B
Bannerman
Guest
As an army-barmy schoolboy in 1970, I attended the annual Army Display at Aldershot Garrison. I took great interest in the grenades on display in the infantry weapons section. There was an L2, next to it an example of it's notched fragmentation coil and next to this a No36M Mk1. It was stated on the information board that the L2 was now in full service with all combat units, but that the No36 continued to be manufactured for issue to engineers/assault pioneer units as a supplement to their demolition kits, the grenade "being particularly useful for clearing thick vegetation".
I have looked at contemporaneous Field Engineering manuals which do indeed confirm the use of various munitions in demolition work, with diagrams of projectiles and det cord used to bring down trees to form obstacles for example. However, I could find no mention of the No36 being so employed. Do any members have any information, anecdotal or otherwise, regarding the use of the No36 in this way by engineers?
More questions; in Rick Landers' "Grenade", I picked up where it states ".....last production of empty grenades in November 1972". Am I right to interpret from this that the last batch were never filled and that examples of these are currently doing the rounds with white tape over the filler holes and sealed in poly-bags? It is said that these were stockpiled in the Emergency War Reserve. Did the entire batch end up here or did some go elsewhere, maybe for export?
Finally, I heard from a couple of sources that there was some further production of No36's in British ROF's in 1973 to fulfil an order from Pakistan. For a while I had in my collection what was supposed to be an example of one of these, base plug marked 1973 ROF (C). The C is for ROF Chorley. The base plug was seen by a much more experienced collector and immediately dismissed as a fake. I find it hard to believe the Pakistanis would be buying grenades from Britain seeing as they had their own production facilities which continued to make No36 grenades into the 1980's but if anyone has any information or views which might clarify this, I'd be very interested.
Bruno
I have looked at contemporaneous Field Engineering manuals which do indeed confirm the use of various munitions in demolition work, with diagrams of projectiles and det cord used to bring down trees to form obstacles for example. However, I could find no mention of the No36 being so employed. Do any members have any information, anecdotal or otherwise, regarding the use of the No36 in this way by engineers?
More questions; in Rick Landers' "Grenade", I picked up where it states ".....last production of empty grenades in November 1972". Am I right to interpret from this that the last batch were never filled and that examples of these are currently doing the rounds with white tape over the filler holes and sealed in poly-bags? It is said that these were stockpiled in the Emergency War Reserve. Did the entire batch end up here or did some go elsewhere, maybe for export?
Finally, I heard from a couple of sources that there was some further production of No36's in British ROF's in 1973 to fulfil an order from Pakistan. For a while I had in my collection what was supposed to be an example of one of these, base plug marked 1973 ROF (C). The C is for ROF Chorley. The base plug was seen by a much more experienced collector and immediately dismissed as a fake. I find it hard to believe the Pakistanis would be buying grenades from Britain seeing as they had their own production facilities which continued to make No36 grenades into the 1980's but if anyone has any information or views which might clarify this, I'd be very interested.
Bruno
