16-170 Garand Picture of the Day - 60 mm Mortar as rifle grenade

[Mark in Rochester]

Signal Corps personnel in the mountainous Italian campaign converted rifle grenades into grapnel hooks for stringing communication wire across deep ravines or up steep slopes. This adaptation was also used by infantry and engineers to clear areas of tripwire mines and to snare and pull clear barbed wire entanglements while the soldiers remained safely under cover.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[browningautorifle]

I would think the recoil would be tremendous when using a 60mm bomb for a rifle gren...(Because they're heavier)

[Tom in N.J.]

The army even put out a Technical Bulletin showing how to use a 60 mm M49 mortar shell as a rifle grenade. It did not authorize its use, stating only the ground commander could in an emergency. I made up a dummy for display (can't have mortar shells in N.J.) using a restored M1 projection adapter. It was not to be used on the M1 carbine!!..

[Sentryduty]

Fully agree with BAR on this.

As someone that has run a 60mm mortar professionally, that has got "dubious as hell" written all over it. It should work on principle, but looks like a recipe to break a rifle stock and startle your friends.

Nice dummy sample though.

---------- Post added at 05:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:52 PM ----------

Peter mentioned why manuals were written in a certain way, here's why, look at the write up Wikipedia has for the projector:

Use[edit]
The user pulled the Mk.2 grenade's pin and inserted it into the prongs; a holder on one of the prongs kept the arming lever from releasing. He then loaded the adapter on the muzzle of the grenade launcher bracket. The operator then braced the rifle from a standing or kneeling position. The adapter was launched by firing a high-powered blank from the rifle. Inertia causes the holder to shear off in flight, releasing the lever and arming the grenade.

As written:
User pulls pin on Mk2 Hand Grenade and inserted it (the pin? LOL) into the prongs...

Common sense would dictate installing the grenade into the projector, mounting the projector onto the the muzzle of the rifle, loading a blank, and just before firing, remove the grenade pin.

Remove grenade pin and flummox about the battlefield with your life in a springy contraption, not a great plan.

[browningautorifle]

Common sense would dictate installing the grenade into the projector, mounting the projector onto the the muzzle of the rifle, loading a blank, and just before firing, remove the grenade pin.

Exactly as you say, I taught the FN with Grenade launcher and using the M62 grenades, that was exactly the drill. In case of safety lever detachment before you were ready, the whole rifle and assembly were to be chucked over the barricade to go up together... I suspect the write up in Wiki is a concept done by a civilian that never handled them. Perhaps read the book and then wrote from memory.

[CINDERS]

Don't they remove the pins with their teeth in the movies I am sure that works (Not) I have seen pics of Bombers in WWI with like a mini hook device for pulling the pins out of the grenades before throwing them as I gather pulling the pins on a gaggle of grenades would tend to chop up ones hands.
One thing I have a few inert 36's (2) and did they come with a solid pin to hold the spoon (WWI) and then a split pin in (WWII) bit perplexed as one has the solid pin and the other a split my USA pineapple has a split also (WWII) TIA

[browningautorifle]

The pins are a split pin like a cotter pin. The ring is taken in the center(biggest and strongest) finger and slightly rotated while pulling the GRENADE away from it. Just an inch will do. The end of the pins are originally flared to keep them in place. Teeth won't work. It doesn't bother your fingers though. A hook would be an extra that the troops would lose far too quickly to be of use. Or, they'd hang a coffee cup on it...