Low Order Mills

[EnfieldMills]

I have been lucky to come across these two Mills. Both of which were low order detonation.
How common was this during WW1?



Luke

 

[gothica7]

Hi bud, initially in 1915 there were issues, some of them tragic with detonation taking place as soon as the gren was let go killing the thrower and or injuring those around him. This was mainly due so I believe by the difficulty in the making of the detonator and the initial spark tracking past the bickford fuze causing it to premature. This was because there wasnt enough airspace inside the gren body to absorb the combustion gases produced when set off. The slot in later strikers from 1916 helped to stop this. One of the reasons the base plugs were dated and had a makers mark was to track blinds and prematures if possible back to the batch and trace any possible production issues. I have recently come across some picture of a square shaped Mills fuze which would have helped.However Ime sure this information is available somewhere on this forum so someone may be able to point you in the right direction.


Andy.

 

[Millsman]

It's quite possible that in both cases the detonators exploded but the main charge did not. Mills himself did experiments on the 30th January 1915 exploding detonators in unfilled grenades. In most cases the grenades broke into a small number of parts - 8 to 15 normally - not the hundreds of pieces of a full detonation. So these large parts of bodies could be the result of the main charge not going off.

The shape of the remaining bodies look remarkably similar indicating that the same thing happened to both grenades.

I doubt if it was very common in the field.

Lovely 7/15 base plug!

 

[Millsman]

I should add that neither grenade has come from a battlefield. The condition of the aluminium base plug and of both bodies suggests these were picked up from a range or possible from a factory testing ground during routine sampling of batches, very soon after they exploded.

 

[millsbomber]

Do the base plugs unscrew as the det anvil could still be present......Dave

 

[EnfieldMills]

Do the base plugs unscrew as the det anvil could still be present......Dave

Hi Dave, yes the bases unscrew and the anvils are still present. Luke

 

[millsbomber]

if you ever get time could we see the anvils in place just to see which ones was in there,,,,,,

Dave

 

[EnfieldMills]

if you ever get time could we see the anvils in place just to see which ones was in there,,,,,,

Dave

This is a picture of the 1916 Mills. I will have to take a picture of the 1915 at some point. Luke