Rifle Grenades - any use ??

Just about every combatant nation issued grenade launchers to their footsoldiers. The books are full of technical specs and photos - but - WERE THEY ANY USE ?

I've read no end of first-hand combat accounts from all sides : all describe using handguns, smallarms, mortars, grenades, entrenching tools, knives - even throwing rocks - but I can't recall one that describes using the grenade-launcher.

Judging from the number of 'dug-up' launchers which are found, it seems to me that - along with the gas mask - the grenade launcher was the first thing that soldiers liked to consign to the nearest ditch !

Any thoughts ?

 

Martin I have just finished Martin Marix Evans '1918 Year of Victories' and in their some of the comments made by US soldier make me think they found them quite effective and actually liked them. They just said dont fire it from the shoulder

I've never read any reference to them in ww2 to though. But didn't US rangers use them at Pointe du Hoc and on D-Day.

 

Most of what I've read about them concerns the First World War - the British Army apparently used them to great effect combined into small tactical teams with Lewis guns, hand grenades, and rifles with fixed bayonets.

 

Well, from photographic and many histories written by veterans, at least the US made widespread use of rifle grenades. The M7 launcher was provided on a scale of one per squad. A favorite from pictures, particularly for urban fighting, was to replace the M1 rifle grenade (a base onto which a standard fragmentation grenade was clipped) with a 60mm mortar bomb. The M9A1 anti-tank grenade was also used but not as widely as the bazooka.
As many of the German rifle grenades were small and relatively worthless as weapons they may have seen less use.

 

I’ve heard WWII vets mention them on occasion, but with infinitely less frequency than the 2 inch mortar and certainly without affection. The cup launchers fitted the Enfield’s, but used to ruined the rifle thereafter as an accurate bullet weapon. Hence, the operator had to carry a second weapon and, this being the case, the 2 inch mortar was much more versatile and effective than a rifle grenade.

The blank to launch the grenade was a longer and more substantive charge than the regular bullet, so the selected rifle was normally banded in one or two places with wire or a steel strap. Firing made a much larger bang than a normal round, one man told me he attributes his deafness in one ear to being next to one these things went it was fired.

No.9

 

Many thanks for your input, everyone.

From the material it would seem to be another case of WWII being fought with WW1's weapons. I can understand that in a static situation, with the enemy close by in a known location, and with room to set one's weapon up in concealment, the rifle grenade would be useful. That pretty well describes trench warfare.....

But WWII was of course far more fluid thus rendering the grenade launcher of limited use. For the record, the well-known group of photos of 12th SS HJ men in a Normandy farmyard clearly show a G Gr Ger 98k launcher fitted to a K98 but otherwise, 'action' photos seem fairly rare....

 

Action photos of US troops using rifle grenades are much more common. The US grenade launcher having been liberally supplied (on checking the issue was 7 per squad but most squads only kept one or two). The M9A1 anti-tank grenade was very popular. It was as effective as the bazooka round and the troops liked it because they didn't have to carry an extra, bulky, weapon to use it. The M1 with grenade launcher fitted could still be used as a standard rifle so there was little to detract from the use of the grenade launcher. Against bunkers and in urban fighting US troops made liberal use of these weapons finding them accurate enough to fire the grenade through the firing port of a bunker or the window of a house at up to 50+ yards.
So, while the German rifle grenades were not widely used due to their relative ineffectiveness and the complexity of the launcher cup etc, and the British one for reasons described earlier in this thread, the US did use rifle grenades frequently in combat.

 

I am the proud owner of a German WWII rifle grenade launcher and pouch. The only items that I am missing is the sight and the take down tool. It is a two piece construction with the locking mechanism being made out of cast iron with the tube being machined. The blank round used to fire the grenade is a normal size 8mm blank that is either crimped or wood tipped.

From the research that I have done, it seems that the HE rounds performed considerablly better than the AP. It seems that the Heer and the SS competed in the field of grenade rounds, as the SS had their own "Special" AP rounds that were larger and did more damage than their Heer counterparts.

Langemann

 

Hi!

About armour penetration and warhead weight (about):
-M9A1 AT Rifle grenade: 113g warhead, 100mm
penetration
-2.36 in Rocket Launcher M1: 227g warhead, 120mm penetration
-SS Gewehr Panzergranate 61: 240g warhead, 125mm
penetration

Regards, Juha

[ 11. August 2003, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: Juha Tompuri ]

 

Thanks again, everyone !

Your launcher set sounds nice, Langemann. I too have a mint condition pouch , with a very relic condition G Gr Ger K98k launcher from the Ardennes battlefield. But it's an interesting piece of ordnance and prompted me to raise this thread....

 

I can't help thinking that for an infantryman a rifle grenade would be fantastic, it would provide them with a way of chucking grenades far further than by hand without needing to carry a large mortar around with them. Also, there are things a grenade launcher could do that a morter can not, for example put grenades through windows and gun ports.

 

That's what I was wondering, Stefan - it's just slightly odd that they're hardly ever mentioned in first-hand accounts of infantry combat

 

During this past year, I actually put a rifle grenade round through a window of a 2nd story building. At Camp Gruber, OK for this past year's D-Day event, I put a round through a window and took out 4 GI's at about 150 yards. Based on this single event, I can only imagine how much a weapon of this type must have boosted the front line troops morale when it was used on the field.

Truely a very unique experience!

 

Speaking with a veteran today of No.1 Commando who was in Burma, I asked about issue and use of cup dischargers. He said they were not often issued and when they were it was usually 2 per Troop, a Troop usually being @ 65 men. The cup had two sprung clips that allowed simple snap fitting on an enfield. However, the rifle used was no longer suitable for normal accurate bullet fire so only dedicated rifles were used and the men carrying them usually also carried a Colt .45 pistol. The extra strength blank needed produced a very violent trigger action and the gunner had to adopt a technique to avoid breaking his finger.





“They were not of much use in the jungle as you could usually throw a grenade as far as the vegetation would allow.”

A while ago there was a discussion on use of shotguns in WWII. As they were popular in Nam jungle fighting I asked him about WWII. He said they never had any nor did he ever hear talk of any.

No.9

 

Thanks, No. 9 - that's interesting stuff.

 

My dad said when he was in the Army in the early 60s they still used the M-1 Garand and he trained with the rifle grenade. He said it was pretty much useless in terms of accuracy and the moview like SPR where they show the soldier firing from the shoulder just isn't true. He said that it would bust your shoulder if you fired it that way.

Greg

 

Yet again a topic when I aint got the books with me... dam being on holiday!!!

I do have some primary german sources which discuss the use of rifle grenades but it seems from reading them that they may well have been a case of too much hassle in a fluid battle situation and much more useful in positional defensive fighting. The Germans certainly used them, I have several photos of them in use, oddly mainly on the Eastern Front, but one from Normandy. I would have thought a light mortar would be of far more use???

 

Thanks to Deutsche e-bay(!) have just added a Gross Gew. Pz. Gr. rifle grenade to my collection, in mint condition and at very reasonable cost.

Ian V. Hogg in his 'Encyclopedia Of Infantry Weapons Of WWII' sums it up by saying :

'The number of different ( German ) rifle grenades developed and issued was so great that to devote a whole page to each would take more space than can be afforded ( in this book )...'

 

Hearsay only.

American troops involved in the N Africa landings used anti-tank rifle grenades fired from the Springfield rifle (from the shoulder), and destroyed at least two Somua tanks.

June 13 1944, Rendezvous with Destiny (a great resource) page 238.

 

Here's an interesting photo : -

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3242335028