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French Mills

Spgr30

Well-Known Member
Ordnance approved
Hello,
The French have obviously used Mills No. 5 grenades. Some were found in France painted blue (French HE). My questions are:

- Have they been produced following contracts with the French army, by English manufacturers?

- Did the 180,000 grenades mills produced by French firms for the Royal Engineers in 1915 (Millsman on January 20, 2017) served only to the British troops or also to the French troops?

Thank you for your help,
JM
 
I thought the Belgians made a mills which is quite sort after by collectors.
 
Hello,
The French have obviously used Mills No. 5 grenades. Some were found in France painted blue (French HE). My questions are:

- Have they been produced following contracts with the French army, by English manufacturers?

- Did the 180,000 grenades mills produced by French firms for the Royal Engineers in 1915 (Millsman on January 20, 2017) served only to the British troops or also to the French troops?

Thank you for your help,
JM


The French Government urgently requested Mills grenades in August 1916 - see attached memo - and the British Government supplied the French from surplus in store. It was not at the rate asked for of 700,000 per week, but it did reach a weekly total of 400,000 at the end of the year. Ultimately over 4.2 million Mills grenades (3.9 million No.5 and 300,000 No.23 MkII) had been supplied to the French by March 1917, but by then the crisis in French grenade production had long passed, and most of the 4.2 million were put in storage - and ultimately offered back to the British Government.

The 180,000 copies of Mills grenades made by French companies in 1915 were purely a local British Army requirement, due to the initial slow manufacture in the United Kingdom.



Tom.
 

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Hi,
Thank you very much for this very complete answer. by chance do you know what were the English manufacturers who produced for France.
thank you in advance
Best regards
JM
 
By mid-1916, all hand and rifle grenades when filled were sent to temporary storage depots, at either Newhaven or Bristol (Avonmouth), and then shipped to the various fronts as demanded. The Mills grenades sent to the French were supplied from these storage depots, which would have held grenades made by any of the 80 or so manufacturers making them at that time. No specific contracts were placed with particular manufacturers for the French demands.




Tom.
 
Ok, that clear, a great thanks for that!
One last question, if I do not abuse too much of your time:
If the Mills grenades delivered to France do not have particular markings (Other than british contractors) , then the Mills with a rear cap without an inscription with a brass crossbar are the famous Mills produced by the 4 French firms on behalf of the Royal Engineers? Is it exact?
Thank you so much! Sorry for my poor English....
 
Ok, that clear, a great thanks for that!
One last question, if I do not abuse too much of your time:
If the Mills grenades delivered to France do not have particular markings (Other than british contractors) , then the Mills with a rear cap without an inscription with a brass crossbar are the famous Mills produced by the 4 French firms on behalf of the Royal Engineers? Is it exact?
Thank you so much! Sorry for my poor English....


Occasionally base plugs of British-made Mills grenades occur without any markings. It is uncommon, but not unknown.

The attached image shows five genuine 1915 French-made copies of Mills grenades with two designs of base plugs - the one you describe (made from cast brass), and a solid brass one (made from machined brass bar). There may well be other variants that I have not seen. The cast iron body casings of the French-made Mills grenades seem to be of a unique pattern, and are very easily identified from British made Mills grenades.

Your English is far better than my French... any other questions, I'll try to answer as best I can.






Tom.
 

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Really very interesting! Is it possible that these original copies of mills manufactured by the French were distributed to the French troops? Because I have recently been able to observe such a grenade painted in blue, which is the painting for the French HE grenade.
JM
 
Is it possible that these original copies of mills manufactured by the French were distributed to the French troops?

It is possible that some were trialled by the French Army.

The order placed directly by the British Army with a Monsieur Charles Vandersluys, a Dunkerque copper boilermaker, was for grenades solely for the British Army. However, while the shortage of Mills grenades was acute in mid-1915, one possibility is that the British Army passed some of the French-made Mills grenades to colleagues in the French Army for their evaluation.

French production was terminated after 180,000 grenades had been made, when Vandersluys and the companies he had sub-contracted were threatened with legal action by the representatives of the Compagnie Belge des Munitions Militaires (CBMM), claiming patent infringement of the Roland grenade (invented by the Belgian soldier, Captain Leon Roland).

CBMM, which effectively owned the design of the Roland grenade, had failed in its efforts to get the French Army to adopt it, probably for the same reasons that the British authorities had not adopted it: it was too dangerous and unreliable.

William Mills had taken the Roland design and developed it into something less dangerous and unreliable, which became the Mills grenade. Another possibility is that CBMM handed over some of the confiscated Mills copies from the French firms to the French Army for trials - if the French Army had adopted the Mills copies, French law would have allowed CBMM to manufacture and sell them as a modified Roland grenade.

Somewhere there may be documented evidence for these possible events, but without the evidence the explanations of Mills grenades in French Service markings remain purely speculative.

Is it possible to get a few photographs of the blue Mills? That would be very helpful.




Tom.
 
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Hi,
Here is finally the grenade Mills with a remainder of blue color in periphery. Center cast, a striker and a particular plug base, I assume it could be a French build. What do you think of this mills?
Thank you for your reply.
JM
mills french 2.jpgmills french 1.jpg
 
Looks good to me. The striker and base plug are certainly right. Is the centre piece brass? The French Mills has a certain clunky heavy casting (Tom has some good examples) so it all adds up. The French Mills certainly shared some features with the Roland, such as the pointed striker and the brass anvil, so the Belgians had a point and of course the Mills patent was at that time for the UK only I think. It later spread to other countries.
 
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Hi,
Here is finally the grenade Mills with a remainder of blue color in periphery. Center cast, a striker and a particular plug base, I assume it could be a French build. What do you think of this mills?
Thank you for your reply.
JM

Thanks for getting the picture. That is definitely a French-made copy of the Mills.

The French body style is unique. A British-made early transverse casting (where the casing is cast as top and bottom halves) has been used to make a pattern for the mould, BUT the actual grenades are cast longitudinally (two vertical halves along a vertical centre line, like a chocolate Easter egg). In order for the patterns to be removed from the sand mould without pulling the mould apart, the vertical groove where the two halves meet has been sacrificed, and two columns of the serrations merged.

The image below shows the different styles: left, a British-made early transverse casting; middle, a French-made Mills, where the merged serrations are evident down the vertical casting line; right, a common British-made longitudinal casting.




Tom.
 

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First of all, a big thank you for your particularly pointed explanations that show me how Mills always remains an enigma! And to answer to millsman, yes, the center piece is in brass.
Merci à vous deux, sympa!
JM
French mills 3.jpg
 
How can we call this grenade, French No 5 ?

The prime contractor, Monsieur Vandersluys, had his works in Dunkerque and for this reason the grenade has been called the Dunkerque (English spelling Dunkirk) Mills.

There is some period documented evidence for this, as the attached Guards Division order shows.





Tom.
 

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The prime contractor, Monsieur Vandersluys, had his works in Dunkerque and for this reason the grenade has been called the Dunkerque (English spelling Dunkirk) Mills.

There is some period documented evidence for this, as the attached Guards Division order shows.

Tom.

So that's where your four came from! Actually I'm surprised they were around so late. 180,000 does not go far in the great scheme of things.
 
First of all, a big thank you for your particularly pointed explanations that show me how Mills always remains an enigma! And to answer to millsman, yes, the center piece is in brass.
Merci à vous deux, sympa!
JM
View attachment 136412

I think it's fair to say that there is still more to discover about the Mills.

If you take the centrepiece out you will find a minor masterpiece. The couple I have seen have been beautifully made.

John
 
Update on this thread.

At the Detling Odyssy I was able to buy a Dunkirk Mills body with centrepiece. I've been able to add the other bits but will confess that the small ring is a from Dug Up!

DSCN8886.jpgDSCN8882.jpgDSCN8883.jpg


Markings on the body indicate it may be one from the main contractor M Vandersluys and is one of the best I've seen.

I must thank Dave Sampson (Millsbomber) for his generosity. I showed him the body at the Odyssey and the next day he gave me the correct Dunkirk striker. Super generous. I'll pass a base plug to him when I find one he's not got. Thanks again Dave.

John
 
Just to throw more confusion in this subject I have a dug up base plug with a rod in from the Somme battle field
 
Many were used for training but there is no reason why they should not have been used with a rod in combat. The order to destroy the existing stocks came in December 1916, so use as rifle grenades is quite possible.

I don't know if Tom has any data on the numbers used or destroyed?

John
 
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