What is over this...

soldiers sholder??? A mulit-nade???





Thanks

 

It's a stick grenade with an attachment of 6 grenade heads. I forget what the proper name is.

 

Wow, that's what I thought it looked like, but i didn't know they had them! Were there allot of those used??

I bet they were heavy!

 

I don't know how widely they were used but--they were used as "Bunker-busters" and more commonly used as an Anti-tank weapon.

These were the standard German Grenadier or Infantrymans "tool" for knocking out tanks before other AT weapons were developed, produced and deployed.

 

the weapon consisted of 6 model 24 or PH 39 heads around a stick grenade. Used for bunkers, pillboxes and boy did it do the job in a T-34 tank !

known as geballte Ladung (concentrated charge)

~E

 

That's very interesting, I never knew the Germans used a device like that. Thanks for posting and explaining it guys.

Learn something new every day.

Greg

 

Thanks for the info. Carl and Erich!

No prob. Greg. It was the 1st time I had come accross it too. And I thought it was very interesting.

By the way guys, what was those things triger? Was it at the bottom?

[ 24. July 2003, 10:10 PM: Message edited by: David Barton (DB) Mathis ]

 

David, that depends actually. The item with the wooden handle was a screw and pul-cord from the inside rleasing the detenator so to speak. 4-6 seconds before termination.
The weapon was also used as a mobil AT mine with the stick/handle removed and the firing pin associated with the top of the explosive head which could be unscrewed, toss and then run like heck....

~E

 

I have several interesting pics of these 'bundle-charges' being used and prepared in Ian Hogg's -Infantry Weapons of WW2'.

 

Thanks for the information, I couldn't found out what it was.

 

I have tried to build these for Living History displays, basically they were an improvised weapon described in German soldiers training manuals in much the same way as the famed 'sticky bomb'. I think they could be picked up at divisional stores but more often they were made by soldiers in the field who would take the heads off 6 stick grenades (which removed the detonator leaving the explosive charge), these were then attatched to a central grenade with string (usually it was interwoved between the heads, running over the top of one, down through the centre, under the bottom head, back up and over the one to the right of the top, across the centre and under the opposite head and so on for several full cycles, then just wrapped around for extra security). The central grenade worked in the same way it would normally except that when the porclain bead on the pull cord was pulled it would detonate and ignite all the other charges. There were variations such as a series of grenade heads tied to a plank, close enough so that when the intact grenade at the end was detonated, the charge would set off the other heads one by one.

Sorry if that is confusing but I hope it helps, when I get to my PC at home I will send you a URL with more details.

 

Panzerknacker can you post those images here?

Thanks Stefan!