Unknown Mills-form Percussion Grenade

[Snufkin]

The attached images show a British, WWI-era, experimental percussion grenade, currently of unidentified origin. Given the lack of any documents, the design of fuze and form of casing hint at a 1917-18 experimentation timeframe.

The grenade is a percussion rifle grenade demonstrator using the principle of conical-faced needle and detonator pellets moving within a coned housing. A number of projectile and grenade percussion fuzes from various inventors used this approach; for example Frederick Vickery had several related patents granted, such as GB130091A and GB131374A - the latter effectively describing the No.147 Allways fuze for the Stokes mortar bomb. However, there is no evidence to suggest that this grenade is from the Vickery stable.

Based on the form of a Mills No.5 type body, the grenade has some very obvious differences. Other than the fuze housing, the safety pin lugs are far more prominent and protrude further out than on the No.5; there is no filler hole; and the base of the casting has a substantial protrusion to hold the very different pattern of lever.

To use, the grenade is fired from a discharger cup. Referring to the labelled image of components, on leaving the cup the compression spring (c) is released and extracts the safety fork (b) from the upper conical housing (a). This pushes away the lever (k) and frees the combined needle and detonator pellet. The two halves of the combined pellet are held apart by a creep spring (h), but on impact in any orientation the needle pellet (f) and percussion cap pellet (g) close, and the cap in the base of (g) fires. The flash is transferred via a single fire hole to the detonator held in a central sleeve within the body.

The base plug (j) that has accompanied this grenade is a standard brass Mills No.23 MkI plug. There is no centre piece and no obvious way of filling the body with explosive, but then the example seems to be more of a concept demonstrator for the type of fuze than a complete grenade design.




Tom.

 

[Millsman]

Wasn't this previously identified as an Australian Scurry? Is that in doubt now?

 

[Snufkin]

Wasn't this previously identified as an Australian Scurry? Is that in doubt now?

It is not a Scurry. I am not aware that it has been identified as such.

The Scurry was a paper design, or more accurately, suggestion - relevant file is AWM25 115/28, held at the Australian War Memorial, but otherwise described in some detail in Landers' book "Grenade: British and Commonwealth Hand and Rifle Grenades" . Other than a superficial external appearance, the above unknown is a totally different grenade to the Scurry.

 

[Millsman]

Mike Saffery always thought it was a later version of Scurry's original design. Maybe an MID experimental.

 

[Snufkin]

Mike Saffery always thought it was a later version of Scurry's original design. Maybe an MID experimental.

Images attached from Scurry's proposal (courtesy AWM). His suggestion was to convert a standard Mills grenade casting, cut down and machined to make a percussion grenade. The unknown has a different casting and very different mechanism; it is more of a concept demonstrator of the fuze than a viable grenade, and could have come from any number of inventors - civil, military or Ministry.

 

[Millsman]

The point worth making Tom is that these prototypes evolved. If you look at your Carruthers the grenade you have it is nothing like the original Carruthers patent. It evolved probably because of suggestions from the MID.

The 'superficial external appearance' you mentioned earlier, of this grenade to the AWM drawings is I think a legacy from the original design you show in post #5. The small peaked cap is very distinctive and I doubt if the inventor wanted to change it. The lever on the original sketch was rather too small for operational use and I believe evolved under some influence from the authorities.

Perhaps we will never know, but in the absence of a patent, a technical description, I'll go with the similar external appearance to the Scurry (for now).

 

[Snufkin]

John, I presented the grenade in the opening post as an unknown percussion because that is what it is. There is no evidence currently - of which I am aware - that links it to any designer or inventor, and absolutely no evidence that links it to Captain Scurry's January 1918 proposal. Apart from the pointy cap, the two grenades are quite different, but if some positive and objective identification emerges out of this thread, that would be a good result.

Documentary evidence (see Fourth Army memorandum paragraph presented below), dated November 1916 and a full eight months before Captain Scurry joined the ANZAC Bombing School as an instructor, mentions that conversion of Mills grenades to percussion was under experiment. The commonality of shape of top housing of the grenades is a function of the use of coned surfaces, and removing the safety caps of other grenades reveals similar, as for example the No.54 grenade and a number of experimentals (Bellamy, Vickery, etc). One might argue that far from Scurry being the first with his pointy cap, he may have taken that leaf from someone else's book; the use of a ball within coned surfaces would have become evident to him from such TW fuzes as the troublesome No.146 of the Stokes 3-inch bomb.

Clearly you wish, for whatever reason, the grenade to have had its origins with Captain Scurry, so if it makes you happy, call it a Scurry. I'll just be wary about posting any more threads on obscure grenades...

 

[SG500]

J I'll just be wary about posting any more threads on obscure grenades...

Keep posting them please, they're fascinating

Dave.

 

[Millsman]

Clearly you wish, for whatever reason, the grenade to have had its origins with Captain Scurry, so if it makes you happy, call it a Scurry. I'll just be wary about posting any more threads on obscure grenades...

I greatly respect your opinion Tom and I do hope you can post similar threads.

The key point I want to make on the forum is that with these experimental grenades is that not everything is documented, some designs are not patented and a few things have unknown inventors. It would be great if someone in say Australia, came on and said; 'Yes, that's a Scurry', but the world won't stop if it isn't and hopefully the debate can go on. For example your thread on the Carruthers showed that a) your grenade was different to Carruther's Patent design b) it was influenced by the VB and the MIDs work on their own bullet through design and c) Bonnex has seen yet another Carruthers design which was not documented but was clearly linked to work by the MID. Both designs are completely different to the one documented.

So to some extent, in the absence of a piece of paper (yet to be discovered) then people are entitled to attribute an object to a designer. After all this has happened in the world of ART for many many years, so why not militaria?

 

[Snufkin]

... people are entitled to attribute an object to a designer. After all this has happened in the world of ART for many many years, so why not militaria?

No. The militaria we discuss is not art. Art is by its nature subjective. Ordnance is the product of scientists and engineers, and the history of it at the least deserves, if not demands, objective rigour and attention to detail. Admission that certain things are unknown does have its place in presenting that history; making subjective associations on the basis of what one thinks or doubts or believes do not. The accuracy of what is written, be it on a forum or in a book, is paramount if erroneous and unsupported statements are not to be simply promulgated and presented as fact to present and future audiences.

Enough said.