Found in a British WW1 information site. www.firstworldwar.com/ Greatest Grenade Battle of the War Undoubtedly the greatest grenade battle of the war occurred on the Pozieres Heights on the night of 26-27 July 1916. Lasting for twelve-and-a-half hours without a break the Australians, with British support, exchanged grenades with their German foes (who threw multiple types of grenade: sticks, cricket balls, egg bombs and rifle grenades). The allied contingent alone threw some 15,000 Mills bombs during the night. Many grenadiers were killed that night, while many others simply fell down due to complete exhaustion In another part re grenades they wrote that the British soldier found it hard due to the tightness of his uniform to attache many grenades while the Australians with their looser fitting uniform could attache six or more to their uniform. The Brits quickly of course found other ways of carrying multiple grenades.
15,000 grenades during one fight man that would of been hard work, no wonder it says some men just dropped exhausted. Apparently the average Brit grenade party would consist of nine (9) men one NCO two Throwers, two carriers, two Bayonet and rifle men for defence of others and two spare men for when casualties were sustained. In these types of grenade battles it was at times common for men to catch the enemy's grenades and return it to them before explosion, many men lost hands arms etc while attempting this.
WW1 was where they tested every new way to slaughter each other. Charging out of the trenches into the cross fire of the machine gun must have been the ultimate way for many Generals to prove their worth.
For some reason the Brit's and I would imagine Imperial Armies rejected the MG at first and took quite some time before grasping and using the MG in numbers. I have seen it written that even as late as 1915 the Brits still only had a few MG's to each Btn while the Germans had 12,000 when war broke. The Genrals who repeatably threw there troops at these MG's appeared to never learned that massed frontal attacks against MG's etc was slowly destroying their ability to wage war, it was just that the German state was the first to fall apart, before they ran out of men. The repeat reposting of enlightened officers who possibly had better tatics than frontal assult was imo a crime in it's self.
Another good thread by you Cobber. I would have hated being on the receiving end of all those grenades. Imagine all the schrapnel and baseplates flying threw the air. I wonder how many grenades were accidently dropped in their own trench by the throwers.
Cheers John thanks for the support, I try to keep it interesting. And this one was just too good to leave it off this site even though we are a WW2 site. Of course me being a Aussie the majority of my posts will and do concentrate on Australians. Though I do try to keep my knowledge of British and others moving forward as well.
Here are a couple of interesting technical docs enable to help parallel studies for both the Brits and German types : http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/decouvertes/english_grenades_gb.html and http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/decouvertes/english_grenades_all.html
