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Hale's Grenade ideas

B

Bellifortis

Well-Known Member
Please have a look at the attached drawing, from a german mil.magazine of 1904, depicting a japanese grenade design of 1904. In the article it is said, that this design had construction details from lessons learned at Port Arthur. It was especially mentioned, that this design was not used in the fighting at Port Arthur, but appeared just after. The "belt" was made from lead to make the grenade weight forward heavy. it had a friction igniter that was pulled by the head-covering-lid upon impact. The handle had a stabilising streamer attached, that was rolled onto a small metallic spool. @bonnex, some time ago you showed fotos of japanese grenades from a report "RJW2". These look similar. Also attached are 2 patents, one british by HALE accepted 21st Febr.1907, the other german patented from 14.Febr.1907, both for the same handgrenade. But, in the german patent there is no mention of Mr. Hale. It is patented for a german company from Hamburg. What do you make of this ?Japanische Handgranate 1904.jpgView attachment DE202485-zylindr.HG mit AZ_1907.pdfView attachment GB190614605-Hale Handgranate 1906.pdf
Regards,
Bellifortis.
 
The reports of British Officers attached to the belligerents in the Russo Japanese War are available on the Internet Archive. Volume 2 is at:


https://ia800500.us.archive.org/0/items/russojapanesewar02lond/russojapanesewar02lond.pdf

I am not familiar with the German system of patenting but as you can see from the preliminary information on the British patent Hale applied for the patent a considerable time before the grant. The application could have been fairly thin on data, or it could have been a complete document. I hesitate to suggest that either Richter or Hale made use of the other's work, perhaps they had a working relationship not reflected in the patents.
 
I found this on the web, from the Fujita Weapons Institute. http://www.horae.dti.ne.jp/~fuwe1a/newpage72.html (Google doesn’t translate this properly)

The Japanese used around 4,500 emergency grenades of various patterns in the Russo-Japanese war.

The first formal grenade of the Japanese Army was the Meiji 40 year type adopted on 12 March 1907. It appears that it was thrown underhand.


 

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The Japanese can be credited with re-awakening the European interest in the grenade. European observers brought back examples of the Japanese grenades and the first copy was probably the British No 1 grenade with the long handle.

Hale probably based the No 2 on the No 1 but made it cheaper and less prone to accident. Hale patented his products widely and I've seen his Patents in the German, French, USA and Austrian versions as well as the British.

I'd say that the Japanese design is very similar to the Hale No 2 but you cannot clearly see the inside of the Japanese design to compare.

I'm doing some research in this area at the moment and all sort of oddities are appearing, such as this Norwegian design for a rifle grenade with wind vane from 1911, sumbitted before Hale patented his No 3 and No 4 designs.


DSCN8331.jpg

It looks like a time period when all sort of similar and overlapping designs were being submitted for Patent acceptance across Europe. It would not surprise me if others come out of the woodwork.

John
 
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Found another Japanese snippet that says in March 1905 the Tokyo Artillery Arsenal (東京砲兵工廠) was instructed to manufacture 8,500 grenades. These were known as “pot type hand grenade” in the notation. ([FONT=&amp]壺型手榴弾[/FONT])
 
Aasen grenades

Millsman said:
Many thanks, that's great. What a beautiful piece of brass.

Did this grenade go into production?

John
Click to expand...
Yes, besides a few other models which Mr. Aasen invented, it went into production on a quite large scale. The inventor opened up a factory in Denmark and sold his grenades to nearly all the belligerents in the 1.world War. Besides a few hand-and rifle-grenades , he invented the "Silent Soldier"-mine.
Regards,
Bellifortis.
 
Thanks.

I assume the numbers were quite small compared to the 10 million Hale's type grenades used in the Great War. I didn't see one, even in a military museum in Norway.

John
 
You are right with that. The nice brass grenade shown only Denmark took on officially. Other countries like Germany, italy, England and others, just bought a few for testing and if their own production fell short of their needs. Italy had Aasen grenades introduced officially. Somewhere on the net there are production numbers of Aaasen's factories published and they are quite huge. But, compared with the overall production of all belligerents, it is small.
Regards,
Bellifortis.
 
As early as January 1914 the Defenseur Company, Copenhagen submitted, through their UK agent (MacKnight), a pamphlet and drawings of Aasen pattern grenades offering trials at the company's expense.

Trials were approved in March 1914 but the Director of Artillery postponed the trials on 9th September 1914 (presumably because his attention was diverted).

As far as I have been able to ascertain the UK only acquired for trials the Excelsior 'B' grenade and its 'cannon'. 100 inert grenades and one cannon were ordered on the 20th March 1915 through WA MacKnight. The grenades cost 7 shillings each and the cannon 14 pounds (Contract Paper No 75/3/2526.
 
Thanks Norman, great detail.

It would seem strange that they would consider testing this grenade apart from the cost aspect. At about 25% of the cost of a No 3, and 50% of the cost of a No 2 it was good value. Perhaps it was the need for a 'cannon' rather like a Grenatenwerfer that put them off. As you say in September 1914 there were plenty of other distractions.

John
 
Hi John,
I think, that these purchasing decisions were and still today are, political. England and Germany also, did not buy any foreign patented munitions, but only introduced into service those, that were invented and could be produced incountry. I think that also purchasing anything from a private foreign factory, you have to pay cash straight away. Producing at home you don't need to do that. Buying munitions in wartime often are not buisinessman but political decisions.
Greetings,
Bellifortis.
 
Politics may be one factor but there are many others. It is possible to build under license with a royalty being paid to the inventor. Also many good grenades were rejected after extensive testing such as the No 30 and the Daniels & Gardiner Allways grenades which were both tested in their thousands.

Also the Germans were not afraid to steal ideas. The M1913 was based entirely upon Hale's patent designs.

Here's a photo that may be of interest. Left to Right - 1) Standard M1913 2) Cutaway M1913. 3) Pre production M1913 prototype (mock up) in a UK collection.

M1913_various.jpg

John
 
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