Marc Thompson Posted 6 September , 2003 Share Posted 6 September , 2003 Researching a soldier from 1/5th Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) I came across the following entry in the War Diary: "At 4.30 pm on the hottest day Pte McLean saw a grenade which had been left out in the sun sweating. He attempted to throw it over the parapet but it blew his hand off. The grenade was a double cylinder and was set ready to fire. It is thought that a slight wrench was sufficient to ignite the safety lighter." The blast also slightly injured the soldier that I am researching. Are there any experts out there who can shed light on the workings of a double cylinder grenade and why it would have exploded in this circumstance? Marc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph J. Whitehead Posted 6 September , 2003 Share Posted 6 September , 2003 I cannot give you the circumstances of how the grenade worked but if it contained an explosive of the type such as TNT then the 'sweat' could very well be some of the nitroglycerine sweating out of the weapon. Dynamite can sweat if kept too warm, this is why many old logging cookhouses exploded. The frozen dynamite would not explode so it was kept near the stove. Too close and it sweated and any one drop falling down was sufficient to set off the lot. TNT is stable under 25C but above this temperature it is very volatile. (We made some in the yard when I was much younger) Ralph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CROONAERT Posted 6 September , 2003 Share Posted 6 September , 2003 Marc. A "Double Cylinder" grenade was a soldered tin cylinder containing the explosive and detonater within another tin cylinder containing 0.5 in steel balls set in resin. The explosive was ammonal which was, I believe ,prone to "sweating" the same way as mentioned above. There were two types, designated the No.8 Grenade ("light") and No.9 ("heavy"). The No.9 contained more steel balls, and both were introduced in May 1915. In a way, they resembled the "jam-tin" bombs. Dave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CROONAERT Posted 6 September , 2003 Share Posted 6 September , 2003 ...a cutaway diagram of the No.9 grenade... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Poilu Posted 7 September , 2003 Share Posted 7 September , 2003 Not sure about the 'sweating'...From the quote "...grenade was a double cylinder and was set ready to fire. It is thought that a slight wrench was sufficient to ignite the safety lighter" - it seems the No.8 or 9 as described above was fitted with a Nobel self-igniting fuse and it was this that ignited and detonated the grenade rather than the charge spontaneously exploding. The Nobel fuse was basically a small length of Bickford cord topped with a couple of sliding cardboard tubes, one contained a small cap of friction compound, the other a two pronged metal striker. If the grenade was "set ready to fire" the pin may have been removed - simply pushing and turning one cardboard cylinder on the other (perhaps accidentally) would ignite the 5 second fuse. The fillings in 8's and 9's was generally Ammonal - a very safe explosive. Consisting mainly of Ammonium Nitrate (65%), Aluminium, TNT and a dash of charcoal - it is generally very stable (unlike pure TNT in it's non de-sensitized form) - unless it becomes damp and then dries out.........boom! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry_Reeves Posted 7 September , 2003 Share Posted 7 September , 2003 Must agree with Giles's view, although Amonal doesn't contain TNT. You do get exudation with TNT over certain temperatures though, which crystalizes and at that point is unstable. Ammonium Nitrate does react with copper (the detonator for instance) to form an unstable substance over time, but this would have required the grenade to be primed for quite a period of time for the reaction to occur. The other possibility is that the burning fuse was badly manufactured causing a flash- through and thus instant detonation. Terry Reeves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ciaran Byrne Posted 7 September , 2003 Share Posted 7 September , 2003 "The Nobel fuse " - Would this have been invented by the same Swiss man who invented dynamite - and who the Nobel Peace Prize is named after? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry_Reeves Posted 7 September , 2003 Share Posted 7 September , 2003 Nobel invented Dynamite. It was a safe way of using Nitro-Glycerine which is a highly impact and friction sensitive liquid. He found that by absorbing it into sawdust it could be much more safely handled. Bickford fuse was invented by William Bickford in the 1830's, more commonly known as safety fuse, it started life in the tin mining industry. It was used to initiate a detonator. Terry Reeves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Poilu Posted 7 September , 2003 Share Posted 7 September , 2003 I hate to argue Terry, but...Ammonal does indeed contain TNT, in various quantities accoding to the maker but the ratio of compounds (according to "Brown's Big Bang - A History of Explosives") in British military Ammonal commonly used in the Great War was as follows: Ammonium Nitrate (65%), Aluminium (17%), TNT (15%) and Charcoal (3%). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph J. Whitehead Posted 7 September , 2003 Share Posted 7 September , 2003 This is a bit off subject but I recall reading an account of German stick grenades being set off by rifle fire and or shell splinters while resting on the parapet ready for use. The account came from the 15th Reserve Regiment while it was defending the Hohenzollern Redoubt. The resulting explosions caused a number of deaths and injuries. Has anyone else come across any similar accounts from either side? Ralph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Thompson Posted 17 September , 2003 Author Share Posted 17 September , 2003 Many thanks for your useful responses on this subject which helps to explain a lot about the workings of this type of grenade. Marc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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