Lets see your grenades

Here's are my smoke grenades, used as mock tear gas, when I was a mock rioter :) boy was that a fun night!

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Hmm interesting i've always been interested in owning a No.36 Mills bomb - anyone know of regular sellers or do these just crop up when someones selling one?
 
Number 69 was supposed to be used as a blast grenade and, in this role, worked quite well on concrete bunkers and such. It had a plastic body with a weighted tape and an All-ways fuse. Filling was 80/20 Baratol, a Barium Nitrate/TNT mix.

What you did was unscrew the cap, hold the weight to its place at the neck of the bomb, and then throw it. It would roll coming out of your hand and the weight would not want to roll, so it unwound the cloth tape. When the entire cloth tape was unwound, it pulled out the safety pin and the thing now was ARMED completely.

It had a central detonator and a floating firing-pin. If the thing landed bottom-up, the firing-pin would set the detonator off as it drifted into the pin. Hit top-side up, the firing-pin with the top of the All-ways and the Ball drifted into the detonator. Hit sideways, the BALL tried to escape, forcing the Cones of the All-way fuse apart....... and sending a firing-pin into the detonator.

Altogether, it was a very nasty piece of work.

Outside, the danger range was only a handful of yards because the plastic body vapourised when the thing went off. Guys chucked them about with ### abandon as noisemakers and some even were used as training grenades.... until someone got the heavy metal BALL from the All-ways fuse blown into them. After that, they were used as intended.

In a confined space such as a bunker, the thing contained enough explosive to pulp the lungs of anyone inside, provided that you could get it in with them with enough velocity to set off the All-ways fuse, not that a huge amount was required for that. It also worked nicely as a booby-trap. Balanced on top of a door, the thing would drop to the floor and detonate if the door were to be opened even a bit.

Nasty little things.

I have one and likely I paid too much for it, but at least I found out how that All-ways fuse works.
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There are some VERY rare types shown here. Look at them and drool; a lot of museums don't have what is on this thread already... and I have no idea what will be posted next!
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hmmm. Learn something new everyday.

those discus grenades are an interesting piece of work.

a long fuse and a short length of rope or sling would have made for a specialized, but effective ranged weapon.
where the user would swing the device above his head to throw it.


missing something: post #8 - picture number 2- any info there? - looks like a ceramic pot- presumably one that broke upon landing?
same with post #14 - pictures 1 & 2.

awesome collection, one that I know absolutely nothing about but would love some info!
 
na1lb0hm said:
hmmm. Learn something new everyday.

those discus grenades are an interesting piece of work.

a long fuse and a short length of rope or sling would have made for a specialized, but effective ranged weapon.
where the user would swing the device above his head to throw it.


missing something: post #8 - picture number 2- any info there? - looks like a ceramic pot- presumably one that broke upon landing?
same with post #14 - pictures 1 & 2.

awesome collection, one that I know absolutely nothing about but would love some info!
Click to expand...

Post 8 #2 pic is a Type 4 Japanese pottery grenade from WW2. The would be filled with an explosive mixture covered with a rubber covering and have a "quick match" placed inside for a fuze. The ceramic would then become the fragments.

Post 14 Pic # 1 is a Hungarian M39/a LangKezigranat, or a "Molotow" military molotov cocktail.

Pic # 2 is a Belgian M63 grenade simulator. Similar to the Canadian T-Flash.

Thanks for the positive comments :D
 
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