Grenades In WW1
Although grenades date back to the 1500's, the grenade was a huge factor in the World War in 1914. There are two ways to set off a grenade, a timer and percussion. When working off of a time you would hold the handle down and pull the pin, the pin has nothing to do with the explosion its just there to hold the handle in place. Then, after pulling the pin you would throw the grenade, once the handle comes off the timer is set. After, the handle is pulled it releases a spring which shoots down and makes a spark on the initiator, lighting a fuse, which then sets of the detonator.The heavy metal shell does the majority of the damage.When using percussion you shoot the thrown grenade causing an explosion. Most preferred the timer grenade.
|
|
Types of Grenades |
The Battle of Pozieres Heights The biggest grenade battle in all of the World War over 20,000 grenades were used on the allies side alone. On July 23, 1916 the Australians began the siege of the Pozieres village.The casualties were big and the siege lasted more than seven weeks. Eventually won by the Allies.
|
The number of types of grenades in World War One were vast. The first British grenade was very sketchy and unpopular but after improvements of the french the grenade known as the no'15 had a range of 400 meters and was very bad in wet weather. A grenade that stayed popular throughout all of the war was the no.5 better know as the mill bombs, created by William Mills approximately 70 million mill bombs were thrown by the allies to the 35 million other grenades thrown, That just shows how popular of a weapon this was.The Germans preferred to use grenades such as the stick grenade that would stick to targets if thrown accurately and the disk grenade which you would throw like a Frisbee and had a two second timer on it, gave the enemy no time to react.
|
|
The Impact of the Grenade
The Grenade was very useful in World War One, it made clearing and pushing men out of the trenches. The grenade was created at the beginning so the techniques with the grenade began at the beginning of the war. The ability to send explosives into the enemy trench was great because the only way to avoid it was up, which was being aimed at by the enemy. The grenade had the power to end a stalemate. The grenade impacted the war a lot.
|
The Consequences of the Grenade |
Although the grenade was very useful in World War One, there were definitely consequences of the grenade. First of all, the first British grenades were very untrustworthy and very dangerous, the timer could go bad and it more a dud or even ignite to soon or to late, which made the first grenades very unpopular. Also the grenade brought success to the war which also very much raised the casualties as well.The grenade was both useful and destructive in WW1.
|
Connections to Today
The HG 85 the second on the thumbnail has 155 grams of TNT though still only weighing 465 grams was perfect for clearing out a prepared enemy form fortifications produced in most European countries. The F1 third on your thumbnail has a explosive distance of 15 meters used by Australia. Finally, the M67 the first on your thumbnail has 6.5 ounces of explosives and is used in the U.S. military. Grenades have almost doubled all it's stats from then to now and is still in mass production.
|
|
Matt Zellner P. 3