hand grenades

[Ignatieff]

When were these widely issued to major combatants (British, German, Russian, Austro-H, and Turkey) in WWI???

thanks

S

[CaptainHaddonCollider]

As far as I understand, the title of 'bomber' was the first specific squad role apart from 'rifleman' in the British army. My guess would be that grenades, or bombs as they were, were first issued at large in late 1914, but actual mass-use and designation of a bomber profession in the British army were not implemented until the release of the Mills bomb in 1916.
As for the germans and austrians, I have no idea.

[fred]

The Germans made wide use of hand grenades.  Both the British and Germans had dedicated 'bombers' who would carry large numbers of grenades. I'm not sure if riflemen carried the odd grenade or not, or whether they were only issued to bombers.

The grenades evolved rapidly in the first couple of years of the war - there were all sorts of different types in use early on (generally in small numbers) as the war progressed each side choose one main type of grenade - the pineapple Mills bomb for the Commonwealth, and the Stick Grenade for the Germans.

[Silent Invader]

Doing a modicum of research for my Summer 1914 project I struggled with finding a definitive answer but eventually settled on leaving out grenades for the first few months of fighting.

[moiterei_1984]

The German Army introduced the so called Stielhandgranate in 1915.

[FramFramson]

To my limited understanding, the British timeline looks roughly like this.

1902 - War Office announces that grenades are obsolete
1905 - Effective use of grenades in the Russo-Japanese war changes the minds of war office staff and the Board of Ordnance is ordered to produce an effective, modern grenade. Several designs are submitted until...
1908 - The No 1 Grenade is designed. It was a properly modern design, but was complex, unreliable, and featured a very long handle which would turn out to be a big liability in the trenches.
1915 - The Mills grenade is introduced.

Like you folks, I can't find any exact accounts of issue, whether it was just to bombers or if ordinary riflemen used them or what. HOW-SO-EVER, there ARE many accounts of improvised grenades from the early war (like the jam tin grenade), as well as complaints about the performance of the comparatively scarce No 1 grenade. Based on that circumstantial evidence, I would say that the average riflemen knew of the utility of grenades and probably would use them if they could get their hands on them, but that up until 1915, these would have been irregularly available. HOW irregularly, I don't know, but if you wanted to equip at least some of your 1914 WWI British with grenades, it wouldn't be incorrect. I would err on the side of grenades being only available to a minority of your force though - perhaps every third or fourth man, or third or fourth squad.

Strictly speaking, it took time for the mills bomb to reach everyone anyway. There are accounts of the No 1 still being used as late as 1916 and improvisation continued whenever and wherever there were shortages.

[Silent Invader]

Most useful info, thank you 

[FramFramson]

For the other nations, I don't know so well. moiterei_1984 is absolutely correct that the Germans got a regular issue of grenades in 1915 and in other countries adoption of a proper grenade is recorded as 1915 or 1916. I know that early on the Italians had these silly naff things that they had to light with a match and I think there were some other account of other nations using crude improvised stuff made from whatever was at hand.

The thing is, grenades are hundreds of years old. They were falling out of fashion at the turn of the century because the only designs available were horrible old things, but by the time WWI started their utility was well known again to all nations thanks to use in the Russo-Japanese war, and possibly other wars (can't find info on the Balkan wars). Even if good grenades were not actually available, all it would take was some other fellow chucking a homemade bomb at your lot to demonstrate that these weapons were useful, so I expect everyone would have been putting together whatever they could, from very early on in WWI.

In general, I think you could expand my commonwealth suggestion to all nations:

- For 1914 or the winter of 1914-1915, partial equipping of your forces with grenades is okay, but it should be a minority of them, for example a third to a quarter of your forces.
- If your rules allow you to vary the strength of your grenades, I would reduce their effectiveness slightly for those early war games to represent the fact that the troops would be using substandard designs or improvised weapons. Perhaps with a reduced area of effect, worse accuracy, less damage, or whatever reduces their effectiveness without making them totally useless (if your rules do not allow you meaningfully reduce the power of a grenade without making them useless or needlessly complicating things, then I would just leave things be and use the base grenade rules)
- For 1915, I would mix improvised grenades (as suggested above) with proper grenades. You might choose to still limit use of grenades (especially in nations with supply or weapons manufacturing issues), but there's no reason that at least a majority of troops can't have a grenade of some sort.
- For 1916 onwards I would say proper grenades are widely available to all armies (per the normal restrictions of your chose rules), unless you wanted to show a situation where a unit is undersupplied or such.

[FramFramson]

Whoops, massive amount of info here: http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/grenades.htm

Some key bits:

As with most things at the start of the war in August 1914, the Germans were ahead of the pack in terms of grenade development.  Even as war began the Germans had 70,000 hand grenades in readiness, along with a further 106,000 rifle grenades.

Curiously, when many, perhaps most, people are asked to consider the means of trench attack most popular during the First World War, the rifle or bayonet is often suggested as the most likely answer.
Bombing Parties

In fact both of these weapons were to be used chiefly to defend the grenadiers: those men tasked with the bombing of trenches and positions using grenades of various types.  Bombing parties grew in number and frequency as the war progressed and formed a major component of any infantry attack by the war's close (although US forces used them less, chiefly on account of supply shortages).

The British bombing team usually consisted of nine men at a time: an NCO, two throwers, two carriers, two bayonet-men to defend the team and two 'spare' men for use when casualties were incurred.

As an attack or raid reached an enemy trench the grenadiers would be responsible for racing down the trench and throwing grenades into each dugout they passed: this invariably succeeded in purging dugouts of their human occupants in an attempt at surrender (often not accepted as they were promptly shot or stabbed).

British forces outside of the Western Front - which was given first call on grenade supplies - were lacking in supplies of grenades until well into 1916.

The French and Russian armies were rather better prepared than the British, since they fully expected to be in the position of besieging German fortresses: a task ideally suited to the grenade.

That first British grenade, the Mark 1 used in 1914, proved highly unpopular with soldiers.  Forming a canister with a 16-inch cane handle, it was ignited by removing a safety pin through the top.  When thrown, the handle (and attached linen streamers) ensured it landed nose down so that the striker was forced into the detonator.

However the Mark 1 caused widespread distrust given that it was liable to explode prematurely if it came into contact with an object while in the act of being thrown: again entirely feasible in a trench environment.

Consequently many British soldiers - and those based in Gallipoli who had no access to grenades of any type - resorted to the construction of home-made, or 'jam-tin' bombs.

The German army, having popularised use of the grenade at the start of the war, developed numerous models over the ensuing four years.

German egg grenadeThese included the Stielhandgranate (stick bomb), the Diskushandgranate (disc grenade), Eierhandgranate (hand grenade) and Kugelhandgranate (ball grenade, which included the grenade referred to by the British as the 'pineapple grenade').

Wish that page had reference source links though.

Also, I found reference to Bulgarian pilots taking grenades up to bomb Turkish positions with during the 1912-1913 Siege of Adrianople from the First Balkan War. So it seems they were available in the Balkan preludes to WWI.

So, basically confirming my conjecture from my previous post, it seems that grenades were indeed available to all nations, though they were affected by serious performance issues as well as supply issues (in the quote about German readiness, they mention 70,000 grenades... that's not actually very many considering the numbers of troops involved!).

[moiterei_1984]

Lately I was in the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt (Germany) and they had quite a selection of all kinds of grenades used back then:



Sadly I forgot to make proper shots of the tags containing the dates of introduction of the different types.

[Ignatieff]

Thanks everyone. Really useful stuff

[Wirelizard]

Lately I was in the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt (Germany) and they had quite a selection of all kinds of grenades used back then:

Great photo, thanks for posting it.

I went through Ingolstadt last year, June 2014, but to my regret wasn't able to make time to spend a day at the Bavarian Army Museum like I wanted to!

Interesting that the grenade was so widely used by the Russians; I've been mostly ignoring grenades & "bomber" troops in my Russian Civil War games but shall have to rethink that.

[Beast of Bukhara]

When were these widely issued to major combatants (British, German, Russian, Austro-H, and Turkey) in WWI???

thanks

S

Not forgetting our Ottoman brethren


http://www.ottoman-uniforms.com/ww1-turkish-grenades-study/

[Ignatieff]

Not forgetting our Ottoman brethren


http://www.ottoman-uniforms.com/ww1-turkish-grenades-study/

Cracking web site Beast!  Does suggest that until Gallipoli they didnt use them d'ya think?

[Over Open Sights]

Ignatieff... it looks as if they will be hurling these ball grenades at you in a couple of weeks.