posted 07-04-2005 06:04 PM         

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I have been thinking about grenades lately, and I began to wonder when they first officially appeared on the battlefield. I remember hearing about them being used fairly early and I can think that they were used about as soon as gunpowder came about. simply pack explosive into a shell and light it. not a very complicated weapon to make a little tricky when it comes to the ignition part. I remember that early grenadiers would stand in front of their armies and light their fuses, they were probably very brave individuals. does anyone know when they were first used? when exactly did gunpowder make its first appearance anyway?

do you think that explosives were ever lobbed over walls of castles? or was it more incindiery based instead of explosive? that also brings to mind the question whether early grenades were fragment or concussion weapons. they were probably a little bit of both but I would like to know just cause.

posted 07-04-2005 11:46 PM         

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that's cool. it has good pictures. I went to a different site a little earlier and it said that the grenade came into use in the 15th century the site you gave me said 16th. not too sure about which one it is. both sites I've seen talked about the grenades on a stick. there's a great picture of a german soldier using one on the site. why do you think that we stopped using them? a stick should go farther than a ball shaped one. tommorrow I'm going to find out which one flys farther. I've got a baseball and I'm going to duct tape a rock to a stick go down to the park and throw them around.

I was reading in the other forum about this book you recommended to someone about castles in the 15th century. were castles 'going out of style' you might say during the 15th? I know that spanish had these enourmous cannons called culverins in 1526. so in the 16th century artillery was alive and kicking. I can imagine that that would effect castle building techniques. I remember that warwick was built to take cannon fire.

posted 07-05-2005 09:08 AM           

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Take a look here for early cannon.
http://66.188.129.72:5980/History/Warfare/military_14thcent.htm

Paul.

posted 07-05-2005 10:41 PM         

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the history of artillery is a truly fascinating subject.
I have been looking around for information regarding the history of grenades I have tried amazon but all they had was a catalog of all the munitions used during WWII. I'm interested in much earlier times. the website paul provided talked about the chinese in the eighth century using blackpowder for grenades I also know that the ninja had primitive landmines. perhaps instead of looking at european explosives I should check out asian ones.

Does anyone know if there are any pictures that can be found showing early grenades? I'm getting tempted to start a grenade museum or something so if anyone ever gets interested they won't have to look so hard. why do you figure that I can't find any websites devoted to the grenade. you'd expect something like that to show up somewhere in the wealth of information that exists in the internet.

posted 07-06-2005 03:01 PM            

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I have someone who writes articles for my magazine 'Postern', several being on older weaponery.
I can certainly ask him about this topic. But as he is not on the web it may take a weekish for him too reply.
He is an expert in this field and writes other articles for magazines concerned with such topics, one of these is;
'Lance and Longbow Society', Warfare in the Medieval World 1040-1526.
Who actually do their own publications, one of which is Guns & Gunpowder 1267-1603.

You can check them out on; www.lanceandlongbow.com

Cheers Peter

[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 07-06-2005).]