Is this a scarce Mills base plug ?

[roller63]

Is this a scarce base plug ?

 

[Snufkin]

Hawkins had been engaged by the War Office with an order for 250,000 No.5 at the end of June 1915. The initial rate of output was set at 4,000 a week, rising to 10,000 weekly, and allowing for tooling up they may have hit this figure by September. It is reasonable to think that around 40,000 or so might have had a September 1915 date stamp, and given the urgent need for them at Loos and after, probably not too many remain. So to answer the question, existing examples are probably not that common.



Tom.

 

[Millsman]

Is this a scarce base plug ?

Great find. I'd class it as rare.

John

 

[Millsman]

"Hawkins had been engaged by the War Office with an order for 250,000 No.5 at the end of June 1915. The initial rate of output was set at 4,000 a week, rising to 10,000 weekly, and allowing for tooling up they may have hit this figure by September. It is reasonable to think that around 40,000 or so might have had a September 1915 date stamp, and given the urgent need for them at Loos and after, probably not too many remain. So to answer the question, existing examples are probably not that common."

Tom

I think you are right about the numbers and may actually be optimistic. I read somewhere the Guards only had 3,500 Mills at Loos and they were the only people using them operationally at that time.

Looking at existing base plugs there are very few from June and July existing. A few manufacturers seem to come on line in August and more in September. When you consider that none of these makers had made grenades before, the casting was difficult with a high rejection rate. This was a difficult contract to fulfill. A number of contracts were placed in June but I don't think many of these makers were fully on line by August. What I would say is that if they started off making aluminium base plugs few will have survived the battlefield, so physical evidence is now scarce. Some makers like TA & S went straight to brass so have survived from 8/15 probably their first batch.

Numbers are a grey area at this time as much production would have been sent to training with this new wonder grenade.

John

 

[Snufkin]

John,

There were a few more Mills grenades available for the Loos battle than 3,500, and they were used by units other than the Guards Division - as witnessed by the comments in quite a few of the War Diaries of participating units.

While some companies engaged to produce Mills grenades did indeed struggle to produce good castings (Vickery's Patents Ltd one notable example), some of the companies were very skilled at iron casting and would have ramped up production quickly. Towards the end of 1915 too many Mills grenades were being produced, compared to what were required and could be stored, and numbers manufactured were reduced in early 1916.

Regarding aluminium base plugs, as you say few will have survived the battlefield compared to brass examples. If not actually used in training or action, many were simply lost in operations. Aluminium attached to iron corrodes in preference to the iron, so after a hundred years buried in the ground, retrieved aluminium base plugs still screwed into grenade bodies will most often be in a poor condition. Again as you say, that makes for physical evidence being scarce.



Tom.

 

[Millsman]

Tom

What I find interesting is that although there were quite a few June 1915 contracts placed the existing base plugs, most likely 'souvenired' date from mainly August and September 1915. To me that implies a lead time of 2-3 months between contract and first delivery. This seems entirely reasonable but I do know of the existence of the document that shows earlier deliveries, but I think these were expected dates rather than actuals as no base plugs are around to support those dates.

The exception seems to be Westinghouse Brake which seemingly was producing grenades the next month.

John