1916 British version of the M79

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bdft

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There’s an article title I never thought I’d write! A Victorian grenade launcher? Not quite. It is indeed a Martini-Henry grenade launcher, or to be precise, a Blanch-Chevallier Grenade Discharger. Rather than being designed to combat Zulus on the South African plains, it was actually conceived later, at a time when both sides in the First World War were becoming bogged down in trench warfare. The same imperative that drove the invention of overhead fire rifles, mortars, medieval-style melee weapons, revolver bayonets, and yes, rifle grenades, also gave rise to this (so far as we know) unique prototype. It’s a crazy combination of forward thinking and retro technology; almost the definition of ‘Steampunk’!
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Read it all here: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2013/08/12/reallife-steampunk-martini-henry-grenade-launcher/
 
Looks about right to handle a 5, 6 or 23 bomb.

Lever would insert in what looks to be a ridge on the top of the barrel, hold it 'safe' between removal of the pin and the actual launch.

Likely used a standard .303 blank.

Recoil would be pure and fancy murder.
 
Looks very much like the 37 mm tear gas gun, cops like to use on G7 protesters. :) Line throwing guns built on the same action as well.

Grizz
 
smellie said:
Looks about right to handle a 5, 6 or 23 bomb.

Lever would insert in what looks to be a ridge on the top of the barrel, hold it 'safe' between removal of the pin and the actual launch.

Likely used a standard .303 blank.

Recoil would be pure and fancy murder.
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The article says that it was designed to be fired from the shoulder but there is a spring inside the barrel that is supposed to dampen the recoil somewhat. Considering the concern the Brits had for the comfort of their troops in WW1 I imagine you would only want to shoot it once.
 
It takes a proprietry grenade. The regular Mills No.5, 23 or 36 does not fit.

I was playing withn this at the Armouries only recently.

Regards
TonyE
 
Tony, what kind of "pull" is required to get into the Royal Armouries and handle stuff? I assume one must be engaged in some sort of research? Have a letter from HRH? Be a personal handshaking friend of God?

I'm very seldom jealous, but man, I nearly am now... :)
 
Don't know what it takes to play with their stuff, but, when I visited the Pattern Room at Enfield Lock, I needed a letter from MOD/QAD - Ministry of Defence/Quality Assurance Directorate AND a letter permitting me to bring a camera. Took 5 months to get it all.

After that, it was just not get eaten by the 2 guys at the gate with Sterlings and then have one of them walk you to the correct door and turn you over to the people inside. When I got there, they knew more about me than I did; I had been investigated very completely and didn't even know about it! And I was on Fogo Island!!!!!

In all fairness, Enfield still was an operational factory, building FALs, GPMGs and the new IW in its X-70 version: very hush-hush.

A lot of BS..... but, oh, dear GAWD: to see Maxim Serial Number 1 and, on the next table, Serial Number 100 with ALL the mods.... and the sole existing DWM 1908/16 and FOUR HUNDRED Lee-Enfields all in one room and no two alike.

Aladdin's Cave.

But I never had time to see the Armouries.

So, Tony, what DOES it take?
 
smellie said:
Don't know what it takes to play with their stuff, but, when I visited the Pattern Room at Enfield Lock, I needed a letter from MOD/QAD - Ministry of Defence/Quality Assurance Directorate AND a letter permitting me to bring a camera. Took 5 months to get it all.

After that, it was just not get eaten by the 2 guys at the gate with Sterlings and then have one of them walk you to the correct door and turn you over to the people inside. When I got there, they knew more about me than I did; I had been investigated very completely and didn't even know about it! And I was on Fogo Island!!!!!

In all fairness, Enfield still was an operational factory, building FALs, GPMGs and the new IW in its X-70 version: very hush-hush.

A lot of BS..... but, oh, dear GAWD: to see Maxim Serial Number 1 and, on the next table, Serial Number 100 with ALL the mods.... and the sole existing DWM 1908/16 and FOUR HUNDRED Lee-Enfields all in one room and no two alike.

Aladdin's Cave.

But I never had time to see the Armouries.

So, Tony, what DOES it take?
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Friend of mine made it in there, years ago. He went on to climb Mt. Everest. :)

Grizz
 
Went to the Pattern room twice. One time got to hold a Nock volley gun! Saw a SMLE with an anti aircraft rear sight (just like the one on the Arisaka) Oddest thing I saw was a Lewis gun with an 800 round drum!. About the size of a snare drum. I would assume it was something you would use on a fixed shipboard mount. Oh, by the way, the entrance door into the arms room reminded me of something that would have been used by the vault door of the Bank of England
 
Man, I'd love to see that someday. I've done the Browning Historical Collection in Ogden, and left a gallon of drool on the floor of the Cody Museum, but the Pattern Room and the Royal Armouries? That's in a class unto it's own.
 
Dark Alley Dan said:
Man, I'd love to see that someday. I've done the Browning Historical Collection in Ogden, and left a gallon of drool on the floor of the Cody Museum, but the Pattern Room and the Royal Armouries? That's in a class unto it's own.
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Indeed, I did Cody, and enjoyed it, but am told it pales compared to the NRA museum and The Armouries. A relative of mine who has seen Cody and lives in Leeds (a former armourer and Bisley winner), felt Cody was trivial compared to the Armouries.


http://www.royalarmouries.org/what-we-do/research/nfc
I have contacted them by email in the past, and had people request information at the site, and they have always been incredibly curteous.
 
I don't know when you wrote that Smellie, but the days of "Enfield" making anything are long gone! It will be interesting to find out where any new rifles will be made when the L85A2 comes up for replacement in about 2025.

I am fortunate. I have been involved with the Pattern Room (now the National Firearms Centre) for many years and assist there when required.

Regards
TonyE
 
It WAS a bit of time go, Tony: 1976 IIRC. I made my pilgrimage 3 days after the first photograph of the X-70 4.85mm rifle was released - it showed the left side of the rifle only because a right-side view told you too much about what was inside it. I took a car service from Waltham Holy Cross (said a prayer at King Harold's grave), where I was staying due to proximity to the factory, found that even the drivers didn't know what it was or where it was. Signs pointed the way: very discreet, simply "RSAF" with a point in the right direction.

When I got there, the Pattern Room itself looked very like the photo in Reynolds' book. The purpose of my visit was research on Maxim Guns and I left behind a copy of the pamphlet I had already done for the CSA Museum at CFB Shilo, an operation manual for the MG 1908, 1908/15. I left a second copy of the same manual at the IWM when I visited there (and identified their very first Maxim experimental gun for them), which is where Dolph G. obtained a photocopy of it, a month later. Subsequently, I turned over all my Maxim research to Dolph G and it ended up in "The Devil's Paintbrush" although my contribution was ignored. A simple, "Thanks, George" would have been enough but it never arrived. Oh, well...... actually, our foci were different, anyway. As the book came out, it was oriented toward "collectors"; my own focus would have been on the technical and industrial developments; Enfield gave us mass machine production of an industrial product: the Maxim gave us MODULAR CONSTRUCTION of quickly-interchangeable ASSEMBLIES. If you think that is not important, just try to buy a set of alternator brushes for your car!

But the place was absolutely amazing. I had a Snider Mark III Cavalry Carbine which needed work; they showed me the Sealed Pattern! I asked about the AKM (then almost unknown here) and they had 40 of them on a rack, all in grease; I had one in my hands which was made in Russia, 8 months before I saw it..... in a MUSEUM. It had been supplied to Libya, shipped to the IRA (Provos) in Eire, picked up in Northern Ireland. They also had a couple of huge racks of highly-naughty things which had been turned in to the Police and been sent on to the Pattern Room rather than to the smelter, a program which our own police would do well to copy: MKb42Hs, StG44s, spare FG42s, that kind of junk.

The RSAF Enfield complex was the single most significant industrial site in human history: it is where MODERN industrial technology was born. It SHOULD have been preserved in toto, not scrapped and the land turned over to ever-greedy "developers" to be made into "estates" for the ever-increasing herds of Yuppies trying to get away from Old Smoke as it turns from the Crown of the Empire into another East Asian slum.

Yeah, hottest summer of the 20th Century and I was through it on 2 continents. Makes me appreciate the New World, but not what we are doing to it.

But Enfield was MAGNIFICENT, even though I was only permitted to see a corner of it!

Tony: successor to the L85 likely will be made in China, out of polymers which are designed to disintegrate on a given date! Won't that be fun! We are not all that far from that state right now.
 
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