This is the third, and largest, example of a Schwere hand grenade that I can show you, and this is a seriously big piece of kit, weighing in at just under three pounds, and measuring almost five inches from tip to toe.
Another early war example, my example still retains not only its cap…
…which swivels and removes (there is no screw thread) and has the manufacturer’s initials stamped on it,…
…but also the home-made hooked wire wrapped round the grenade to attach it to the soldier’s belt.
This is another grenade made of cast iron,…
…the crudely cast fragmentation segments (above & below) designed to spray the immediate area with shrapnel.
Another Hungarian-made grenade – the excellent example on the right (added in 2023) showing a very rare, in this condition, I suspect, surviving example of the safety cap on the top, courtesy of Paul Naylor, for which many thanks indeed – this is an excellent example of a defensive grenade,…
…because you wouldn’t want to be an Austrian or Hungarian soldier crossing a mountainous No Man’s Land with half-a-dozen of these slung round your shoulders, that I can promise you, and you’d never be able to hurl one far enough to escape its explosion – unless you were in a trench, chucking these grenades over the parapet (such as there were parapets in the mountains) at attacking Italian troops.
Finally, a shot of all three Schwere hand grenades I have shown you over the past three posts, once again for size comparison purposes. Next time, the deluxe Lakos I promised to show you a while back.