German Stick grenades

[Horncastle]

I was just wondering if anyone had any idea if it would be a good idea to include the german technique of strapping 5 or six stick grenade warheads together to a stick grenade to create a lethal device?

The allies have gammon bombs, just wondered why this german technique is not used? Was it only developed late on in the war, or was their a grenade shortage or something.

[GriffinCheng+]

IIRC, this technique was used well back in WWI when German infantry had absolutly no way to deal with Allied tanks, so they packed 6 genrades together to close combat against Allied tanks. That was before the deployment of A7V (not that Asus MoBo )

As time advances, unfortunately, bigger bombs and other infantry anti-tank weapons appeared like PIAT and zook, so Allied did not need to use such field-mod method.

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"When you find your PBEM opportents too hard to beat, there is always the AI."

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[Moon]

IIRC this was called "geballte Ladung", a term still used in Germany for tying a few dynamite sticks together.

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"An hour has 60 minutes, each minute in action has a thousand dangers."

- Karl-Heinz Gauch, CO 1st Panzerspähkompanie, 12th SS Panzerdivision

[Slapdragon]

Originally posted by Horncastle:

I was just wondering if anyone had any idea if it would be a good idea to include the german technique of strapping 5 or six stick grenade warheads together to a stick grenade to create a lethal device?

The allies have gammon bombs, just wondered why this german technique is not used? Was it only developed late on in the war, or was their a grenade shortage or something.

Kevin Dockery, in his "Armory", says that this was only common prior to the advent of the panzerfaust, and often resulted in a dead thrower because even with the big stick it was hard to throw, and sometimes a grenade head would come off in carrying armed and blow up a foot or a leg.

The Germans also tested AT grenades with drogue shoots purpose made (and a bit better that the death on a stick) but they were mostly shipped to the eastern front.

[Schugger]

Already answered by Moon, must..read..before typing..

[This message has been edited by Schugger (edited 01-29-2001).]

[Gremlin]

Here's a translation I did of a German field manual about close assaulting tanks. It covers some of the topics discussed here:

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/014827.html

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[curih]

Griffen is correct. The Germans did use that technique quite often in the later stages of WWI. The A7V wasn't really a factor there, since they built so few. I don't have the exact number here, but IIRC it was less than 12. They were actually using more captured British tanks than A7Vs.

And the infantry was not completely defenceless. The Germans moved light artillery forward to serve as anti-tank guns, and also had some success with an anti-tank rifle. It was basically a standard Mauser scaled up to fire a giant bullet. From what I've read, the recoil could dislocate a soldier's shoulder. Furthermore, the British Mark I could be penetrated by machinegun fire (the armor plates heated up upon repeated impacts to the point where bullets passed right through). The Mark II aslo was vulnerable because it was really an unarmored training tank, despite the fact that it did see some action.

curih

[GriffinCheng+]

IIRC, I came across from a book about the first ever tank-to-tank battle between British Mk.IV and A7V. German lost. Sorry I don't have the book here (@ work-place) so I cannot give any more details.

Since WW1 is really out of my scope I am not aware that German had light artillery as early PaK.

IIRC, ATR round was a large "bullet" with harden tip and a "rod" attachd to the end. It is inserted into the muzzle and an empty cartridge (without bullet head) was used to fire the round.

In WW2, iirc, early PzIIIs and PzIVs were designed to protect these rounds in mind.

Griffin.

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"When you find your PBEM opportents too hard to beat, there is always the AI."

"Can't get enough Tank?"

[This message has been edited by GriffinCheng+ (edited 01-30-2001).]