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Not sure about the Mills however. Any help?

V40

V40

Well-Known Member
I have what is suppose to be a wooden Mine for a "Booby-Trap" device. I also have a Mills Bomb that needs to be ID too. The last but least is a USA "Firing Device Demo, Multiporpose".

Any information will be very helpful? Also if anybody is looking for the German Box Booby-trap or the M142 (147?) device let me know.
 
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Hi there,
You have some nice bits of kit there but i can only do the Mills gren which looks like a WW2 No 36. Cant say any more without more info. Are there any markings on the gren body and what info is there on the base plug? Plug should have a maker and a date stamped upon it.

Andy
 
The plug says: N036m mark F. There also seems to be a date on the oposite side and it looks like: 43 and there is what appears to be a very small circle with an S in it or maybe a 5.

The top appears to have been marked with red paint and the lower appears to have been marked with green paint on it. The inside wear the fuse is placed also says 1943 in it. Well wait a minute here. It looks like the red paint was marked on the grenade as red x's all the way around.

It feels like it was covered in shellac or something. Why did they do that for?
 
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A minor point is that Morum and Co went out of business just after WW1, and used M&Co/L as their manufacturer's mark when they were operating.

It's a Canadian No.36, and the paint scheme is very typical of Canadian markings. Instead of a green explosive-type band around the mid-line as on British painted 36s, it's around the segment band just below the mid-line. The red crosses denote a filled grenade. The S in a hexagon denotes Stokes Rubber Company, Ontario.
 
Snufkin said:
A minor point is that Morum and Co went out of business just after WW1, and used M&Co/L as their manufacturer's mark when they were operating.

It's a Canadian No.36, and the paint scheme is very typical of Canadian markings. Instead of a green explosive-type band around the mid-line as on British painted 36s, it's around the segment band just below the mid-line. The red crosses denote a filled grenade. The S in a hexagon denotes Stokes Rubber Company, Ontario.
Click to expand...

I didn't know that about M&Co, learn something every day I guess.
 
Thanks guys for helping me out there. British grenades are not my forte. Oh, one other thing, what does the "M" on the front mean?
 
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Booby Trap Switch

The green plastic booby switch is the Firing Device Demolition Combination F1A1 (in Australia and Canada). I am sure there is also a British and an American designation, but I don't know what they are. I have a Canadian instruction sheet somewhere. I will try to post a photo of it.

The device can be mounted with nails, screws or tripwire to a suitable anchor. The device can be set to function on pull, pressure, tension release, and pressure release.

When set for Pull or Pressure the pin with the Square Head Pin and the safety pin are removed. When set for Tension Release or Pressure Release the Round Head Pin and safety pin are removed.

When attaching a trip wire for Pull, the wire is attached to the large hole on the sear plate. For Tension Release the curved metal piece is attached to the sear plate and the trip wire is attached to the end of the long arm.

The F4 Coupling Device is threaded into the end. The F4 contains a M42 Percussion Primer, which the firing pin strikes when the device is functioned. In training a piece of Fuse Blasting Instantaneous can be inserted into the F4 Coupling Device to simulate the explosive charge. In operations a non-electric detonator can be inserted to initiate an actual explosive charge.
 
The US designation for the firing device is Firing Device Demo Multipurpose M142. It comes with a set of instructions in the can also.
 
The wooden box mine appears to be a Russian PMD-6 but the igniter is I believe an East German one. No great surprise there though. The mine was charged with a standard 200 gram block of explosive.
 
sgtlynn said:
The wooden box mine appears to be a Russian PMD-6 but the igniter is I believe an East German one. No great surprise there though. The mine was charged with a standard 200 gram block of explosive.
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the box is determined of eastern origin, fuze should be an original WWII-ZZ42 (have a look at the top of the striker pin for a manufacturing mark).
the German 200gr charge does not match with that wooden device; the Russians then used charges with other dimensions and weights (two charges with 70gr. each I suspect in this particular case).
 
The wooden "mine" looks a lot like a Schu mine 42 with a ZZ 42 igniter.

Just my thoughts.

Dean
 
V40 said:
Thanks guys for helping me out there. British grenades are not my forte. Oh, one other thing, what does the "M" on the front mean?
Click to expand...

With the introduction of the Mills 23 MkIII in 1917 all Mills grenades had to have the makers initials on the front of the grenade, the lever and the baseplug. The best collectable Mills 23 Mk III and Mills 36 always have all the above parts matching. The exceptions seem to be the Canadian and New Zealand Mills grenades where base plugs tend to be made by other makers. But knowing that you know what a good one looks like.

In this case I think it's Montreal Munitions.

John
 
John,, Thanks for that info. It really helped with what I was trying to interpret the marks on the actual Grenade.

By the way, being made in Cananda, does that give into somewhat scarce?


Mark
 
There are a lot of Canadian Mills bombs flying around. Most in very good condition, but fairly priced too. I would get them when you see them as am sure they will eventually get scarce,
Rob
 
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