The Rifle Grenade Part Five – The German M14 Gewehrgranate

This is the M14 Gewehrgranate, the replacement for the M13, and the rifle grenade that would serve the German Army for much of the war, although technological advancements – the introduction of pneumatic grenade launchers and small trench mortars – and an entirely new concept in rifle grenades, would make it obsolete by mid-1917. 

What purports to be an early photo of German troops ‘in action’, the two men closest to the camera, and the N.C.O. third in line, all sporting M14s protruding from the muzzles of their rifles.

However, a number of photographs that claim to show German troops advancing into France or Belgium in August 1914 were actually taken during manoeuvres the previous year (or possibly even earlier, in 1912).  This is probably the best-known example; you can see observers among the figures on the hill behind, and at least one civilian appears among the ‘advancing’ troops, whom I would not be at all surprised to hear was an official photographer by the way he is standing (close-up, with back to camera, far right – imagine he is holding a Kodak Brownie, first introduced in 1900, or its German equivalent), although we shall never know.

Returning to the M14, this diagram shows, on the left, the M13 that we looked at last time, and on the right, the M14, smaller in length, wider in girth,…

…and really quite different from its predecessor.  Like the M13 (left), the M14 (right) was a high-explosive grenade fitted with a percussion fuse designed to explode on impact, its cast-iron body segmented for maximum fragmentation.  This time all the working parts are contained within the fuse & fuse cylinder, and there is no requirement for a base cup as on the M13.

Here we have the fuse removed from the grenade, the working parts enclosed in a tin cylinder, and before we look inside, if we take a closer look at the fuse head, which still retains its original field grey paint,…

…and you compare the centre photo here with the ‘Fuse at Safety’ diagram on the left, and the ‘Fuse Live’ diagram on the right, you can see that we are safe!

Removing the fuse cylinder, on the right and below,…

…leaves us with the body of the fuse,…

…the nose, on the left, with its small brass keep screw, and, at the base, a large transit screw (right) which, when removed,…

…reveals the striker needle, highlighted in red on the diagram (showing the needle in the safe position, on the left, and live, on the right, and the striker pellet in orange), and clearly in the live position in our example, and highlighted thus in red in the right-hand photograph.  The percussion cap and detonator would be attached beneath the striker needle,…

…as seen in the diagram on the left, and the whole lot screwed into the sleeve (centre), which would itself then be screwed into the top of the body of the grenade (right),…

…rather like this,…

…and shown here on the left once inserted, the sleeve marked in green.  The body of the grenade held two and a half ounces of TNT inside a paper cylinder, and provided the whole thing landed on its head, the striker needle (still in red) would strike the percussion cap, setting off the charge in the detonator, and exploding the grenade itself.  I have highlighted the striker pellet in orange as another guide around this diagram which, once again, shows a ranging disc attached to the base of the grenade,…

…which differed from the disc used on the M13 (top left) by being concave (bottom left & right).

Contemporary British poster showing a shadowy German soldier sporting an ill-fitting stahlhelm whilst inserting the rod of an M14 into his rifle.  The cutaways are quite neat; I have marked the striker needle once again in red for reference, and you can see the concave ranging disc attached to the grenade’s base, although here it is referred to as a ‘wind vane’, its purpose ‘to ensure the grenade striking head first’.  I have a theory that too many people have taken this often-seen British poster about, let’s not forget, a German grenade as gospel over too many years and thus myth has become pseudo-fact.  This is a ranging disc – the clue’s in the name – and the fact that this disc is placed at the base of the grenade as opposed to at its head, as is the case with the M13,…

…is because placing the disc at the head of the M14 – and where, exactly, are you going to fit it – would have actively interfered with the percussive action of the grenade.

A German officer inserts a fuse into an M14 grenade, as we saw in close-up earlier.  The men on either side behind him already have M14s inserted in rifles stabilised by the use of Schießgestell (shooting frame) Model 1915 frames, and the soldier in the centre is placing a high-explosive fragmentation grenade…

…on the spigot (schießstock – shooting stick) of one of these, the Granatanwerfer (Grenade Launcher) M16.

If you look closely at the ranging disc that our officer has placed on the base of his grenade, he’s put it on upside down, despite apparently following the instruction leaflet, with diagram, that’s right in front of his nose!  Here’s how to do it properly (right).

Two German soldiers in demonstration mode.  In the top left you can see a Schießgestell M15 holding a rifle with an M14, ranging disc attached, inserted, ready for action.  The bearded soldier holds the trigger string with his right hand, whilst taking another M14 from the man in the foreground with his left.  The soldier in the foreground appears to be holding an M14 fuse in his left hand, with more in the box on the ground at his feet.

Now, I know sod all about rifles, really, but I do know that both the M13 & M14 rifle grenade were designed to be fired from the Mauser Gewehr 98 (above) rifle, used by the German Army from 1898 until the end of the Great War.

Rare photograph of a pickelhaubed German soldier inserting a blank cartridge into the chamber of his Gewehr 98, the rifle attached to a Schießgestell Model 1913 and ready to fire the M14, in this instance without a ranging disc, already loaded into its barrel.

Close-up of the previous picture (left), clearly showing the flat head of the blank cartridge, a similar shot of the chamber, bolt & bolt handle of the Gewehr 98 (centre), and a diagrammatic example of the blank cartridge (right).

On the left, a soldier inserts an M14 into the barrel of a rifle again attached to a Schießgestell M13, and on the right, another soldier prepares to fire an M14, this time using a Schießgestell M15 to stabilize the rifle.

The easiest way to differentiate between the two frames is to look for the large spring (Spiralfeder) which only appears on the 1915 model,…

…and which the man on the left is gripping in his right hand, whilst inserting an M14 with his left; note that both rifles & frames have been positioned upside down in this instance.  On the right, no fuse, no danger, to friend or foe, this picture showing the Schießgestell M13 stabilising the rifle.  And there you go, you are all Schießgestell experts now, Gold Stars all round, because, as far as I know, these were the only two models ever made.

All of which helps to explain why this photograph that we started with is another ‘fake’, should you wish to use the word, action shot, because woe betide the soldier who chose to fire the M14 from this position.

The M14 had a range of about 350 yards and, like the M13, was fitted with an eighteen-inch copper-coated rod,…

…with a copper plug and gas check at the end, the M13 rod the outer one in both photos, the M14 rod the inner.

German soldiers with M14s hunker in a bunker.  Next in this series, an overview of British rifle grenades.