aridice53
Posts: 150
Joined: 2/20/2008 From: Huntsville, AL Status: offline
|
Hi All, I found this topic fascinating, so I did a little research. Until I read these posts I had never heard of these "Boarding Weapons". and other than this guy's listings at Ebay, there's no other reference to them by that name (nor "Deck Sweepers") on the internet. But, the concept of exploding bottles is indeed viable. If anyone's interested, here's what I found..... http://books.google.com/books?id=GmQVan-M3ykC&pg=PA182&lpg=PA182&dq=crimean+war+grenades&source=web&ots=cTKEHG154V&sig=45uJ-G8Xe4gImP0Quq9i3y1mDjw&hl=en#PPA180,M1 page 180-183 covers the history of grenades, and yep, there were some made of glass. But it seems most were improvisation, not, the norm. Found this reference I guess its an exact transcript of the letter, a little hard to understand): In a letter to his sister, Colonel Robert Hugh Hibbert, described an improvised grenade used during the Crimean War (1854-1856): We have a new invention to irritate our friends in their pools. It consists of filling water bottles full of empty soda powder, twisted and old nails or other sharp cut you get at the moment, remains a little trailer in a fuse for lighting and then throwing quickly in the pit where our Rays neighbours, to his great annoyance. You can imagine his anger at seeing a bottle of water with gas are falling into a hole full of men with a little burning fuse far as proud as a veritable explosion of shell and burying itself in soft flesh. And this is a reference to the Cofederates using bottles as grenades during the battle at Vicksburg. http://www.historynet.com/magazines/american_civil_war/9647007.html Interesting.....glass was used for this purpose but, it does seem that the preferred material was metal. Char
|