I was just watching a WWII movie and I am wondering: Why do the Nazi hand grenades have long wooden handles and the American grenades look like little pineapples? Isn’t there an optimal shape or size for grenades? Don’t the German grenades take up more space so the average Americans could carry more grenades than the average German?
I asked the same question of my German teacher in high school – this is the reasion I got:
Boys in America are raised playing baseball, its more natural for us to throw a grenade that is shaped like a ball.
Boys in Germany didnt play baseball as they were growing up. They found that with a stick attached a German soldier could throw the grenade farther than w/o one
Dunno about the German grenades …
Typically, a grenade is intended to create a bunch of shrapnel. The US “pineapple” was designed to break apart at the lines/indentations on the surface. However, the explosive tended to settle in storage, and pineapple grenades that have been stored for some time tend to come apart in two pieces.
The last time I saw a US grenade (30 years ago) it was a smooth-surfaced design. Inside was a coil of wire around the explosive, with nicks in the wire so it would break apart easily at the nicks.
The WWII-era German grenade we are most familiar with was known as a “potato masher” because of the leveraged throwing arm. They were significantly less powerful than their American counterpart and did not disperse as many fragments as the American version. I don’t have the reference in front of me, but I recall Steven Ambrose labeling them “annoyances.”
The Germans had “egg grenades” which look more or less like everybody elses, and “stick grenades” which are the familiar potato mashers. I think the stick grenades generally had greater range, and the egg grenades could be carried in greater numbers. The stick added bulk but not a lot of weight.
The German Army used the stick grenade in both World Wars, as well as a number of other designs. One discus-like German grenade of WWI was nicknamed Nurnberger Lebkuchen, after a Christmas cookie it resembled.
Sofa King is correct in saying that they had less “punch” than the US or British grenades; in fact, the Germans manufactured a special fragmention sleeve that fit over the top of the “potato masher” to increase lethality.
What the Germans did have were purpose-designed rifle grenades, which were more powerful than the stick grenade. They even produced an anti-tank rifle grenade. These rifle grenades could be fired from the launcher or thrown.
A small, round (and smooth-bodied) grenade was known to the front-line German troops as Ostereier, or “Easter Egg.” The Germans were notorious for leaving booby-trapped versions of this grenade behind them when retreating. The normal 4-5 second delay fuse would be replaced with an instantaneous fuse.
The Red Chinese still manufacture "potato masher " grenades.
For export only.
Don’t know about their lethality.
We had a nasty little trick we use to play with Russian grenades in Central America. Russian granades come with a variety of fuses that were color coded. We would paint the zero delay fuses as six seconed fuses and then fill the crate with them. Then we would leave the crate out in the open to be stolen by rebel forces. Rumor has it they hated us for that.
madd1:
that is evil in a way i truly appreciate. very tricky.
just out of curiousity: Who is “we” in this particular conflict?
-Luckie