Original French WWI 2nd Model Barbed Wire Destruction Grenade – Pétard de Destruction pour Barbelés Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. A very scarce WWI Hand Grenade, offered in Inert, BATF compliant, condition, and the first of which we have ever offered. Previously we had an example of the smaller 1st model, but this is the larger 2nd model French WWI Barbed Wire Destruction Grenade, known in French as the Pétard de Destruction pour Barbelés.

These were made with the intention of clearing gaps in enemy barbed wire entanglements. The explosive rod for barbed wire destruction is a variety of the original improvised wood rod grenades, dedicated at the beginning of the war for the creation of breeches in the barbed wire networks before the assaults. There were wire cutters available, but they were slow and left troops exposed to machine gun fire. With a grenade, the barbed wire could be quickly and effectively breached in one area.

Having quite a primitive conception, it is simply a cylinder made with a rolled and riveted steel plate, plugged at the top with a wooden block, and at the base with a wooden stick . This stick was hollow, making place for a traction igniter setting fire to a powder line cord (representing a 5 seconds delay), linked to the detonators. Those latter cause the explosion of the 400 gr of Cheddite charge, confined in the steel cylinder.

A new longer 2nd model with a doubled explosive charge (800 g) appeared in 1916, which is the type this is. It measures 11 1/2″ in overall length, with the warhead measuring 6 1/2″ long and 2 1/2″ wide.

This example is offered totally inert with all explosives removed per BATF specifications. It still has both the wooden ends, and the end plug is marked 3-7. Ready to add to your “Great War” explosives collection!

As early as the 17th century, virtually every grenade design, regardless of the fuze, had one fundamental flaw. Any wick type fuze, if not consumed completely by the time it reached the target, meant the grenade could be thrown away, sometimes right at the original thrower, definitely not an optimal outcome. The idea of an impact detonated grenade is there fore pretty old, but its design met a lot of complex problems that were far from being perfectly solved in 1914 by any country.

At the beginning of the war, the French Army used artisanal percussion ‘bangers’, as well as Aasen grenades, from the name of that Danish inventor who was selling the same grenades to the Germans. However, none of these solutions were satisfactory.
However in May 1915, the French soldiers finally received a brand new grenade: the P1 (percutante n°1) percussion grenade, designed and made in France by Billant, who also invented the M1916 automatic lever grenade igniters.

This new weapon was almost immediately nicknamed ‘Pear grenade’ or ‘Spoon grenade’ by the fighters, for somewhat obvious reasons. The grenade was made of a pig iron body with inner fragmentation grooves, closed at its base by a lead plug, and on the top was the igniter. This mechanism was composed of a detonator triggered by a starter that was hit by a moving percussion pin when the grenade landed vertically on its base. This percussion movement was only possible when the spoon-like safety lever was up. A security wire wrapping the spoon lever and the grenade body at rest had to be cut prior to launching the grenade, so that the rotation of the lever was possible.

Unwanted arming of the grenades by rupture of this wire and movement of the aluminum or steel spoon lever caused numerous accidents. Moreover, the design’s requirement of having the grenade landing vertically on its base was problematic as well. The pear shape was supposed to help with this, as was a piece of fabric under the spoon that served as a tail in flight. Despite these two precautions, the results were rather uncertain.

With the dangerous and unreliable ignition system and often poor results from fragmentation, this grenade was hardly a “success”, but was nevertheless made in large numbers. The danger they posed during disarming and storage is why they are so scarce on the market today.