British Ordnance Collectors Network
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Unknown WW1 practice stick grenade
- Thread starter engineer
- Start date
oh:
I'll stick my neck out. It looks like the "fused stick grenade type 1916" as pictured in Delhommes "German Grenades of the Great War". A transitional head between the earlier large can type sticks and the 1917 stick. The belt hook looks odd. Instructional grenades were either simple grenade shaped and weighted objects for throwing practice or more elaborate and durable grenade looking objects with heavy metal heads with venting holes to let out the smoke from the practice fuze. Yours looks more like an ex-live grenade that a well intentioned(?) soul has painted red. In Delhommes book the 1916 fuzed stick with the skinny head and crimping on the top and bottom (like yours) used tolite instead of less powerful ammonium nitrate explosive and therefore needed less and so the extra space in the grenade head was filled with a wooden plug. Your grenade head is completely filled with wood? Maybe the red paint hides where the can had been opened up, wood inserted and then resealed? It is a very respectable looking grenade you have whatever it turns out to be.
engineer
Well-Known Member
Thanks for your help, FNG61. You're right: it seems to be the training version of the stickgrenade type 1916 pictured in Delhommes book. I am not sure if the red paint is the original colour or the result of a later done paint-job, but the can was definitely not opened to insert the wooden plug and than resealed again. And yes: the the head is completely filled with wood.
The can with the original wood is very interesting. It is a new one to me but nothing is impossible. The paint looks recent from here but you would be the better judge. And if the handle is dug then it is even less likely that the can paint is original. On alot the later type practice sticks (1916, 1917) in addition to the heavy gauge steel heads, the star end cap and it's collar are made of steel, as opposed to the zinc of the HE live grenades, so that they stand up better to repeated use on the training field. Most of the end caps and often the collars found on the practice grenades today are replaced with dug up zinc ones(since the originals are so easily lost). It will be nice to hear from some of the experts their opinion on your grenade.
