page_title: Grenade
section_title: Development of modern grenades
hierarchical_section_title: Grenade / History / Development of modern grenades
caption_attribution_description: Diagram of British Hand Grenade No I Mark I. Body is made of solid drawn brass, cylindrical. Around the body is a cast-iron ring which is intended to break up on detonation of the charge. Bursting charge is 4 oz 2 drams Lyddite. The weight of the cast-iron ring causes the grenade to fall nose-first, which causes the needle in the cap to be driven into the detonator, which contains 30 grains Fulminate of Mercury, and ignite the Lyddite charge. The cap is set to position "Remove", "Travel" or "Fire". Handle is of cane approximately 16 inches long. To prepare the grenade&#160;: Turn cap to right until word "remove" is opposite arrow painted on body, and remove cap. Place detonator into recess Replace cap To throw the grenade&#160;: Unwind tail and allow to hang loose Turn cap from "travel" to "fire" position Remove safety pin Grasp grooved end of cane handle and throw grenade either over or underhand, taking care not to entangle the tail. Grenade should be thrown upwards at an angle of at least 35°. This facilitates the grenade striking the ground near vertically.
context_page_description: A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand, but can also refer to projectiles shot out of grenade launchers. Generally, a grenade consists of an explosive charge, a detonating mechanism, and a firing pin inside the grenade to trigger the detonating mechanism. Once the soldier throws the grenade, the safety lever releases, the striker throws the safety lever away from the grenade body as it rotates to detonate the primer. The primer explodes and ignites the fuze. The fuze burns down to the detonator, which explodes the main charge.
  There are several types of grenades like the fragmentation, high explosive concussion and smoke grenades.
  Fragmentation grenades are probably the most common in modern armies. They are designed to disperse shrapnel on detonation. The body is generally made of a hard synthetic material or steel, which will provide limited fragmentation through sharding and splintering, though in modern grenades a pre-formed fragmentation matrix inside the grenade is commonly used. The pre-formed fragmentation may be spherical, cuboid, wire or notched wire. Most anti-personnel grenades are designed to detonate either after a time delay or on impact.
context_section_description: The lack of an effective hand grenade, coupled with their danger to the user and their lack of utility meant that they were regarded as increasingly obsolete pieces of military equipment. In 1902, the British War Office announced that hand grenades were obsolete and had no place in modern warfare. Within two years, following the success of improvised grenades in the trench warfare conditions of the Russo-Japanese War, and reports from General Sir Aylmer Haldane, a British observer of the conflict, a reassessment was quickly made and the Board of Ordnance was instructed to develop a practical hand grenade. Various models using a percussion fuze were built, but this type of fuze suffered from various practical problems, and they were not commissioned in large numbers.
  Marten Hale, better known for patenting the Hales rifle grenade, developed a modern hand grenade in 1906 but was unsuccessful in persuading the British Army to adopt the weapon until 1913. Hale's chief competitor was Nils Waltersen Aasen, who invented his design in 1906 in Norway, receiving a patent for it in England. Aasen began his experiments with developing a grenade while serving as a sergeant in the Oscarsborg Fortress. Aasen formed the Aasenske Granatkompani in Denmark, which before the First World War produced and exported hand grenades in large numbers across Europe. He had success in marketing his weapon to the French and was appointed as a Knight of the French Legion in 1916 for the invention.
  The Royal Laboratory developed the No. 1 grenade in 1908. It contained explosive material with an iron fragmentation band, with an impact fuze, detonating when the top of the grenade hit the ground. A long cane handle (approximately 16 inches or 40 cm) allowed the user to throw the grenade farther than the blast of the explosion.
  Early in World War I, combatant nations only had small grenades, similar to Hales' and Aasen's design. The Italian Besozzi grenade had a five-second fuze with a match-tip that was ignited by striking on a ring on the soldier's hand. As an interim measure, troops often improvised their own grenades, such as the jam tin grenade.
caption: One of the earliest modern hand grenades. Fielded in the British Army from 1908, it was unsuccessful in the trenches of World War One, and was replaced by the Mills bomb.
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