WHALING GRENADES \"NASTY\"

[paul the grenade]

Heres a pair of grenades for shooting at poor whales when they have been harpooned.
I spotted these in the whaling museum in Broughty Ferry Castle near Dundee last year while on holiday in Scotland.

 

[spotter]

horrible .............

 

[waffenamt]

How do they work?


waff

 

[spotter]

get shot into whale go bang shreads its insides ,and if lucky it dies quickly

 

[waffenamt]

I had sort of guessed that.......:trytofly:

What i meant was how was the thing fuzed? instantaneous or slight time-delay?


cheers

waff

 

[spotter]

cant really find much about them....ill keep looking

Explosive harpoons. This method uses a large spear tipped with a penthrite grenade that explodes on impact. Accurate execution of this method is nearly impossible given the conditions at sea. Even so, this device is supposed to cause "instantaneous" death (defined as death within ten seconds or fewer). Although this method could immediately kill the whale if the projectile pierced directly through the heart or brain, the average time to death is about four minutes, and some whales live for well over an hour after the grenade has exploded.

 

[spotter]

seems to vary from harpoons and time waff...found mention of ones with a glass vial that when the harpoon stick bit breaks off breaks the capsule initiating explosive charge,,others just say 4 second fuzes ,,i suppose they are like artillery rounds ,continuosly evolving

 

[waffenamt]

Ok,

`preciate your answers.

best

waff