Best Grenades

[iamfrederik]

I dont really now much about the grenades used durring the WW2, so I would ask if some of you guys could tell me where the difference between the german Stielhand and the allies hand grenades (other than the looks)

Thanks..

[Reb]

Each side had concussion, frag and smoke - and they were fairly similar.

I believe the old pineapple used by the allies had a littler bit more oomph than the potatomasher but the latter was easier to carry and to throw.

Fairly even match up ultimately.

And none of them came near the capabilities of the most fearsome grenade of all - the Hollywood Nuclear Flame Grenade!

cheers
Reb

[Imad]

Reb, are you sure the Stielhandgranate had a frag version? That is news to me.

[Reb]

Imad

Not positive - could that have been the egg grenade? (I jumped in because nobody had answered - hoping to provoke an 'expert')

I do know that such a beast exists - just no sure of stick or egg?

cheers
Reb

[Grzesio]

Neither Stielhandgranate 24 (or 43) nor Eihandgranate 39 were fragmentation grenades - they were blast ones, thin walls with a lot of HE filling. Fragmentation effect could be increased by addition of an external fragmentation jacket (extremely rare in case of the model 39), but it was still not a true frag grenade like pineapple ones. Germans actually did not have true frag grenades, maybe save for a Glas-Eihandgranate or late war concrete grenades.
The basic difference between German and allied hand grenades was a somehow obsolete pull type fuze used by Germans, without usual trigger lever.
The stick grenade, while bigger and harder to store and carry had greater throw range and was more accurate than stickless grenades.

Regards

Grzesio

[Steve Wilcox]

Nice grenade site here:
http://www.lexpev.nl/grenades/index.html

[Dragunov]

good site...

also, the 'potato masher' was an 'offensive' grenade, which meant that the blast radius was less than the throwing distance, while the allied frag types were 'defensive' (okay so that's useless information.) meaning the opposite, thus meaning you have to take cover if you throw one. something like that.

and the stick probably makes quite a difference in range. ever tried throwing a mallet?

cheers...?
Dragunov

[Hans Knospler]

Neither Stielhandgranate 24 (or 43) nor Eihandgranate 39 were fragmentation grenades - they were blast ones, thin walls with a lot of HE filling. Fragmentation effect could be increased by addition of an external fragmentation jacket (extremely rare in case of the model 39), but it was still not a true frag grenade like pineapple ones. Germans actually did not have true frag grenades, maybe save for a Glas-Eihandgranate or late war concrete grenades.
The basic difference between German and allied hand grenades was a somehow obsolete pull type fuze used by Germans, without usual trigger lever.
The stick grenade, while bigger and harder to store and carry had greater throw range and was more accurate than stickless grenades.

Regards

Grzesio

The fragmentation jacket could be added to any style of German stick grenade (24,39,43), so it wasn't rare on any of them because they were all extensively used throughout the war.

[maschinengewehr42]

Although fragmentation sleeves existed for both Stielhandgranaten and Eihandgranaten, both were comparatively rare in use. German soldiers' memoirs rarely mention them, even when comparing the merits of different nations' grenades, and they are conspicuously absent from most original wartime photos. Out of every hundred wartime photos showing German grenades, scarcely one or two show a fragmentation sleeve. On the collectors' market today, these sleeves are correspondingly rare.

Stielhandgranaten sleeves show up more frequently than Eihandgranaten fragmentation sleeves these days. The latter are extremely hard to come by.

[Grenadier]

A picture of the fragmentation sleeves from me:

[lwd]

I seam to recall reading somewhere that post war test showed that the pinnaple grenade did not fragment as expected. There tended to be a very few large fragments and a bunch of very small ones. For some reason it did not fracture along the incised lines.

[Imad]

I also remember reading that Allied soldiers did not fear the German stick-grenades as much as the Landsers feared the M36. The reason given was precisely because of the fragmentation caused by the latter as opposed to the concussion effect of the Stielhandgranate. I can't remember the source though, it was a while back that I read it.

[phylo_roadking]

I seam to recall reading somewhere that post war test showed that the pinnaple grenade did not fragment as expected. There tended to be a very few large fragments and a bunch of very small ones. For some reason it did not fracture along the incised lines.

For the pineapple or egg grenade to shatter 100% along the lines of the incisions...the incisions woiuld have had to have been on the inside, facing the wavefront of the explosion External incisions were a poor runner-up.

I also remember reading that Allied soldiers did not fear the German stick-grenades as much as the Landsers feared the M36. The reason given was precisely because of the fragmentation caused by the latter as opposed to the concussion effect of the Stielhandgranate. I can't remember the source though, it was a while back that I read it.

IIRC that has been discussed a couple of times before on the forum. the stickgrenade was indeed a shock/concussion grenade, albeit with added "lumpy bits" and was certainly far less effective outdoors than a pure "fragmentation" grenade. It was at it's best in an enclosed area.

[Imad]

I'm wondering - did post-war manufacture of grenades in the U.S military reflect any improvement over the M36 as far as incision lines etc.?