All major assaults required attacking troops to carry extra grenades to capture their objectives and then hold them against enemy counterattack. Essential by 1917īy 1917, all infantry carried grenades. The British and Canadians used egg-shaped hand grenades, which could be thrown about 30 metres (10 metres fewer than the German sticks), but carried a larger explosive charge. The Germans tended to prefer the stick bomb, which could be thrown farther but had a smaller explosive charge. Rifle grenadiers fired specifically modified grenades from rifles, while the infantry on both sides carried dozens of different types. Dozens of Types of Grenadesīy the end of 1915, all armies were being supplied with hand bombs. They often proved as dangerous to their makers as to their intended targets, due to the risk of premature explosion. Reinvented by the requirements of trench warfare, the first grenades in 1914 were often hand-made, consisting of old cans filled with nails and bits of metal and packed with gunpowder. These simple, hand-thrown weapons had been invented hundreds of years before, but had not been widely used since the Napoleonic era. In attempting to fight through enemy trenches, or to defend against attack, all armies came to rely heavily on grenades. In close quarters fighting, especially in trenches, it was also difficult to inflict casualties on the enemy without exposing one’s self in order to fire. The Grand Slam was a larger version of the Tallboy bomb and closer to the size that its inventor, Barnes Wallis, had envisaged when he developed the idea of an earthquake bomb. The trench warfare of the Western Front resembled a siege, where enemy forces, shielded by trenches and fortifications, were difficult to see or to shoot with direct-fire weapons such as rifles. The Bomb, Medium Capacity, 22,000 lb was a 22,000 lb earthquake bomb used by RAF Bomber Command against German targets during the Second World War.
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