F1 grenade (France)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see F1 grenade.
Fusante No.1 Grenade
From left to right: F1 with M1916 Billant fuse, F1 body, F1 with percussion fuse.
TypePercussion, time-fused grenade
Place of originFrance
Service history
In service1915–1940[1]
Used by
Wars
Production history
DesignerThuau Fils
Designed1915
Produced1915–1940 (France)
No. builtApprox. 60,000,000
Specifications
Mass530 g (19 oz), 550 g (19 oz), 570 g (20 oz), 600 g (21 oz)
trinitrotoluene
(TNT)
Filling weight60 g (2.1 oz)
Detonation
mechanism
MLE14 lighter, MLE15 percution, MLE16 percution, MLE16 Billant, MLE18 Bourny, MLE35 Bourny

The F-1 grenade is a

Second World Wars
.

Overview

The F-1 grenade was first put into mass production by the French State in 1915 during the First World War. In May 1915 the first of the F1 grenades (fusante No. 1) appeared in the French military, in limited quantities. This new weapon inherited from the experience of the first months of the war: the shape was made to be more modern, with an external grooves pattern for better grip and easier fragmentation. The second expectation proved deceptive, since the explosion in practice gave no more than 10 fragments (although the pattern was designed to split into all the 38 drawn divisions). The design was proved to be very functional, especially due to its stability compared to other grenades of the same period. Later, the Fusante No. 1 was used en masse by many foreign armies in the period 1915–1940. The F-1 grenade has been used as a basis for the development of many other grenades by different nations, including the US and the Soviet Union.

The F-1 was very widespread during the first half of the 20th century, used by armies of France, United States, Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, Finland, and others. Overall more than sixty million of these grenades were produced over 25 years, from 1915 to 1940.

Development

Postwar Soviet bloc F1 grenade

Originally, the F1 was designed to use a lighter-based ignition system, but later it began using a

F1 Grenade and American Mk 2 grenade
.

United States

The French F-1 grenade with the M1916 Billant fuse was the preferred grenade of the

U.S. Army
during World War I.

Russian Civil War

During the Russian Civil War, the F1 was both given to the

Russian F1 grenade design.[4] In Soviet folklore and colloquial speech, the grenade became a national icon of social upheaval and revolution, although not referred to as the F-1 but rather as "limonka" ([lı'mɒnkə]), 'little lemon', due to its very wide usage during the civil war and the chaotic period of the early 1920s. The origins of the Russian limonka are ambiguous and remain a subject of historical debate, with one side presenting the case that the grenade was named after its shape and familiarity to the British No. 16 lemon grenade and another suggesting that the grenade was named after its French designer, Leman.[citation needed
]

See also

References

  1. ^ Bernard Plumier (29 March 2004). "Passion & Compassion 1914-1918: WW1 militaria and technical documentation - French grenades". Passioncompassion1418.com. Retrieved 18 September 2012.
  2. ^ "Finnish Junkyard". Saunalahti.fi. Archived from the original on 7 November 2015. Retrieved 18 September 2012.
  3. ^ Murohovskij, V. I. (1992). Infantry Weaponry. Moscow: Arsenal-Press.
  4. ^ Eremeev, Yurij. "Army Anatomy". army.armor.kiev.ua. Retrieved 13 November 2014.

External links

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