Rifle Grenade
The Mills bomb was developed into a rifle-grenade by simply attaching a metallic rod to the base. This rod-type rifle-grenade has an effective range of about 150 yards.
If the soldier did not immediately launch the grenade, it would time-out and explode. It was also found that the repeated launching of grenades by this method caused damage to a rifle’s barrel. This led to the development of a cup-type launcher to replace the rod-type rifle-grenade. This soup-can shaped launcher attached to a rifle's muzzle. The cup-type launcher could launch a Mills bomb with a special gas check disk screwed to the base to about 200 yards. This arrangement also gave the soldier enough time to accurately launch the grenade. Lee-Enfield rifles equipped with the cup launcher were modified with copper wire wrapped around the stock, to prevent the wood from cracking under the increased recoil.
If necessary both the rod and the gas check grenade can be thrown as a standard hand-grenade.
Read more about this topic: Mills Bomb
Famous quotes containing the words rifle and/or grenade:
“Many times man lives and dies
Betweeen his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
Whether man die in his bed
Or the rifle knocks him dead,”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Suddenly he found he had pressed the spring of the grenade. He struggled to pull it out of his pocket. It stuck in the narrow pocket. His arm and his cold fingers that clutched the grenade seemed paralyzed. Then a warm joy went through him. He had thrown it.
Anderson was standing up, swaying backwards and forwards. The explosion made the woods quake.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)