Jump to content

FRENCH PEAR GRENADE


Recommended Posts

found in a militaria
market
a rather nice french pear grenade
At the beginning of the war, the French Army used artisanal percussion 'bangers', as well as Aasen grenades (from the name of that Danish inventor who was selling the same grenades to the Germans...), but none of these weapons gave entire satisfaction. But in May 1915, the French soldiers finally receive a brand new grenade P1 (percutante n°1) percussion grenade designed and made in France by Mr Billant (who also invented automatic lever grenade igniters of the same name).

This new weapon was almost immediatly nicknamed 'Pear grenade' or 'Spoon grenade' by the fighters, because of evident reasons understandable with just a look on the pictures. The grenade was made of a pig iron body with inner fragmentation grooves, closed at its base by a lead plug, and on the top by the igniter mechanism. This mechanism was composed by a detonator triggered by a starter that was hit by a moving percussion pin when the grenade landed vertically on its base. This percussion movement was only possible when the spoon-like lever was up. A security wire wrapping the spoon lever and the grenade body at rest had to be cut prior to launching the grenade, so that the rotation of the lever was possible.

Unwanted arming of the grenades by rupture of this wire and movement of the aluminium or steel spoon lever caused numerous accidents. Moreover, the absolute need for the percussion system to have the grenade landing vertically on its base not only induced the pear shape of the weapon but was also supposed to be helped by a tissue band wrapped under the spoon and acting like a tail in flight. Despite these two precautions, the results were rather uncertain...

Dangerous, unreliable ignition system, often unsatisfactory fragmentation grenade, however extensively produced and used, was far from being a success !

post-37255-0-73144900-1419873437_thumb.jpg

post-37255-0-91675400-1419873467_thumb.jpg

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...