small bombs
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What kind of "small bombs" (for use in the trenches) do they manufacture? Grenades?
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by
cyngast
moderator
Bomb and grenade seem to be terms that covered several different types of explosive devices and were used interchangeably, at least in some of the diaries.
I found this article http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/grenades.htm that explains a bit about them.
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After the "small bombs" they are now making trench mortars. Were those things not manufactured in the UK?
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ral104
moderator, scientist
The short answer is yes, they were. But I wonder whether this sort of work on a local level was making use of recycled materials. Perhaps misfires which could be used again.
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ral104
moderator, scientist
In fact, Erik, thinking about this a bit more, it's possible that they're talking about fitting fuses and so on - the bombs and trench mortar rounds would not be shipped in an armed state, so perhaps this is more a case of readying them for use rather than actually producing them from scratch.
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cyngast
moderator
Is this very early in the war? I tagged a diary from a Royal Engineers company where they were near Bethune in early 1915. One officer was tasked with creating a trench mortar from scratch. He and a sergeant kept going into Bethune to find pipe of the right size and they set up a work space just for this project in an abandoned building.
This article http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/mortars.htm says the British had no ready trench mortars when the war began.
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erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be
in response to cyngast's comment.
It's November 1914.
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ral104
moderator, scientist
Oh, in that case perhaps they are improvising weapons, then. Until the trench mortar batteries were properly established, there was a real lack of weapons which could be used in a close support role, as Cynthia says. They even ended up dusting off some old mortars from the previous century and bringing them into action. I think they were still firing spherical rounds!
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Image AWD0003u4y Here they received two trench mortar which they tested (prolonged charge?) . On December 12th they fired the trench mortars but a premature explosion stopped the firing.
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