Nasty Horrid Rusty Things That Went BOOM

[Guest Rick Research]

It seems there were battlefield tourists long before our current intrepid wanderers. Unfortunately no writing on this cheerful original postcard-format photo at all to indicate where or when,

but somebody had a strange hobby during the war!

(I'm picturing the cameras of that day going FLASH on top of "dud" ordnance-- must have been a "popular" guy!!! )

[Chip]

There was much fascination with the opponents "toys".

Chip

[JensF.]

Interesting grenades! All french. I am not sure about the left one, but in the middle is a P2 modified as some kind of Wurfmine and the right one is an OF1, the offensive model of the F1 handgrenade.

[Chip]

Here are a couple of German officers being fascinated by the same sort of pneumatic round. The one is messing around with the detonator. My guess is that these two did not make it through the war!

Chiop

[Schießplatzmeister]

As we can see, the first EOD team trials didn't go too well. While smoking, the intrepid team members decided to figure out what the funny looking wire "thingy" at the front of the shell did! And BOOM!

I'm sure that they didn't do this a second time and that the other members of the team outside of at least a three (3) meter radius were now much wiser and appreciated the sacrifice made by their friends!

"SPM"

[Guest Rick Research]

That appears to be precisely the same Airborne Nasty as in the middle of the "portrait" photo. Nice to have an idea of the actual scale!

[Chip]

Here's another "thingy" display from the other perspective. Looks like mostly German items shown here. There's a gas "Kugel" with belt carrier/igniter, two standard patterns of rifle grenades and several "homemade" toys.

Chip

[JensF.]

On the first row everything seems to be "homemade".

Second row: A rare german "Handnebelbombe" (smoke grenade), rifle grenades 13 and 14, both with transportation plug.

The can in the lower left corner looks homemade too.

Here's another "thingy" display from the other perspective. Looks like mostly German items shown here. There's a gas "Kugel" with belt carrier/igniter, two standard patterns of rifle grenades and several "homemade" toys.

Chip

Edited December 24, 2006 by JensF.

[Chris Boonzaier]

All very, very nice stuff indeed !!!!

Here is a modern version of the collection...

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=13849