Development
With the end of the Battle of France and the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the port of Dunkirk between 26 May and 4 June 1940, a German invasion of Great Britain seemed likely. However, the British Army was not well-equipped to defend the country in such an event; in the weeks after the Dunkirk evacuation it could only field twenty-seven divisions. The Army was particularly short of anti-tank guns, 840 of which had been left behind in France and only 167 were available in Britain; ammunition was so scarce for the remaining guns that regulations forbade even a single round being used for training purposes.
As a result of these shortcomings, a number of new anti-tank weapons had to be developed to equip the British Army and the Home Guard with the means to repel German armoured vehicles. Many of these were anti-tank hand grenades, large numbers of which could be built in a very short space of time and for a low cost. They included the Grenade, Hand, Anti-tank No. 73, which was little more than a Thermos-sized bottle filled with TNT, and the Grenade, Hand, Anti-tank No. 74, also known as the 'Sticky bomb', which was coated with a strong adhesive and 'stuck' to a vehicle. A more versatile grenade appeared in 1942 in the form of the Grenade, Hand, Anti-tank, No. 75, more commonly known as the Hawkins grenade, which was designed so that it could be used in a number of roles.
Read more about this topic: Hawkins Grenade
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“Good schools are schools for the development of the whole child. They seek to help children develop to their maximum their social powers and their intellectual powers, their emotional capacities, their physical powers.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“... work is only part of a man’s life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“I could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the development of infant minds, where none already existed. It would be too cruel.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)