bonzen wrote:If one looks at the commercially available pen/pistol on page one you will notice that the cap had to be unscrewed and a round loaded. If a round were loaded and the cap replaced, all it would take is a manipulation of the trigger/spring mechanism to create an explosion. The round would be fired and impact the cap.
Interesting yet so much wartime facist bunk !.
If there was any 'exploding pens' in italy then my bet is they were OSS or british commando items supplied to partisans for destruction of axis supplies/munitions.It is well known that there were many 22 caliber and 25 caliber "pen guns" used clandestinely and available for purchase even before the war. To prove a point my wife's grandfather as an infantryman with the 84th Inf Div entered a german home in the advance into the Ruhr and found laid across a dresser top coins , paper money , a pen and some trinkets. Well he picked up the pen and went to scribble on the dresser top and "bang"....a small caliber round flew up and into the ceiling. Had he not been left handed - he would have been hit in the face/neck.
The soviet munitions used in afghanistan to such effect were coined "toe poppers". They were if memory serves me correctly here copies of the US M14 toe popper mine. Little flat kidney bean shaped plastic bodied mines of about 2 or 4 ounces that would blow a foot off or hand if disturbed.They were dropped in canisters that broke open in flight - the impact of the ground armed these ( chemically ). Mainly used for denial of area and on target casualty creators. The ones I saw were like a faded olive color , and of course a big NO TOUCHIE !.
I have been told by a couple of buddies that encountered a couple of these soviet canister munitions at an Iraqi airbase that had been ripped open when the air base had it's runway holed for obvious reasons. The iraqi's had no means of air delivery as their 'airforce' seized to exhist after the opening hours of combat actions - in BOTH iraqi conflicts.
Anyhow I digress.