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Roland Grenade

siegfreid

HONOURED MEMBER RIP
Premium Member
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Continuing my threads showing scarce grenades in a disassembled state , here's one of the Rolands . Please feel free to use these pics for your own archives . Mike .
 
Fabulous Mike, many thanks for showing it.

I was looking at the Connecting Histories webpage the other day which shows a cutaway Roland held by the Birmingham Museum of Technology (No doubt ex Mills Munitions)

http://www.search.connectinghistori...nID=2129&PageIndex=3&SearchType=2&ThemeID=363

If you look at the internal structure the space for explosives was very small plus the fact that the striker travel was short probably means it was prone to misfire and didn't make much of a bang anyway. William Mills basically enlarged the internal space, extended the striker travel, improved the lever fixture and the rest is history.

Without a doubt the Roland is a true landmark in the history of the grenade. A small but not quite perfect piece of design.
 
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Mills / Roland Stripped down and compared with No5 Mills parts.

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