Inert and Empty L47A1 Green Smoke Grenade

[roller63]

Another recent purchase, right up my street ! An Inert and Empty (see pics) British Army Smoke Grenade Green Smoke L47A1 dated 1985. Would I be right in thinking that these weren't in use for that long as they do not seem to appear in the Training Manuals ? Mint condition and to me, a nice addition to the collection.

 

[Bonnex]

Nicely caught. The Grenades, Hand, Signal Smoke, L46-L49 were in service from 1981 to 1992. They were a Royal Ordnance (RO) Commercial Design competing with Pains Wessex L35-L38 signal grenades which were in service from about 1976 to 1992. Another commercial competitor was from Brocks (L52 - L55) which carried a greater payload and had a fly-up striker mechanism (like the No 83 grenade) which seems to have been preferred by users. RO tried to improve the utility of their L40 series coloured smoke grenades by adding a fly-up striker mechanism (advancing the model number to L46A2 etc). The Brocks signal grenades were acquired in larger numbers than those from Pains and RO.