WW1 British Battye Hand Grenade.

At the outset of World War I the British army did not have a standard grenade in its arsenals. While rudimentary grenades were being made and deployed early in the war, they were dangerous to users and those around them, and there was no uniformity. The Battye grenade allowed universal training and industrial production of the weapon. Hundreds of thousands were manufactured until the Battye grenade was replaced with the Mills bomb No. 5 in 1915.


The Battye grenade was designed by British Army Major B C Battye, serving with the Indian Corps at the end of 1914. This simple fragmentation grenade was designed by Major Battye in 1915. It was filled with ammonal high explosive, sealed with a wooden plug with a wick for igniting. In late 1915 it was banned from use by the British army due to numerous accidents making these surviving examples that much rarer.while these are available in Europe they seldom turn up in Australia.

INERT.
Not available for export.

Code: 804