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Hey! very nice vid... I wan't to ask you something, and maybe it's a good source for a vid... Why did Allies (mostly UK) left Narvik port evacuating soldiers and equipment after the fall of france in may 1940? UK had massive naval superiority even if Regia Marina just entered war and moreon since RN crippled french navy at Mers el-Kebir. RN could keep supplying their troops while Germany would have had such a hard time moving troops on the hard terrain... and that far north Panzers and Luftwaffe wouldn't have counted much Narvik was the single most strategic point in the entire country since Germany needed to control that port in order to get the iron supplies during winter, and UK knew that... so... why removing all the soldiers on a partially secured strategic port in which your enemy can't reliably kick you out?
I bet the grenadiers stopped using the sights after a while and just point shot the way we'd shoot our 40mms when we'd gotten enough experience. You get more accurate instinct shooting than with the sights with practice, which surprised me.
@@713devereux Only as long as you didn't shoot them in the extremely uncomfortable and awkward official way that they taught us, with right hand on the mag and left hand on the tube. In the field, everybody shot them dominant hand on the pistol grip and off-hand on the magazine.
@@TheKingOfJordan1 Well they look like pita to use for one thing. It's going to take time and preparation to attach the launching device even if you don't mess with adding the sites. Then you can't use your rifle normally except at very short ranges. I suppose you could have one of the MG assistants leave one on for when it was needed but I can't see a regular rifleman being happy having all that junk on his rifle. So the most obvious reason for a surplus in my view is that they simply were not useful enough to justify all the drawbacks in most circumstances.
@@Bochi42 Rifle grenades were widely considered very useful and valuable. You are never fighting alone, so being unable to fire your rifle when everyone has bolt actions actually doesn't make that much of a difference. Rifle grenades produce a lot of casualties.
It’s actually something you hear a lot in GermNy late in the war. Let me explain: Allied bombing mostly hurt the German oil production. Since German industry is coal based, it is hardly affected. In fact production of equipments continued to increase throughout the war. The problem is in distribution, since the Germans have little fuel left to transport the products from the factory to the frontline. Combined with scattering of German industry to protect against Allied bombing, you get a huge surplus that rarely reach the frontline in a timely manner.
I don't have any reference to back this up, but my memory so take this with a pinch of salt; but i heard that in 1944 Germany reached peak production and in fact had over produced rifle ammo and other small arms.
I am so happy with the development of the histrocial and firearms related channels on TH-cam. Finally all the questions i had 8 years ago are getting answered.
That's the case for most games and media I believe... I frequently play Squad, and whenever I can I take the M203. It deals a lot of damage, so I was always surprised that it is not used more frequently. Now I believe that is a misconception due to media and games
In Vietnam the M-79 grenade launcher was that way. I soon never bothered with the sights. At night you couldn't see the sights anyway and fired by experience. Did use the trick of firing at a high elevation to get the grenade to drop down onto the target... it was a long wait for it to come back down for everybody involved.
@@aceroadholder2185 Supposedly A plastic and aluminum version of the M-79 is back in use. I just wonder if A rifle grenade would be significantly easier to put through a small window because of a flatter trajectory???
Aceroadholder - (A bit of long forgotten nostalgia) I used to love hearing the discharge report next to my position [“punnnk”] of the 40 mike mike leaving an M79 muzzle. Comforting....
@@AKlover the m79 never left service it is used by certain units still. it wouldnt suprise me that they have changed to a plastic stock and due to the lower pressure of 40mm I can see an aluminum barrel being ok to use.
the USN still uses a grenade launcher to launch a pilot line from one ship to the next while conducting an underway replenishment. (UNREP) or connected rep (CONREP) as opposed to replenishment by air via helicopter. CONREP/UNREP is the primary method to transfer fuel .
Australia uses a yellow plastic rod which slides over the barrel to the plastic furnishing, single 5.56mm blank propelling cartrige. High vis and floats for retrevial. Or as my crew called it. Homers flying dildo.
I've always wondered why pneumatic line throwers aren't more common. If they don't operate at a stupidly high pressure, they are easily refilled using the ships onboard compressor. Even if they use very high pressures, supplying a hand pump would still allow them the be reset as many times as you want. One would think it would be cheaper (especially when counting training use) and safer to a pneumatic device instead of a explosive/pyrotechnic device to fire lines across.
@@gamma7897 I mean not really, it's not like manufacturing these cartridges is especially expensive and well there really aren't any country that are lacking in rifles. What you propose would require a whole bunch of extra engineering work and more pipes running around the place while not being as flexible. This just requires a sailor with a gun and you can shoot it from anywhere at anywhere. It's not hard to figure out how to use, it's just a rifle and you can always just bring a ton of cartridges along since they aren't exactly heavy so it's not like you're ever gonna run out.
I imagine the reason why the Germans had a huge surplus of rifle grenades is due to the number of different designs they made. My book on WW2 infantry small arms said there was too many to list so only showed a dozen of their most used rifle grenades. Their little AT grenade grew in size two or three times until it resembled a panzerfaust warhead. Their HE grenades also became larger. Their surplus stocks probably was stuff that the soldiers didn't care to use once something better was now available.
I can't believe how stupid a thing that is to say. The PoV in the opening scene is from the view of a would-be assassin aiming at James Bond, but who gets killed as we all know when James Bond twists his hips suddenly and shoots directly at the viewer. So the assassin is the one that we might wonder were going to shoot James Bond with a rifle grenade. People like you is the reason we can't have nice things.
@@Lerbrandt lol. Geht's noch ein wenig melodramatischer? Kannst es nicht fassen ja? Am Boden zerstört. Tag ruiniert. Dem Selbstmord nahe. Ich hoffe die Medikamente helfen..... Heulsuse
Rifle grenades seem to be considered less glamorous than other weapons and as such have been almost completely forgotten but they are an incredibly common and handy weapon.
My favorite part of this video was the description of the explosive rifle-grenade's anatomy. I never knew the German one could also be used as hand grenades! That's so interesting.
Thank you for the in depth look at the construction and use of rifle grenades in WW2. I know that all major players in that conflict used them. But I had a good laugh a few years back when I was playing Battlefield 1 (Great war, I know) And my friend was shocked that such technology existed back then, he did not even know that was a thing in the second war.. He thought that the under barrel 'noob tubes' used in Call of Duty games were not so much as real weapons but more of a video game invention... And when he saw how I would implement my use of them in BF1, he had to concede that they were not for short range easy kills, but to sweep rooms in upper floors of buildings from the outside before storming in with the rest of the squad.. It even had the visuals of putting on the tube attachment and then screwing in the grenade, and it was not a simple button switch like COD... Do it at the wrong time and dead... These things have always fascinated me. OFC video games and real war are very different. I like the effort put into the Battlefield franchise so as to add as much realism as possible for a game. No running and gunning like you are effing John Rambo.
It's kind of sad that our main sources for learning about these tools of war are manuals, since often reality of use differs significantly from what is imagined in instructions.
@@turtlecake he is right. They have their purpose, whether its a good purpose or not is up to you to decide. The shown launcher was just used in the wrong side, sometimes violence is necessary to uphold the good. Noone is gloryfiyng war here, but Stellung the Story of what happened.
Thank you for your production of this video. I was always curious about how the rifle grenade system worked. I'm surprised that it wasn't used more and continuously improved as a versatile and inexpensive infantry weapon.
According to this article, 75 million "potato mashers" were produced in the Second World War, so the numbers of rifle grenade rounds are incredibly close. de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stielhandgranate_24
OUTSTANDING. In past years I have seen discussion on firearm forum as to the purported use of 7,92x57 cartridges with wooden bullets. The best guess was that they were used for very short range shooting instruction. That the use of the rifle grenade by Germany in the war is virtually unknown astounds me. Thank you very much for your very informative videos!
From a person interested in Firearms in general, I wonder how reliable the rifle would be in feeding multiple propellant cartridges out of the magazine, since the physical dimensions of the cartridges have the potential to be quite different from a standard bullet cartridge. I imagine that most guys preferred to simply single load cartridges or load the magazine with 5 of the same type to avoid confusion.
In the case of using rifle grenades from a semi-automatic rifle, the gas valve of the rifle is shut off to keep the rifle from cycling (if not, it would cycle very hard and possibly break), essentially turning the rifle into a 'straight-pull bolt action'. Not sure if that is exactly what you were saying, apologies if not. Have a good one.
I guess these propellant cartridges are externally identical to blanks. I'm not sure but i always assumed militaries made sure their weapons could work with blanks.
@@peterthepeter7523 No, when blanks are used in training special muzzle devices called "blank firing adapters" are used (they look like yellow muzzle brakes on the end of the barrel). These allow blanks to function semi or fully automatically to give more realistic training. Without these, blanks aren't strong enough to cycle the action but they still feed from the magazine just fine regardless. Rifle grenades usually don't use a blank, but a higher power version specifically for projecting rifle grenades (although some rifle grenades designs use live rounds actually.
@@sillygoose210_6 this rifle grenade was meant to go on the bolt-action rifle so no special muzzle device is needed. I said that propellant cartridges were probably EXTERNALLY identical to blanks. Because blanks are mostly empty and you can just add more gunpowder in them. The question was about how these blanks work with magazines. That i don't know but they somehow do.
The Kummersdorf range tests give a maximum penetration of up to 89mm. @ 0 degrees @ Up to maximum range firing both Pg.46 and the later PzB.39 launched Pg.61 version. In 1941 this was more than adequate for success against most enemy aFV's expected to bee encountered by infantry. There was also the PzB.39 grenade launcher modified with a shorter barrel and equipped with the same grenade launcher cup installed as the Kar.98. These had a higher velocity, greater range (up to 600 metres) and improved accuracy versus AFV targets, offering a more effective infantry anti-tank capability than the usual anti-tank rifle. The PzB.39 grenade launcher was first used in the invasion of Crete in 1941, where it proved to be of little use against British Matilda II tanks defending the airfield. However against the more commonly encountered Soviet AFV's, during the invasion of Russia, it proved to be more effective.
The French army still uses rifle grenades on their FAMAS, they even have a bullet catcher allowing you to shoot greanades with a live bullet round instead of a blank (Although you have to be pretty mental to find shooting into an explosive at the end of your barrel with a bullet anywhere near safe) You don't even need extra equipement, every FAMAS has an ajustable range ring on the barrel specifiaclly for rifle grenades
Great to see this from a German himself. I've talked with Germans who are very reluctant to discuss ANYthing from WWII. It's objective history now, very few people alive now had any part in what happened.
mate it looks like you're examining the rifle inside a hotel room - what kind of black market deal did you do for this video? thats some true commitment
the modern M34 white phosphorous grenade (US) is still manufactured with an indented ring at the base to attach a grenade launching adapter onto it so it can be fired from the muzzle of an M-16 series rifle with a blank round. Partially because the grenade itself could produce casualties in a radius further than it could be thrown.
More or less the same system is still in service with some police departments in Switzerland to launch rubber shot or gas grenades. The Becher is welded to a K-31 Karabiner, but otherwise the system is exactly the same. It‘s called MZW (Mehrzweckwerfer/ Multi Purpose Launcher)
I think at some point you say "eighty-nine" instead of "ninety-eight" for "acht-und-neunzig", to designate the short carabine. Very interesting video as often!
I'm curious why they didn't ship tons of these things to every defensive position, since the quantities imply that they had more of these than food by the time they were fully on the defensive. It would go a long way towards discouraging flammenwaffers from roasting your beans. If fired in volleys, it would have completely changed advances and withdrawals by teams. I suppose the main disadvantage was the fast arming distance, which would make frantic grenade spam in wooded terrain a bad idea.
6:11 - "The use of a regular bullet results in a bursting barrel and is prohibited." this is such a better warning than "don't do it" because it tells you what happens if you're curious. Oh, and it's prohibited.
5:34 was expecting something along the lines of "each type of grenade is packed with the proper propelling cartridge wrapped with a paper strip, and packed in a cardboard packing case with a smiley face"
It'd be interesting to see your take on the British WW1 versions - rod and cup launchers for the standard hand grenade. The early SMLEs also had a "magazine cutoff". This is a plate that swings in and out to cover the magazine so single rounds can be loaded when rapid fire wasn't required, or for loading grenade propellant cartridges.
thank you for this very informativ Video. i actualy metaldetected a Schießbecher at a earlier German ammunition depot in Norway. it cleaned up very well was heavy rusted now stainless.
I just started reading "The Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger (Original 1929 Translation) and there are a bunch of new military words I have never heard of! So your video just pop up on my recommended list :P Thanks.
you might want to check my Stormtrooper Tactics video and maybe also our book, which has the German original on one side and our translation on the other: www.hdv470-7.com although it is WW2.
i always love video like such, there's a lot videos about Me262, Bf109, Fw190, Hetzer, Luch, Panther, Tiger, Panzer38t, mortar & artillery, antitank weapon and antitank guns.. but no one really talks about things like rifle grenade (i actually thought rifle grenade played a big role in WW1, but artillery, mortar & hand grenade replaced them) hope to see more ^^
it sucked for the peopel in the tank, and it sucked for the germans. in general, the firefly is overkill for the western front. it can't easily pen the panther's front plate easily anyway, and there were no tigers on the western front. and for any panzer 4s, the regualr 75 was enough
Good video as usual! However, I think you failed to fully answer the question you posed in the title. It would have been interesting to hear what the real-life impact of the weapon was on the battlefield. You did quote the regulations and explained what the idea was behind the Schießbecher (theory), but the actual impact (practice) would have been nice as a contrast :-)
I always wondered Why the hell just not mount it on the side or underneath? They had caps (Think of musket caps) How hard is it to make something simpler
Do you have the information about the individual types of grenades? I would like to know more about their intended usages and area of effect. Particularly how much armour the anti tank grenade was rated for
I have a B block DOU 44 K98K and it has oxidation on the wood indicating it was equipped with the rifle grenade sight for some time. Been thinking about grabbing a rifle grenade kit for it a little bit since i've gotten it. Finding repro inert grenades and the properly powered blanks would be a challenge tho. This reminds me of the shootout episode on the history channel for the opening battle of the bulge where a US MG team was holding german infantry assaults back and one of our guys took a rifle grenade hit to the face but the fuze failed. The grenade was fired ig at a high angle because it landed in the GI jaw. Hopefully he survived the war (after being taken prisoner) and got some reconstruction surgery to be able to have some normal function again.
There is one think lacking in this video - any usefull comparison on the end. F. eg. with amount of produced hand grenades. Or somethink like that. But othervise - great vid. Like always.
thank you so much for that last bit... I was researching why production was discontinued, and your explanation makes a lot of sense. I was wondering if it was discontinued because of the adoption of the Panzerschreck/Faust but that would only have made sense for the anti-tank capability. The PzSchreck and PzFaust could also have been used against non-armoured targets but as far as I know, no HE anti-infantry grenades were produced as they had been for the rifle grenade launchers.
I have the same question myself. Must be something like anti-thin-skin-car, anti-tommy, anti-T34, anti-KV, anti-bunker, anti-bunker-with-ammo-inside, anti-bunker-with-a-general-inside....
Germans not standardizing their gear has been a meme for quite some time. its just sad, i imagine the average Hans trying to remember what the color on his rifle grenade means...
@Astir01 i dont know if you found this in a period document or approach it with your common sense but as far as i remember, there were no dedicated "grenadiers" in the average German squad as there were in the American, at least based on the manuals. what you say makes sense with our modern understanding, but history didnt always work that way
@Astir01 ok that makes more sense. i remember this channel's video on the German squads not mentioning grenadiers, but this was probably about the later part of the war
So much more to cover on this subject. There were many models of the anti personnel projectile. There were many versions of the lifting charge including a crimped blank. I have never seen a wood blank paired in anyway with the rifle grenades but i suppose its possible. Not all could be used as hand grenades, there were at least two distinct models of the hand grenade type. One used a separate pull ball which was a small hollow bakelite bead and the other used the base as the pull ball. Also the delay pellet on the base was only found on early models. The activation of the impact fuse was achieved by a weighted disc and an expanding spring which was simple and kinda neat. In interviews with various german vets over the years several had used the Schießbecher but all said they never used it in combat. They basically just had it around and would hold shooting competitions with them in their downtime but found the whole thing sorta useless in combat. This is antidotal but still interesting that such waste of ammunition seemed to have been somewhat tolerated in this case. Perhaps cover the various grenades created for the flare pistol and later z pistol. There are a fascinating array for those and their uses were equally interesting. Plus theres something neat about a pistol sized grenade launcher. Some of the early ones were designed to detonate on a string after only a few meters as they were for tank crews to clear there vehicle of infantry. Very interesting stuff. For future ordnance videos look me up prior, I've done extensive detailed research on many types of german ordnance to help create reproductions and movie props. War's End Shop
For visual reference: in the Tv mini-series "Band of Brothers," in the "Replacements," one of the men takes out the German MG-42 position, located on a rooftop, with a rifle grenade. From a not so good movie, "The Battle of the Bulge (1965)" there's a scene just after the first German tanks are spotted, where the American infantry only has machineguns and riflegrenades to try and stop the enemy advance. The soldier using the rifle grenade tries to hit the top of the German tanks, probably because that's the only place where a rifle grenade would be able to cause any damage to a tank.
The Germans developed a break action grenade launcher based on the stock of the Kar 98K, shortened to 72.5 cm and with the barrel of the signal pistol added to the front of the stock. It fired the same explosive cartridges designed for the converted flair pistol (Kampfpistole). This conversion superficially resembles an M79. Source: Uniforms and Traditions of the German Army 1933-1945, Vol 3, page 357-8, by John R. Angolia and Adolf Schlicht.
I always thought it was ridiculous that they take out that Machine Gun Nest in the movie Stalingrad with a stick grenade when a rifle grenade would be much more efficacious
Several years ago I bought a reproduction of the launcher, but I never really looked into it. The reason I got it was because I had never seen one before, and I wanted it for my German impression. The only difference between mine and an original is that mine is smooth bore.
Why run out of cover to put a grenade in a fighting position when you can shoot it? This concept sounds foreign but its the precursor to modern grenade launchers on a rifle, which became the precursor to the multi round grenade launchers.
How well would the launcher work on the Stg. 44 given it fires a smaller cartridge? Did they manage to come up with a propelling charge with comparable performance to the larger original?
Not a problem. In the 8mm Mauser the cartridge contained only small proportion of the powder in a regular round. There was plenty of room in the short Stg. 44 case for the powder.
Can you explain why so few rifle granade dischargers were issued to the front? I can imagine that they would have been invaluable for infantry units against the huge masses of soviet tanks on the eastern front.
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>> ERRORS & CORRECTIONS
Also you refer to a Karrabiner 89k, and show a 98k in the video. Were the 89k kept in service for the grenade launching? Or is this a slip?
Hey! very nice vid... I wan't to ask you something, and maybe it's a good source for a vid...
Why did Allies (mostly UK) left Narvik port evacuating soldiers and equipment after the fall of france in may 1940?
UK had massive naval superiority even if Regia Marina just entered war and moreon since RN crippled french navy at Mers el-Kebir.
RN could keep supplying their troops while Germany would have had such a hard time moving troops on the hard terrain... and that far north Panzers and Luftwaffe wouldn't have counted much
Narvik was the single most strategic point in the entire country since Germany needed to control that port in order to get the iron supplies during winter, and UK knew that... so... why removing all the soldiers on a partially secured strategic port in which your enemy can't reliably kick you out?
10:40 > Gewehrsprenggrante
_FAIL,_ "Hans bring mir den Spellungsprüfer"
These designs are developed after the French ww1 Rifle grenades the mechanism is exactly the same
Mortars hate him! Find out how he turned his rifle into an infantry support weapon with this one weird trick....
Hahaha... Atleast it isnt click bait.
I bet the grenadiers stopped using the sights after a while and just point shot the way we'd shoot our 40mms when we'd gotten enough experience. You get more accurate instinct shooting than with the sights with practice, which surprised me.
The human brain is a heuristic prediction engine with the ballistics package add on.
@@kokofan50 Prolly an extension that got added on over a long period of time once throwing stuff got important for gettin' food.
In was in the army back in late 80s I got pretty good with M-203. They were fun to shoot.
ahh so deadeye?
@@713devereux Only as long as you didn't shoot them in the extremely uncomfortable and awkward official way that they taught us, with right hand on the mag and left hand on the tube. In the field, everybody shot them dominant hand on the pistol grip and off-hand on the magazine.
HANS! Take out your Sprenggranate!
HANS! Why is your Sprenggranate vibrating?!
Schnell schnell Klaus, it's expoding soon!
Klaus, kan't u trive any faster!
Klaus! I'm schiessing my pants!
HANS! no my sprenggranate dosnt vibrate its buzzing
"Uh, oh, I better warn my Frau."
@@Kleinalrik would be like throwing a sausage down a hallway after that whole ordeal.
13:45 Something you almost never hear about German Wartime Manufacturing; Huge Surpluses!
Yeah I wonder why there was such a surplus in 1944, maybe just from lack of training time for new soldiers?
@@TheKingOfJordan1 Well they look like pita to use for one thing. It's going to take time and preparation to attach the launching device even if you don't mess with adding the sites. Then you can't use your rifle normally except at very short ranges. I suppose you could have one of the MG assistants leave one on for when it was needed but I can't see a regular rifleman being happy having all that junk on his rifle. So the most obvious reason for a surplus in my view is that they simply were not useful enough to justify all the drawbacks in most circumstances.
@@Bochi42 Rifle grenades were widely considered very useful and valuable. You are never fighting alone, so being unable to fire your rifle when everyone has bolt actions actually doesn't make that much of a difference. Rifle grenades produce a lot of casualties.
It’s actually something you hear a lot in GermNy late in the war. Let me explain:
Allied bombing mostly hurt the German oil production. Since German industry is coal based, it is hardly affected. In fact production of equipments continued to increase throughout the war. The problem is in distribution, since the Germans have little fuel left to transport the products from the factory to the frontline.
Combined with scattering of German industry to protect against Allied bombing, you get a huge surplus that rarely reach the frontline in a timely manner.
I don't have any reference to back this up, but my memory so take this with a pinch of salt; but i heard that in 1944 Germany reached peak production and in fact had over produced rifle ammo and other small arms.
_"Becauze zometimes Ivan iz further than you kan throw a grenade"_ - Hans
"Because sometimes Ivan itz furzer zan you kan srow a jernade"
> furzer
LOL
@@achtsekundenfurz7876 only germans will understand....
Denn Ivan ist oft da druben.
Get stronk for making farther of throwing grenade!
I am so happy with the development of the histrocial and firearms related channels on TH-cam. Finally all the questions i had 8 years ago are getting answered.
4:13 "Friendly break-in" sounds like the overbearing in-laws are coming to visit for Christmas.
Nah thats a hostline formation at the gates.
More like you best friend
He translated it wrong though. german says "feindlichen Einbruches" which translates to enemy break-in
@@Hirosjimma I know. That's why I poke fun at the translation.
Considering how many rifle grenade launchers where assigned to squads (two per US rifle squad), you rarely see them used in movies.
or games.
@@stayhungry1503 Sadly. The only show where they get used quite a lot is in Band of Brothers by the US side
@@stayhungry1503 i used to seem them a lot in games but lately they just seem to have dissapeared
That's the case for most games and media I believe... I frequently play Squad, and whenever I can I take the M203. It deals a lot of damage, so I was always surprised that it is not used more frequently. Now I believe that is a misconception due to media and games
@@woutverjans2928 one game that they were in, and where i first learned about them was the close combat series! great games.
Seems like after a few practice rounds spread over a few sessions the sight itself wouldn't have been needed, just the launching cup.
In Vietnam the M-79 grenade launcher was that way. I soon never bothered with the sights. At night you couldn't see the sights anyway and fired by experience. Did use the trick of firing at a high elevation to get the grenade to drop down onto the target... it was a long wait for it to come back down for everybody involved.
@@aceroadholder2185 Supposedly A plastic and aluminum version of the M-79 is back in use. I just wonder if A rifle grenade would be significantly easier to put through a small window because of a flatter trajectory???
@@AKlover I could put an M-79 grenade into a shoe box at 150 meters without sights. It is a very easy weapon to master.
Aceroadholder - (A bit of long forgotten nostalgia) I used to love hearing the discharge report next to my position [“punnnk”] of the 40 mike mike leaving an M79 muzzle. Comforting....
@@AKlover the m79 never left service it is used by certain units still. it wouldnt suprise me that they have changed to a plastic stock and due to the lower pressure of 40mm I can see an aluminum barrel being ok to use.
the USN still uses a grenade launcher to launch a pilot line from one ship to the next while conducting an underway replenishment. (UNREP) or connected rep (CONREP) as opposed to replenishment by air via helicopter. CONREP/UNREP is the primary method to transfer fuel .
Most other navies also use the same method.
Australia uses a yellow plastic rod which slides over the barrel to the plastic furnishing, single 5.56mm blank propelling cartrige.
High vis and floats for retrevial.
Or as my crew called it. Homers flying dildo.
I've always wondered why pneumatic line throwers aren't more common. If they don't operate at a stupidly high pressure, they are easily refilled using the ships onboard compressor. Even if they use very high pressures, supplying a hand pump would still allow them the be reset as many times as you want. One would think it would be cheaper (especially when counting training use) and safer to a pneumatic device instead of a explosive/pyrotechnic device to fire lines across.
And finland uses them too! RK 95 has cabability to launch HE and AP grenades
@@gamma7897 I mean not really, it's not like manufacturing these cartridges is especially expensive and well there really aren't any country that are lacking in rifles. What you propose would require a whole bunch of extra engineering work and more pipes running around the place while not being as flexible. This just requires a sailor with a gun and you can shoot it from anywhere at anywhere. It's not hard to figure out how to use, it's just a rifle and you can always just bring a ton of cartridges along since they aren't exactly heavy so it's not like you're ever gonna run out.
I imagine the reason why the Germans had a huge surplus of rifle grenades is due to the number of different designs they made. My book on WW2 infantry small arms said there was too many to list so only showed a dozen of their most used rifle grenades. Their little AT grenade grew in size two or three times until it resembled a panzerfaust warhead. Their HE grenades also became larger. Their surplus stocks probably was stuff that the soldiers didn't care to use once something better was now available.
The rifling makes you wonder whether james bond actually shot the guys in in the opening titles with a rifle grenade instead of ppk
A spy with a license to (over)kill. 😎👍
Dun dun! DUUNNNN
Dun dun! DUUNNNN
Dudud dududun!
DUNN DUNN DUNN DUUUNNN
I can't believe how stupid a thing that is to say. The PoV in the opening scene is from the view of a would-be assassin aiming at James Bond, but who gets killed as we all know when James Bond twists his hips suddenly and shoots directly at the viewer. So the assassin is the one that we might wonder were going to shoot James Bond with a rifle grenade.
People like you is the reason we can't have nice things.
@@Lerbrandt lol. Geht's noch ein wenig melodramatischer? Kannst es nicht fassen ja? Am Boden zerstört. Tag ruiniert. Dem Selbstmord nahe. Ich hoffe die Medikamente helfen..... Heulsuse
@@spot1401 Wäre für uns lustiger gewesen wenn Du deine Antwort auf Englisch geschrieben hättest.
Rifle grenades seem to be considered less glamorous than other weapons and as such have been almost completely forgotten but they are an incredibly common and handy weapon.
My favorite part of this video was the description of the explosive rifle-grenade's anatomy. I never knew the German one could also be used as hand grenades! That's so interesting.
It wouldn't be WW2 German military if they didn't overcomplicate something to account for some odd cases and scenarios.
I really love the passion for weaponry inside this video.kudos man! You deserve a million more subscribers
The amount of ammo/artillery expended during the world wars is truly mind blowing! Also very cool I've never heard of the rifle.grenades before!
How to use the weapon according to the regulations.
Thats very very German.
Exploding your gun in your face is prohibited
@@joestevenson5568 Any German soldier who hurt himself to get out of doing his duty would have been shot.
Yep, better shoot the ennemy, than your owen soldier comrades
Germans were not allowed to die, but many broke the rules. True rebels.
Thank you for the in depth look at the construction and use of rifle grenades in WW2. I know that all major players in that conflict used them. But I had a good laugh a few years back when I was playing Battlefield 1 (Great war, I know) And my friend was shocked that such technology existed back then, he did not even know that was a thing in the second war.. He thought that the under barrel 'noob tubes' used in Call of Duty games were not so much as real weapons but more of a video game invention... And when he saw how I would implement my use of them in BF1, he had to concede that they were not for short range easy kills, but to sweep rooms in upper floors of buildings from the outside before storming in with the rest of the squad.. It even had the visuals of putting on the tube attachment and then screwing in the grenade, and it was not a simple button switch like COD... Do it at the wrong time and dead... These things have always fascinated me. OFC video games and real war are very different. I like the effort put into the Battlefield franchise so as to add as much realism as possible for a game. No running and gunning like you are effing John Rambo.
It's kind of sad that our main sources for learning about these tools of war are manuals, since often reality of use differs significantly from what is imagined in instructions.
@@julianshepherd2038
Tools have their purpose, coward.
@@turtlecake he is right. They have their purpose, whether its a good purpose or not is up to you to decide. The shown launcher was just used in the wrong side, sometimes violence is necessary to uphold the good. Noone is gloryfiyng war here, but Stellung the Story of what happened.
"Wrong side".
Delusional fool.
@@turtlecake i wouldnt say its actively gloryfiying war, but i still dont agree with his choice of words or opinion.
@@harukasaigusa8906 did YOU serve. If not, STFU because you are ALL talk.
Thank you for your production of this video. I was always curious about how the rifle grenade system worked. I'm surprised that it wasn't used more and continuously improved as a versatile and inexpensive infantry weapon.
Out of curiosity, if around 67 million rifle grenades were manufactured: Any idea how many stick hand grenades were manufactured for comparison?
I just heard that the English used Acid rounds
random fact
Also when you get the answer
(If you do)
I will too
According to this article, 75 million "potato mashers" were produced in the Second World War, so the numbers of rifle grenade rounds are incredibly close. de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stielhandgranate_24
@Mialisus Tank shells bro
5
Most built grenade was the Eihandgranate m39 at 84 million pieces.
OUTSTANDING. In past years I have seen discussion on firearm forum as to the purported use of 7,92x57 cartridges with wooden bullets. The best guess was that they were used for very short range shooting instruction. That the use of the rifle grenade by Germany in the war is virtually unknown astounds me.
Thank you very much for your very informative videos!
From a person interested in Firearms in general, I wonder how reliable the rifle would be in feeding multiple propellant cartridges out of the magazine, since the physical dimensions of the cartridges have the potential to be quite different from a standard bullet cartridge. I imagine that most guys preferred to simply single load cartridges or load the magazine with 5 of the same type to avoid confusion.
In the case of using rifle grenades from a semi-automatic rifle, the gas valve of the rifle is shut off to keep the rifle from cycling (if not, it would cycle very hard and possibly break), essentially turning the rifle into a 'straight-pull bolt action'.
Not sure if that is exactly what you were saying, apologies if not. Have a good one.
I guess these propellant cartridges are externally identical to blanks. I'm not sure but i always assumed militaries made sure their weapons could work with blanks.
@@peterthepeter7523 No, when blanks are used in training special muzzle devices called "blank firing adapters" are used (they look like yellow muzzle brakes on the end of the barrel). These allow blanks to function semi or fully automatically to give more realistic training. Without these, blanks aren't strong enough to cycle the action but they still feed from the magazine just fine regardless. Rifle grenades usually don't use a blank, but a higher power version specifically for projecting rifle grenades (although some rifle grenades designs use live rounds actually.
@@zeburancher9480 Was mostly referring to the use of the cartridges in a bolt action 98k. I'm aware of how it works in a semi-auto already.
@@sillygoose210_6 this rifle grenade was meant to go on the bolt-action rifle so no special muzzle device is needed.
I said that propellant cartridges were probably EXTERNALLY identical to blanks. Because blanks are mostly empty and you can just add more gunpowder in them.
The question was about how these blanks work with magazines. That i don't know but they somehow do.
A very interesting video. I am particularly impressed with the simplicity of the aiming device.
The Kummersdorf range tests give a maximum penetration of up to 89mm. @ 0 degrees @ Up to maximum range firing both Pg.46 and the later PzB.39 launched Pg.61 version. In 1941 this was more than adequate for success against most enemy aFV's expected to bee encountered by infantry.
There was also the PzB.39 grenade launcher modified with a shorter barrel and equipped with the same grenade launcher cup installed as the Kar.98. These had a higher velocity, greater range (up to 600 metres) and improved accuracy versus AFV targets, offering a more effective infantry anti-tank capability than the usual anti-tank rifle. The PzB.39 grenade launcher was first used in the invasion of Crete in 1941, where it proved to be of little use against British Matilda II tanks defending the airfield. However against the more commonly encountered Soviet AFV's, during the invasion of Russia, it proved to be more effective.
The French army still uses rifle grenades on their FAMAS, they even have a bullet catcher allowing you to shoot greanades with a live bullet round instead of a blank (Although you have to be pretty mental to find shooting into an explosive at the end of your barrel with a bullet anywhere near safe)
You don't even need extra equipement, every FAMAS has an ajustable range ring on the barrel specifiaclly for rifle grenades
Beautiful pieces of firearm history, thanks for sharing your knowledge and Toys
This is a great video, I never realized how far rifle grenades went until I started researching, they really lob them out there.
Great to see this from a German himself. I've talked with Germans who are very reluctant to discuss ANYthing from WWII. It's objective history now, very few people alive now had any part in what happened.
Thank you. Best coverage I have encountered of rifle grenade use and design/engineering details.
Gonna be another great video!
mate it looks like you're examining the rifle inside a hotel room - what kind of black market deal did you do for this video? thats some true commitment
the modern M34 white phosphorous grenade (US) is still manufactured with an indented ring at the base to attach a grenade launching adapter onto it so it can be fired from the muzzle of an M-16 series rifle with a blank round.
Partially because the grenade itself could produce casualties in a radius further than it could be thrown.
Sometimes you just really want to explode that third story window.
More or less the same system is still in service with some police departments in Switzerland to launch rubber shot or gas grenades. The Becher is welded to a K-31 Karabiner, but otherwise the system is exactly the same. It‘s called MZW (Mehrzweckwerfer/ Multi Purpose Launcher)
Really nice Informative video!
Did you see any mention on why so many rifle grenade launchers had been left in inventory and not issued to the troops?
I think at some point you say "eighty-nine" instead of "ninety-eight" for "acht-und-neunzig", to designate the short carabine.
Very interesting video as often!
dutch has this mistake in the language as well.. you have no idea how many measurements and phone numbers i have screwed up because of this..
Excellent. *Vade* uses these often in his WW2 game.
I'm curious why they didn't ship tons of these things to every defensive position, since the quantities imply that they had more of these than food by the time they were fully on the defensive. It would go a long way towards discouraging flammenwaffers from roasting your beans. If fired in volleys, it would have completely changed advances and withdrawals by teams. I suppose the main disadvantage was the fast arming distance, which would make frantic grenade spam in wooded terrain a bad idea.
I love your accent, it's like i don't know what you're saying but at the same time i understand it perfectly
3:18 - be honest, did you use that to later film your own James Bond intro?
I love how nice all of the gun nuts on TH-cam are. You guys awesome :)
6:11 - "The use of a regular bullet results in a bursting barrel and is prohibited."
this is such a better warning than "don't do it" because it tells you what happens if you're curious.
Oh, and it's prohibited.
5:34 was expecting something along the lines of "each type of grenade is packed with the proper propelling cartridge wrapped with a paper strip, and packed in a cardboard packing case with a smiley face"
They sure aren't forgotten in multi-player war themed video games. Rifle grenades and underbarreled grenade launchers are iconic in FPS shooters.
I love how the disclaimer is put there like he's advertising the sale of the rifle grenades.
Very informative; I had not heard of any German rifle grenades for WWII. Very cool that they could double as a hand-delivered.
It'd be interesting to see your take on the British WW1 versions - rod and cup launchers for the standard hand grenade.
The early SMLEs also had a "magazine cutoff". This is a plate that swings in and out to cover the magazine so single rounds can be loaded when rapid fire wasn't required, or for loading grenade propellant cartridges.
Sehr gute Arbeit. Danke
thank you for this very informativ Video. i actualy metaldetected a Schießbecher at a earlier German ammunition depot in Norway. it cleaned up very well was heavy rusted now stainless.
I just started reading "The Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger (Original 1929 Translation) and there are a bunch of new military words I have never heard of!
So your video just pop up on my recommended list :P
Thanks.
you might want to check my Stormtrooper Tactics video and maybe also our book, which has the German original on one side and our translation on the other: www.hdv470-7.com although it is WW2.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Thanks I will check it out and add it to my list on Goodreads :)
It's really interesting to see a very different form of rifling for rifle grenades
Danke für dieses Video! 😃👍🏻
Sehr interessant...wieder was gelernt.
Bist du gerettet ?
I play Beyond the Wire as a grenadier once, and now I am recommended this.
I was hoping you would cover all the different types of projectiles
i always love video like such,
there's a lot videos about
Me262, Bf109, Fw190, Hetzer, Luch, Panther, Tiger, Panzer38t, mortar & artillery, antitank weapon and antitank guns..
but no one really talks about things like rifle grenade (i actually thought rifle grenade played a big role in WW1, but artillery, mortar & hand grenade replaced them)
hope to see more ^^
Dear Military History Visualized,
I appreciate your videos and was wondering if you could do an analysis of the Sherman Firefly.
Yours kindly
Mr Wan
it sucked for the peopel in the tank, and it sucked for the germans.
in general, the firefly is overkill for the western front. it can't easily pen the panther's front plate easily anyway, and there were no tigers on the western front. and for any panzer 4s, the regualr 75 was enough
I remember reading somewhere that armies do not use rife grenades any more because it is bad for the barrels
I love that you covered these, I know they covered the American ones on InRangeTV
And my 2nd question is;
What if you use a regular cartridge instead of a propelling cartridge? Will it explode at the rifle?
Most likely. As mentioned, the arming of the grenade was only two meters from launch. So it seems the arming fuze was quite sensitive.
He cites at some point that ‘it will lead to a burst barrel’, so yes, it will explode
Yes, definately . The only question is does it kill just you or how many of your buddies that are around you.
roger white I suppose it would explode like a regular fragmentation grenade
EXCELLENT! Thanks for the information. Job well done.
What was the reason for preferring rifling instead of, say, fins for the projectiles (question applies to the nebelwerfer as well).
Good video as usual! However, I think you failed to fully answer the question you posed in the title. It would have been interesting to hear what the real-life impact of the weapon was on the battlefield. You did quote the regulations and explained what the idea was behind the Schießbecher (theory), but the actual impact (practice) would have been nice as a contrast :-)
The way he says grooves makes me think he'd be a good dj
I always wondered
Why the hell just not mount it on the side
or underneath?
They had caps (Think of musket caps)
How hard is it to make something simpler
Then again
No one wants to use 1940's explosives
Give yourself some space (End of rifle)
Excellent presentation.
Do you have the information about the individual types of grenades? I would like to know more about their intended usages and area of effect. Particularly how much armour the anti tank grenade was rated for
I wonder if it wouldve been possible to have a 2 rifle version which uses another rifle for extra range or to fire a larger grenade
Neat. I have some of the Austrian WWI rifle grenade stuff and a relic condition WWII Schiessbecher.
Great video to watch while I paint my Flames of War Panzergrens
Any idea how these were issued at the Squad/Platoon level? Particularly post 1943 for the Grenadiers and Fallschirmjagers?
I've always wondered about this. It's not a bad idea at all, given the user is competent.
I wonder what happened if a normal round shot through the back, would it just cause injury from the barrel blowing up or worse...
I have a B block DOU 44 K98K and it has oxidation on the wood indicating it was equipped with the rifle grenade sight for some time. Been thinking about grabbing a rifle grenade kit for it a little bit since i've gotten it. Finding repro inert grenades and the properly powered blanks would be a challenge tho.
This reminds me of the shootout episode on the history channel for the opening battle of the bulge where a US MG team was holding german infantry assaults back and one of our guys took a rifle grenade hit to the face but the fuze failed. The grenade was fired ig at a high angle because it landed in the GI jaw. Hopefully he survived the war (after being taken prisoner) and got some reconstruction surgery to be able to have some normal function again.
How many rifle grenade discharges would be issued per squad?
Most excellent presentation.
Sehr gutes Video!!
Excellent footage!
Very informative and precise thank you
Nobody:
Military History Visualized: Time to take a look at...
There is one think lacking in this video - any usefull comparison on the end. F. eg. with amount of produced hand grenades. Or somethink like that. But othervise - great vid. Like always.
thank you so much for that last bit... I was researching why production was discontinued, and your explanation makes a lot of sense. I was wondering if it was discontinued because of the adoption of the Panzerschreck/Faust but that would only have made sense for the anti-tank capability. The PzSchreck and PzFaust could also have been used against non-armoured targets but as far as I know, no HE anti-infantry grenades were produced as they had been for the rifle grenade launchers.
WHAT WERE THE OTHER 14 TYPES OF RIFLE GRENADES?!?!?
I have the same question myself. Must be something like anti-thin-skin-car, anti-tommy, anti-T34, anti-KV, anti-bunker, anti-bunker-with-ammo-inside, anti-bunker-with-a-general-inside....
Germans not standardizing their gear has been a meme for quite some time. its just sad, i imagine the average Hans trying to remember what the color on his rifle grenade means...
@Astir01 i dont know if you found this in a period document or approach it with your common sense but as far as i remember, there were no dedicated "grenadiers" in the average German squad as there were in the American, at least based on the manuals. what you say makes sense with our modern understanding, but history didnt always work that way
@Astir01 ok that makes more sense. i remember this channel's video on the German squads not mentioning grenadiers, but this was probably about the later part of the war
They had so many surplus grenades because someone got the wrong memo, and built 60 million confetti grenades.
So much more to cover on this subject. There were many models of the anti personnel projectile. There were many versions of the lifting charge including a crimped blank. I have never seen a wood blank paired in anyway with the rifle grenades but i suppose its possible. Not all could be used as hand grenades, there were at least two distinct models of the hand grenade type. One used a separate pull ball which was a small hollow bakelite bead and the other used the base as the pull ball. Also the delay pellet on the base was only found on early models. The activation of the impact fuse was achieved by a weighted disc and an expanding spring which was simple and kinda neat. In interviews with various german vets over the years several had used the Schießbecher but all said they never used it in combat. They basically just had it around and would hold shooting competitions with them in their downtime but found the whole thing sorta useless in combat. This is antidotal but still interesting that such waste of ammunition seemed to have been somewhat tolerated in this case.
Perhaps cover the various grenades created for the flare pistol and later z pistol. There are a fascinating array for those and their uses were equally interesting. Plus theres something neat about a pistol sized grenade launcher. Some of the early ones were designed to detonate on a string after only a few meters as they were for tank crews to clear there vehicle of infantry. Very interesting stuff. For future ordnance videos look me up prior, I've done extensive detailed research on many types of german ordnance to help create reproductions and movie props. War's End Shop
For visual reference: in the Tv mini-series "Band of Brothers," in the "Replacements," one of the men takes out the German MG-42 position, located on a rooftop, with a rifle grenade.
From a not so good movie, "The Battle of the Bulge (1965)" there's a scene just after the first German tanks are spotted, where the American infantry only has machineguns and riflegrenades to try and stop the enemy advance. The soldier using the rifle grenade tries to hit the top of the German tanks, probably because that's the only place where a rifle grenade would be able to cause any damage to a tank.
Hi, why were so many of these weapons still in the depot and not issued to the soldiers?
I'm curious, when did the hand held Grenade launcher, aka the M79 style launcher, get developed? Was the M79 actually the first of the breed?
The Germans developed a break action grenade launcher based on the stock of the Kar 98K, shortened to 72.5 cm and with the barrel of the signal pistol added to the front of the stock. It fired the same explosive cartridges designed for the converted flair pistol (Kampfpistole). This conversion superficially resembles an M79.
Source: Uniforms and Traditions of the German Army 1933-1945, Vol 3, page 357-8, by John R. Angolia and Adolf Schlicht.
I always thought it was ridiculous that they take out that Machine Gun Nest in the movie Stalingrad with a stick grenade when a rifle grenade would be much more efficacious
can you derive any numeric information concerning the efficacy of shaped charge rifle grenades against any kind of targets?
Several years ago I bought a reproduction of the launcher, but I never really looked into it. The reason I got it was because I had never seen one before, and I wanted it for my German impression. The only difference between mine and an original is that mine is smooth bore.
Did one or more squad/team members have his rifle permanently set up for grenades? Or was it something that was ordered when needed?
Did they make new propellant casings for 7.92K with the MP44?
Why run out of cover to put a grenade in a fighting position when you can shoot it? This concept sounds foreign but its the precursor to modern grenade launchers on a rifle, which became the precursor to the multi round grenade launchers.
How well would the launcher work on the Stg. 44 given it fires a smaller cartridge? Did they manage to come up with a propelling charge with comparable performance to the larger original?
Not a problem. In the 8mm Mauser the cartridge contained only small proportion of the powder in a regular round. There was plenty of room in the short Stg. 44 case for the powder.
How deadly was the Spreng-granate against infantry ?
Can you explain why so few rifle granade dischargers were issued to the front?
I can imagine that they would have been invaluable for infantry units against the huge masses of soviet tanks on the eastern front.
Wait, why was the light mortar scrapped?
This presentation rocks!