodies were filled through the base and a slug of hot wax was placed in first, swilled around and upended to drain on a rack. When the wax was set, the body was then filled with hot TNT and allowed to set. The problem arose because when the grenade body was upended to drain, a drip of black goo wax formed on the end of the detonator housing which ran down the axis of the grenade!
Now, the detonator on the L2 Fuze was not the strongest known to man, it was however able to initiate the TNT fillings on the (hand made) L2 grenades used on trials, and in the carefully supervised pilot production examples.. However once the main production had started, and the sub contractor had added the extra length to the housing and the lumps of goo had been allowed to set on the end of the outside of the housing, the poor shock pulse from the det, having jumped the gap and fought its way through the inert goo could not persuade the TNT to detonate at high order...!
I'm sure there is a lesson in there somewhere.. ( perhaps about ripping off Yankee designs without understanding the basic design principles perchance?) ...we would never do that eh?
Anyhow this is why we hung on to the 36 somewhat longer than intended...!
I remember that sort of thing, and yes the last part is to a degree true. We also like to make things blow up... WE threw our last stocks of M36 in 1977. A friend of mine, still serving as a Capt (after the ranks), was in a training Pl to learn and throw them.Quote:
Originally Posted by bombdoc
Thanks for a most interesting reply bombdoc.
Body is British made by A Marston, base plate is Australian made by P.D. Davies a mismatch of parts
Dick
As many, probably parts procured over time. Hard with this much time to match them up now, it's been so long.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aussie48
Honestly Jim after all this time I'm surprised you would still find any let alone in reasonable nick
Dick
The odd one shows up, usually they don't last long in the shop here. He had three show up and they didn't go cheap. The days of $30CDN for one of these is dead as Julias Caesar. $175CDN and up...parts are very scarce.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aussie48
$400/AU is the going rate for them here Jim well thats what people are asking and getting at the show last Sept in Perth they were at the $450 mark........
Wow...but I'm not too surprised. Doesn't matter, when I decide to sell them I'll ship them to you and we'll figure it out. I'd have to send them in pennybits though, multi packages...Quote:
Originally Posted by CINDERS
They were made in Chatham, Ontario during WWII. I can't remember the name of the factory. I have an inert one that was found in a barn near where I grew up in Kent Bridge. It took many years to find the internal parts for it. I still need to bead blast and paint it the correct bronze color.
While all of the parts seem to be marked with makers logos I think it'd be false to try to get all one year etc etc for grenades due to the fact that the casings were cast at a contract foundry, they're machined somewhere else, lionished somewhere else etc etc. Same as the striker levers, base plates, filling plugs, alloy internal filling and fuze housing. Then held in store at the filling factory where they're assembled by the zillion, filled, and sealed with the dynamite and filler plug then varnish. I don't know where they're boxed ready for issue but it's either at the Ord depot or the Ammunition depot.........., and then off to the regional Ammo depot. But in the great scheme of things there's not even a chance in hell that you'd find a grenade with all, say, 1955 parts.
Frost & Woods was there and Chat co. There are others I think... I have two different ones Canadian and one UK.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Dick
Here's a site I was seeking. Hope we can remember I posted this here as the markings and makers are all there and too the different models. Some of the rare types will make Cinders weep...with desire...
Mills grenades
I know I'm a bit old hat and all that but I could never really understand what the need for change was. The old No36 was a real killer - providing you got a chunk of it - and simplicity itself to teach, arm and throw. I'd say that it was probably the cheapest killing machine known to the Army. Made out of the cheapest shxx there could ever be. Cast iron, frangible or sintered mazak alloy and what else?
BAR, Muffer - did you teach this? How many Mil Trg lessons?
Yes your right there Jim a most fascinating collection that collector has. Bookmarked the site...........
Grenades were about 6x40 min lessons as I recall, less the range time proper. Yes, I taught the #36 but only for recognition. The last stocks were thrown as I was told my my pal in '77...don't even know why we were still teaching them in '80. I had to bring in mine to show them the correct grenade with markings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
If I close my eyes, I can still see the splattered body parts of a recruit from another platoon all over the walls of the throwing bay............Nasho's wasn't all that nice back then.
We had a couple of those too...
I just wonder what the DS were doing and where was the safety marshal who should have been in the bay with him. Or defective grenades? The trouble is that with defective grenades you never really get to the bottom of it because the evidence is...., well, blown up! We had a muzzle launched grenade just blow up before it had even left the launcher. Killed a Major. Don't even talk about claymores........ (except the Q, are they still used?)
Never saw a defective hand grenade but definitely a few claymores. I hated running a range with those things. When working Range Control we constantly got calls from the Claymore Range and EOD was a few hours away. Like anything always happened on a Friday afternoon when you were about to secure.
Matter of fact there was a V40 accident with a regular regiment and both were killed. Safety and firer. The safety lever had been allowed enough slack to allow the striker to move. 4 sec later they both died.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
We also had a rifle grenade on an FN go off, blowing the head off the firer. Don't remember how safety made out.
We had an 84 round go off as soon as it left the tube. That hit the firer right in center forehead and a friend of mine held a hand over the wound until the chopper came with medics. The man survived. Many in that one were wounded.
We had an 81 Mortar blow as soon as the bore riding pin left the bomb as it cleared the tube. Two killed and lots wounded. That was in Germany, early '70s. Peter should have heard about that one.
We had a man killed in Afghanistan with a Claymore C19 during training. It had been set up backwards apparently. They should have been in the armored vehicles for splinter proof but they were smoking behind them. One ball ricocheted and hit him in the heart. He hadn't set it up...there were no Snr NCOs or officers injured either. That one made me cross. When I ran the claymore range, I made sure I was the last under cover. Yes Peter they're around.
I could go on. Lots...saw lots of dud grenades, more during extreme cold than other times.
Jim is it the nature of how things are made like ordnance that the QA is not that good given the amounts required not only for training but for combat use.
As the stuff should be for the enemy not taking out the end user, Peter often gives the crunchies a bit of curry and probably rightly so with the pull it to bits attitude they have but equipment failures such as you have described would put a real dampner on the squads, but from what you said about the claymores they are clearly marked are they not "This side towards the enemy".
Hopefully the lot numbers were taken from the batch that suffered the failures and the cause found, wont bring those blokes back but hopefully it will stop further needless loss of lives, one wonders if the civilian companies making the gear what audits the Army puts them through or their QA for that matter.
The official story is it fell over before detonation. When a user examines the blast effect however, one can see...Quote:
Originally Posted by CINDERS
We don't have or produce that much ordnance that it should be faulty...
Exactly we had that problem, blast machine not throwing enough current even after tested, or a dud blasting cap. Many had been made during the Vietnam era and who knows how they were stored. Watched an EOD group daisy chain about 10 of them one day. That was a sight to see!Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
Ordnance isn't like fine wine...Quote:
Originally Posted by BruceHMX