Best Grenades and Mortar tactis of the war.

Now, I know that most people would say that they would use whatever grenade they were given. Now, just say you could choose your own grenade...which would it be and why? And which was the best grenade of the war?
Now, to the second part, I think the German tactic during the Battle of the Bulge was good, set the mortar to go off in the tree tops so you have both wood and metal Shrapnel.

 

I see the most important thing in any grenade design is that it is safe to the user. That is, the fuze works correctly all of the time and the user can rid himself of the grenade safely and without rush.
That said I'd choose:

Defensive: (eg., blast / fragmentation) the US Mk II followed very closely by the slightly, and unnecessarily, complex Mills Grenade (bomb). The US Mk II used what has become the most common, if not universal, grenade fuze there is; the Bouchon Igniter fuze.
This made the US Mk II equal with the somewhat older Mills in safety. Both are far ahead of systems like the German Stielhandgranate with its pull fuze or the poorly fuzed JapaneseType 97 (you set the fuze off by hitting it on something hard like your helment) or even worse Italian OTO Modello 35 "Red Devil."

Offensive: A toss up between the fairly powerful US Mk IIIA3 with close to half a pound of TNT in it (with the ever present Bouchon Igniter) packed in a cardboard tube. The British British Type 69 plastic grenade comes in a close second being far less powerful and having several parts (like a large ball bearing in the fuze) that could present the user hazards as he advanced.

Anti-tank: The Panzerwurfmine was by far the cleverist and most effective antitank grenade of WW II. It was highly effective, worked well and attacked a tank where it was most vulnerable: From overhead.

Rifle grenade:

HE: Either the US or British model is acceptable. The British used a better bomb but the US system was simpler being just a body onto which was clipped a regular grenade. One practice I've seen photos of in Europe was for US infantry to clip a 60mm mortar bomb on instead for house busting. This combo wouldn't have had much range but it would have packed quite a whollop at the receiving end.

The German rifle grenade system was overly complex and difficult to manufacture. It used a rifled cup for the grenades which had built in rifling on them. The mounting kit also included a bubble level sighting system that was totally beyond the accuracy that could be expected in combat. The use of a cup also limited the grenade size.

Anti-tank
The US M9A1 rifle grenade hands down. This was as effective as the US bazooka round, accurate to at least 100 yards, left little or no signature on firing, and was easily portable by infantry. It proved more popular with many veteran units than the bazooka did simply because you could leave the bazooka tubes behind and still have an effective AT weapon.

The British came out with a similar round for their troops but the photos I've seen of it look like it was made in somebody's garage. Knowing the British, it probably was....



Tree bursts are a side effect of fire into woods. Some weapons (mortars not being "some weapons") could use either VT fuzes (Allied artillery), time fuzes (any large AA gun like the 88, 3.7" or 90mm), or all could rely on graze fuzing that went off on striking virtually anything. This is how tree bursts are formed.

The British never got into heavy use of mortars so their tactics with them were very conventional. The US is similar, except that the 60mm M1 mortar was near omnipresent in infantry units. This gives the US infantry a weapon at company level few, if any, of their opponets had: "Hip pocket artillery." A tactic many US companies devised quickly particularly in more static fighting was to use their mortars to counter German machineguns. Once a machinegun nest was discovered the mortars were zeroed in on it and either silenced it or forced it to move. This was something the Germans couldn't readily counter.

The Soviets saw mortars as just more tubes on the battlefield. Their smaller ones gave mobility to artillery and firepower to infantry in the advance that otherwise would have not been available with just conventional guns.

The Germans used more and more mortars as the war progressed to make up for their lack of artillery. One favored German tactic was to deploy one mortar seperate from the battery as a rover. This mortar would fire only when the rest of the battery displaced to a new firing location. It was meant to distract the enemy and not give away the battery's movement.
The Germans were also not above splitting mortar platoons into sections and distributing them to individual units, a practice not copied elsewhere.

The Japanese did not field a large number of mortars either. Most of the time where mortars were issued it was to make up for lack of other artillery weapons in the unit.

 

I knew that the Japanese didn't use mortars much.

 

Actually, they were not unfamiliar with mortars. the famous "knee-mortar" is an example. However, they were generally of poor design and limited usefulness. the Russian model on the other hand reflects the view TA mentioned by the sheer calibre of their most famous piece (120mm) .


Cheers...

 

The Japanese "knee mortar" isn't really a mortar at all. It was officially known as the Type 89 grenade discharger. It was originally designed to fire the Type 91 grenade but also fired a variety of Type 89 "shells."

Aiming this thing was a matter of blind luck. The range was varied by running the base post in or out (it is threaded for this purpose) or by varying the elevation.

The "knee mortar" thing came about from GI's thinking that the curved base plate was fitted to your thigh for firing. The result if used this way was a broken thigh bone.

The official Japanese designation was Type 89 Hachikyu Shiki Juekidanto. It varied from the earlier WW 1 design Type 10 grenade launcher in having the tube rifled for additional accuracy.

 

was the german 120mm morter not a copy of the soviet 120mm?.cheers.

 

The US "pineapple" probably best all around and safest to the thrower. The good old German "potato masher" may have been the best in alot of situations, but had no fragmentation effect only blast, and so was mainly a good offensive grenade. The German item could also be throw further because of its wooden handle (i saw a test on TV where a guy threw a british grenade to see how far he could throw it and then did the same thing with a german grenade - the german grenade could be thrown about 20 or 30 feet further).
The Us had the right idea with the grenade safety features as it had essentially a double safety, the pin (which you pulled all the way out) and the handle (which you held onto until you threw it). Thus if something changed quickly, e.g. you saw it was your buddies coming up the hill toward you instead of the enemy, it was possible to put the pin back in.
By comparison the german potato masher had no such nifty features. To arm it you unscrewed a metal cap at the bottom of the wooden handle. A porcelain bead attached to a string then fell out of the handle. You yanked the porcelain bead to arm the fuse and then you had 4 or 5 seconds to throw it before it went boom.
The worst grenade i heard of was the japanese grenade. To arm it you had to bang the end against the ground, after which you had to throw the grenade. Dumb concept in my view, what if the soldier's in mud etc. with nothing hard to bang it against? (And what if you dropped one accidentally?) I suppose if you were a japanese officer you'd just bang it on the head of one of your men lol

 

Lock, stock and barrel, so to speak

No, there was a fragmentation sleeve that could be inserted. See on the 2nd row from the top here.

 

Yes it was some sort of grenade launcher, yet in many books it appears as a mortar, but i agree. However, i think it was a fine weapon, simple and cheap, it could increase significantly the firepower of a squad.

 

Imitation is the scenerest form of flattery.....

 

No blast effect was an exaggeration, but the potato mesher was not all that lethal.

Two questions. Were the 50-mm mortars consipicuously poor? The Germans and the Russians got rid of those earlier in the war, so I assume there are some problems. Was the nebelwerfer treated like mortar in Wehrmacht organization?

 

See my post #8

The 50mm mortar was a quite heavy and complicated machine, causing mobility problems. Also due to attrition it was easily lost so it soon went out of the TOE.

The Nebelwerfer was used in separate battalions at Korps level or above, it was not a mortar, it was rocket artillery to be employed as an entire unit. Mortars (8 and 12cm) stayed within the Coy, Bat and Reg TOEs.

 

Actually, the Russian 50mm was quite a good piece. But again, it was more like a grenade luncher. They "gave" them en mass and it proved to be an effective way to counter enemy infantry... Go figure
EDIT: The 50mm model 40 and 41 I mean. Both the 38 and 39 were over engineered pieces.




Cheers...

 

The various nations that chose the 50mm as a light mortar missed the mark. All of them share a set of common flaws. They lack range being able to only fire to about 500 or so yards at most. The bomb is just too small to have any real effect on dug in or even troops in cover. Lastly, they lack the means to accurately fire indirectly.
This is where the US / French 60mm Brandt mortar comes into its own. Its bomb is just large enough to give it a real punch. It is just complex enough and fitted with the necessary basic equipment to be used as an indirect fire weapon. Its range of about 1000 yards is sufficent to make it a flexible tool to the infantry. And, it is still mobile enough to be carried well forward into combat.
This is why even today the 60mm is still in service while all those little 50mm "egg tossers" have been relegated to history.

 

Figure my posterior. By 1942 they were out of the TOEs. Now you figure that.

 

Really?? wasn't aware of that *...checking...* I had the idea that they were ued further. Anyway, the 50mm was, many times issued at squad level so it gave them the ability of having a fancy grenade thrower which is something that always comes in handy



Cheers...

 

One problem with the ""pineapple" that showed up in post war test was that it tended not to break along the divisions as intended. The result was that there were usually a few (2 or 3 I think) larger fragments and a bunch of smaller ones. This meant that the larger ones were potentially lethal at ranges in excess of the throwing distance and that it was not necessarily lethal even at fairly close ranges.

That said I remember talking (and gaming with) a veteran of the Okinawa campaign and he noted that Japanese grenades tended to be very weak. He mentioned that often if one went off right next to you a broken leg might be the only injury.

 

I agree but not at the ranges shrapnel would. Thus the difference between offensive and defensive grendades (although you probably knew that).

Sounds right. He was an officer in an army unit and I believe Okinawa was his only combat experiance.

 

On blast and shrapnel:

Blast has a very, very limited effect unless it occurs in an enclosed space like a building. Outdoors, blast can all but safely be ignored as a casualty causing agent. This is because blast acts on an inverse cube function of range from detonation. That is, as the gas causing the "blast" expands it does so in three dimensions and so loses pressure (the casualty agent) very rapidly. Being just a few feet away from an explosion as small as that a blast grenade produces is sufficent to likely allow you to survive.
What blast more often does do is stun those close to it. Blast is also far more dangerous to immovable rigid objects than soft tissue like in humans. This is because blast will contine to push against a rigid object whereas soft tissue as give and can mitigate some of the effect. On the whole, blast can be discounted as a major casualty agent unless it occurs in a building, vehicle, or other confined space.

Fragmentation / shrapnel are the primary casualty agent in most shells and defensive grenades. Fragments are imparted with an initial velocity depending on the bursting strength of the material used and the type of explosive filler in a high explosive round. Good quality steel versus cast iron and a very high velocity explosive like TNT or RDX versus a lower velocity one like black powder will determine the initial velocity of the fragments. This will generally be between 1500 and 8000 fps depending on the combination used.
Fragments then travel, losing velocity, as an inverse square function based on their size and shape. Therefore, fragments tend to retain sufficent velocity to injure someone at fairly great distances from the point of explosion. In grenades this can be as much as 30 to 50 yards or in some cases, even further.
The type of material used for generating the fragments also counts. Good quality steel tends to be the best material while cast iron is much poorer. The reason for this is that steel will typically burst into a number of lateral strips along the long dimension of the device / shell much like the skin of a banana. In the area between these large strips a very large (hundreds to thousands) of tiny fragments, many of less than 1 gram in weight, form. The base and nose of many shells also tend to form seperate fragments as well.
Anyway, these fragments then speed away at some velocity. Their ability to do damage is based on this velocity and the mass of the fragment. Generally, only the larger fragments are dangerous over about 10 to 20 meters from the burst, these amounting to anything from a few in small rounds to a few hundred in larger ones. Microfragments of less than .1 gram can also be dangerous at longer distances. These have high velocities and very little resistance to flight. Their danger is that they act like a "toothpick in a hurricane." There are documented instances of such fragments killing or seriously injuring people at hundreds of yards from a shell burst.

I thought I should add my two cents on this.

 

Great post TA. Let me just add regarding the Blast effect, that if a Blast is strong enough to kill you by concussion, you'll probably be tossed in the air (thus transforming some of the energy of the blast into kinetic energy) reducing it's "deadliness".
Also, it depends on a lot of things for instance, if you are in cold temperatures, the air is thicker so, the killing range of the blast reduxes even faster.



Cheers...