I served with vets who told about shooting the tiny Roebuck deer in Germany both for sport and meat. When I was serving in Nord-Rhein Westphalen with our NATO Brigade, we often encountered herds of wild boars rummaging at night. We had to burn all our garbage to prevent them from rooting it up and raising the ire of the Wald Meister.
He also kept a close eye on the game and I don't think he would have been happy with us potting one for a bar-b-que.
Thanks for the info Sharps. Always welcome to hear new info about such things!
Here is a pic of a French WWI device: Barbed Wire Destruction Rod
The device was made with one solid wood end, probably turned on a simple wood lathe. The main body of the device is sheet steel or sheet iron (?). Tradesmen in a factory probably were rolling the steel & rivetting to a cylndrical shape. One of the wooden ends, probably the end with the dowel coming out, was hollowed out & it had a friction igniter possibly like the German stick grenade ignitors. At the other end of the ignitor end dowe, there could have been a well for a military cap or maybe a small booster charge.What went in the device was a payload of 400 grams of Cheddite high explosive, which makes me wonder how powerful the detonator or detonator/booster charge was. They say that Cheddite explosive is difficult to initiate for best results. There was also another device like this but larger, holding 800 grams of Cheddite explosive.
In the WWI era, the French were using a crap ton of Cheddite.
Text from the website:
The explosive rod for barbed wire destructionis a variety of the original improvisated wood rod grenades, dedicated at the beginning of the war for the creation of breeches in the barbed wire networks before the assaults.
Having quite a primitive conception, it is simply a cylinder made with a rolled anb riveted steel plate, plugged at the top with a wooden block, and at the base with a wooden stick . This stick was hollow, making place for a traction igniter setting fire to a powder line cord (representing a 5 seconds delay), linked to the detonators. Those latter cause the explosion of the 400 gr of Cheddite charge, confined in the steel cylinder.
A new model with a doubled explosive charge (800 g), longer, appeared in 1916.
Approx. weight 600 g, including 400 g cheddite (800g on new models)
Explosive rod for barbed wire destruction - detail showing the rolled steel plate
***
Explosive rod for barbed wire destruction - detail showing the solid wooden plug, with the engravings '3-7', meaning delay from 3 to 7 seconds, nominal being 5 seconds... not very precise... ! I would be securing this thing somehow & pulling the ignitor with a landyard! ;p
***
Explosive rod for barbed wire destruction. General view of the 'small' 400g cheddite model
***
It seems like such a light container for an explosive known to require strong confinement, mimimum weight of charge for anything to happen reliably, and the thin shell makes me wonder if they had a blasting cap & part of a TNT block to boost the Cheddite into working.