At the outbreak of the war the European armies had supplied to their soldiers very few types of hand grenades. During the war many types of hand grenades were developed, and at the end of the war this type of weapon was the moslty used by assault troops.

The first types of fuses were soaked with red phosphorous, they were lit up by rubbing or friction on striking surfaces. Subsequently types were developed with inertial fuze, exploding upon contact with the ground. The first bombs were quite dangerous for the user, and the long delay times in the explosion, which came up to 9-10 seconds, in some cases allowed to an enemy with strong nerves to revive the bomb back.

After the war, the bombs were so evolved and perfected that with few changes were also used during the Second World War. Grenades were divided into two main types: defensive and offensive. Defensive bombs were deadly, the range of explosion could reach up to 80 meters, and splinters were mortal, so the shooter had to protect himself behind a shelter, or throw it into the enemy trench, they were made of cast iron, usually of the predetermined fragmentation type, or they were made of thin sheet of metal but filled with iron wire clippings. Offensive bombs, used by the attackers, had a light shell but a very powerful charge, their radius of action was small, no more than 15 meters, they were used to stun the opponent, leaving unharmed the pitcher.

An experienced pitcher could throw medium weighted bombs up to about 40 meters, the presence of a handle allowed longer casts, the weight of the grenades was very variable, and ranged between 300 and 1000 grams.





Were also produced rifle grenades, the most common type needed the use of external trumpets applied to the muzzle of the ordnance rifles, the second type had a shank that was inserted into the barrel of the rifles, in this case the propelled launch bullet blanks was loaded with slow-burning powder.

In the first case the normal rifle bullet passed through a tunnel of the bomb determining the ignition, then the bomb was launched from both the gas pressure of the cartridge and by a part of energy transferred from the projectile, it often happened that the projectile gets wedged into the bomb determining a tremendous recoil, while in the second case, the use of slow-burning powders and the insertion of the shank into the rifle determined a rapid deterioration of the rifling of the barrel.



