How standard were these grenades?

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alpinoinMT
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How standard were these grenades?

#1

Post by alpinoinMT » 08 Oct 2018, 03:06

Looking at this photo & wondering how standardized is this 81mm mortar round "hand-grenade"?
Regardless it is one hell of a weapon & would spoil your whole day landing in your foxhole!
Was there any nomenclature or model number, or is it simply field expedient?
I know the shell with the stick grenade is home made.
Thanks-Kiitos

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veeteetee
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Re: How standard were these grenades?

#2

Post by veeteetee » 09 Oct 2018, 04:08

Totally field expedient.


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alpinoinMT
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Re: How standard were these grenades?

#3

Post by alpinoinMT » 16 Oct 2018, 20:22

I only ask because the Finns did rig up a lot of 50mm mortar rounds with grenade fuses, 'semi-standard'
an 81mm would sure spoil your whole day with a kilo of HE & twice as much metal!
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JTV
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Re: How standard were these grenades?

#4

Post by JTV » 17 Oct 2018, 06:01

alpinoinMT wrote:
16 Oct 2018, 20:22
I only ask because the Finns did rig up a lot of 50mm mortar rounds with grenade fuses, 'semi-standard'...
No offense intended, but I think you have gotten your info mixed up. Finnish military had egg hand grenade m/32, whose grenade body was also intended to be used in manufacturing of 47-mm mortar shells and rifle grenades. This was not "semi-standard" in any way, but an intentional design feature intended to produce a "universal grenade" of sort, whose main component (grenade body) could be used in production of three related ammunition products (hand grenade, mortar shell and rifle grenade).

Mortar shells used with captured Soviet 50-mm mortars were only used with those mortars, (as far as I know) not in any other way.

Jarkko

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alpinoinMT
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Re: How standard were these grenades?

#5

Post by alpinoinMT » 18 Oct 2018, 05:48

No offense ever taken! And I do get mixed up... I can blame it on Jack Daniels & IEDs.
I wait patiently for your outstanding website Jaeger Platoon to complete the section on hand grenades,
a website I look at only a little less than hockey =)
a reporter once asked me, after an awards ceremony
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JTV
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Re: How standard were these grenades?

#6

Post by JTV » 20 Oct 2018, 05:30

alpinoinMT wrote:
18 Oct 2018, 05:48
I wait patiently for your outstanding website Jaeger Platoon to complete the section on hand grenades,
a website I look at only a little less than hockey =)
Thanks for the compliment. :milsmile: Unfortunately the hand granade section is at the moment on the back burner, because there is no possibility to do research with collections of Finnish Military Museum. The museum is moving its collections to new central location and plans to provide access to researches starting some time next year (2019). The next update will contain two new pages about military uniforms:
- Page about uniform m/36, which for all practical purpososes was the standard Finnish military uniform of World War 2.
- Another page about wartime situation, which deals with uniform production before & during the war and numerous of "not quite by the book" sort of things that happened with uniforms during the war.

Finnish hand grenade production during World War 2 was limited to few designs:
- Egg hand grenades (all of them defensive):
-- m/32: Two versions existed, symmetrical and elliptic.
-- m/41
-- m/43
- Stick hand grenades (both of them offensive, basic design was based to German stielhandgranate M17, but had a concussion fuse instead of friction fuse and Finnish stick hand grenades are smaller is size than German ones):
-- m/41: Easy to recognise from belt hook, which is no longer present in m/41. Early production version referred as "m/28".
-- m/43

In addition Finnish Army had in its use a large variety of foreign (Russian/Soviet, German, Swedish, British, French and even one Hungarian) hand grenade designs.

Jarkko

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