Very early british hand-grenades

[Bellifortis]

Hallo,
while reading a 1905 german technical magazine I found an article about the history of hand grenades. The author there stated, that against the common belief that the Japs at Port Arthur were the first to introduce the hand-grenade into modern(HE) warfare, it were the british in the 1880s in the Sudan that used Terracotta or Bledgewood grenades, segmented inside and filled with a small charge of guncotton. For night use the grenades were additionally filled with 3 Magnesium stars. These grenades were ignited with a friction tube and had an adjustable timing. Their weight was 4-6 ounces. I checked the nice thesis "Muse of Fire" and Bonnex'es publications and photos, but nowhere could I find a picture or even mentioning of these hand-grenades. Can anyone shed any light on this seemingly forgotten historical technical aspect.
Greetings,
Bellifortis.

 

[Bonnex]

What an interesting article. I have researched British grenades for a very long time and this is the first I have heard of these particular Terracotta grenades being used by the British. There is always something new to learn.

I think it fair to say that the Russo-Japanese War did see the renaissance of the grenade and the British certainly took the ideas of the combatants to start work on what became the No 1 grenade in British Service. Just before the outbreak of the R-J War the British had seen fit to eliminate the grenade from the Army's inventory, this was the same grenade that saw service in the Sudan, Grenade Hand Land Service, which was a spherical cast iron grenade with a wooden time fuze (No 34).

The use of gun-cotton is also very interesting.

 

[Bellifortis]

Hi N.,
there was another small article I found inetersting and also took notes on. This (Russo/Jap war) was the time when it was tried to combine the Shrapnell with the HE effect in one type of shell (Einheitsgeschoss in german). In one construction the black powder shot-charge was contained in the base of the projectile which was a seperate part and was screwed or otherwise fastened to the body of the shell.
Hand Grenades At Port Arthur:
These were nothing else than guncotton charges to which an ignitable fuse had been assembled inside a proper container which weighed 3 russian pounds altogether. As a container japanese shrapnellshellbottoms were used, which were fixed with a wooden lid out of which protruded a Gutta-Percha timefuse with a detonator crimped to the other end inside. The charge were 2 "Cavallerie blasting slabs"?, the timefuse had a length of 10-12cm with a burning rate of 3/4 inch (18mm)/Sec. Thus the charge detonated after 3-5 sec. flying time before it could be thrown back.
I also have never seen even a photo of the above described grenades.
regards,
Bellifortis.

 

[Gspragge]

Bledgewood sounds a lot like Wedgwood a fine maker of better English ceramics. Such a grenade would have to be
factory made. Maybe they have records of such a contract ? Other wise a trip to the area to find fragments would
perhaps be the only way to verify this if not in period accounts.

 

[Bellifortis]

Thats a very good idea. First I thought that "Bledgewood" is some to me unknown english wood. But, wood makes no sense. This would be just a large firecracker. Ceramik is another thing. As glass and also ceramic handgrenades were quite common even in the 18th century, but filled with black powder. I do not know the det.velocity of 1880 style guncotton when set off with 2gr of MF but would expect a much too strong shattering effect, so that a segmentation inside would be of little effect. The short article about the GB-grenades in Sudan appeared in the 1905 edition of the "Zeitschrift fuer das gesamte Schiess-und Sprengstoffwesen" The author was W.Stavenhagen, apparently an Austrian, probably military person. He also noted that a more extended article with the title "Handgranaten" was published by him in Nr.2 of "Danzers Armee-Zeitung"(Wien) of 12.January 1903
I could not find this article in the mentioned army newspaper, which is online researchable. I only found a Nr.2 dated 8th January 1903. If anybody here should find this article, which is written in german, I'm glad to translate it for everybodys use.
Regards,
Bellifortis.

 

[Grenadier]

Here it is. 1905.

 

[Bonnex]

Hi N.,
there was another small article I found inetersting and also took notes on. This (Russo/Jap war) was the time when it was tried to combine the Shrapnell with the HE effect in one type of shell (Einheitsgeschoss in german). In one construction the black powder shot-charge was contained in the base of the projectile which was a seperate part and was screwed or otherwise fastened to the body of the shell.
Hand Grenades At Port Arthur:
These were nothing else than guncotton charges to which an ignitable fuse had been assembled inside a proper container which weighed 3 russian pounds altogether. As a container japanese shrapnellshellbottoms were used, which were fixed with a wooden lid out of which protruded a Gutta-Percha timefuse with a detonator crimped to the other end inside. The charge were 2 "Cavallerie blasting slabs"?, the timefuse had a length of 10-12cm with a burning rate of 3/4 inch (18mm)/Sec. Thus the charge detonated after 3-5 sec. flying time before it could be thrown back.
I also have never seen even a photo of the above described grenades.
regards,
Bellifortis.

Thank you for the posting and apologies for the delayed response but I had some difficulty in locating the attached reports from British officers attached to the Japanese Forces during the R-J War. I hope you find the content interesting.

View attachment Photos from ReportsRJW2.pdfView attachment ReportsRJW1.pdfView attachment ReportsRJW3.pdfView attachment ReportsRJW2.pdf

 

[Ivashkin]

Thank you for the posting and apologies for the delayed response but I had some difficulty in locating the attached reports from British officers attached to the Japanese Forces during the R-J War. I hope you find the content interesting.

View attachment 108815View attachment 108814View attachment 108813View attachment 108816

Interesting articles. Thanks!
One grenade well-known, but another - home-made in Port-Artur. I have some information from description of R-J war, but without pictures.
For charge was useing standart pyroxiline in blocks, and used rok-a-rok (from USA).

 

[Bellifortis]

Thank you all for your most instructive answers. Regarding the ancestors of modern handgrenades I found a very nice work about glass-handgrenades (http://www.waldglasmuseum.de/Vortrag-dunkle-seiten.pdf ) in the net. It's in german language, but you can glean a lots of info from it even if you don't understand the language. The british Sudan 1880 models and those from Port Arthur are the connecting link between the 17th century glas- and modern handgrenades. So, the next time you find some old strange glass bottle, don't throw it in the garbage, it might be a rare handgrenade.
Greetings,
Bellifortis.

 

[SG500]

Thank you for the posting and apologies for the delayed response but I had some difficulty in locating the attached reports from British officers attached to the Japanese Forces during the R-J War. I hope you find the content interesting.

View attachment 108815View attachment 108814View attachment 108813View attachment 108816

Thanks Norman.
Are there any specimens out there that have survived? These photographs seem to be the only ones I can find that show these very early Japanese grenades.
Dave.

 

[Millsman]

Here's another one.

John

 

[SG500]

View attachment 164951

Here's another one.

John

Thanks John, does anyone out there know of any specimens in collections, or even photographs of ones in museums? I've only ever seen the photos shown in this thread of this particular grenade.

 

[Millsman]

I suspect you might have to go to Japan or Russia to see one? Only other place might be Austria who I think sent also observers to the war.

 

[Eggburt1969]

I've got a Russian 1913 manual that seems to be the stick grenade version shown in the British documentation. A diagram from the manual below.



This is referred to as the 'Lishin Hand Grenade'.



If you search for 'Ручная граната Лишина' you'll get more images and data.

For note the title of the 1913 Russian manual is 'Описание ручной гранаты системы капитана Лишина', so roughly in English 'Description of the hand grenade system of Captain Lishin'.

 

[Snufkin]

This is referred to as the 'Lishin Hand Grenade'.

The Lishin has cropped up a few times on the forum, e.g: http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threads/94447-Russian-1904-Pattern-Grenade?highlight=lishin

does anyone out there know of any specimens in collections, or even photographs of ones in museums?

I recollect the Yushukan war memorial at the Yasukuni Jinja, Tokyo, had a stick grenade from the Russo-Japanese War, but photography was strictly forbidden in the exhibition rooms when I visited many years ago. There were no labels of such exhibits in anything but Japanese, so I cannot even say whether the grenade was Japanese or a captured Russian example.

 

[Bonnex]

This is the earliest drawing I could find of the design that led to the Grenade, Hand, Mark I.