Defensive grenade wz. 33 ( pol . Granat obronny wz. 33 ) - fragmentation grenade used by the Polish army before and during World War II . The shell case was cast of cast iron and formed into a pineapple oval, typical of hand grenades of the First World War .
| granat obronny wz. 33 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type of | fragmentation grenade |
| A country | Poland |
| Service History | |
| Years of operation | 1933–1945 |
| In service | Polish army |
| Wars and conflicts | The Second World War |
| Production history | |
| Designed by | 1933 |
| Years of production | 1933–1939 |
| Explosive | Trinitrotoluene or picric acid |
| Blast power | 100 m |
The grenade was modeled on the base of the earlier Polish grenades of the 1920s . Wz. 33 was equipped with a wz.Gr.31 impact fuse. To increase reliability, the grenade had two detonators and two strikers. The cases were produced in three factories , each of which applied a letter on the case, indicating the manufacturer (“K” for Końskie, “M” for Warsaw and “W” for Wilno).
Content
- 1 History
- 2 notes
- 3 Literature
- 4 References
History
Grenade Wz. 33 was created on the basis of earlier Polish grenades. The earliest of them, granat obronny wz. 23, was created on the basis of the Mills English grenade . After 1918, Poland received more than 3,380,000 grenades of various types and acquired several million more during the Soviet-Polish war of 1920 . [one]
Due to the presence of large stocks of grenades, it was decided to focus efforts on the modernization of existing ammunition, primarily by developing a new fuse, rather than designing completely new grenades. This was considered a logical choice, as a number of Polish companies inherited production lines for the production of German grenades from the First World War .
In 1923, the arms department began a competition to create a new fuse that would fit the German hand grenades M16 and M17 Stielhandgranate, the predecessors of the iconic M24 “beater” . [2] A completely new design was sunk by A. Cherpinsky of Granat, a company based in Kielce , won the competition and was adopted as A.C. 23. [2] However, as field tests showed that the AC 23 was prone to failure in a humid environment, the Department launched a new competition in 1925 , in which the fuse proposed by Cherpinsky (AC 25) won again. [2] AC 23 and 25 became standard fuses of Polish grenades: Granat obronny wz. 23 used AC 25 while granat obronny wz. 17-1 (the Polish clone of the German grenade M17) used version A. C. 23. [3] [4]
Granat continued to develop fuses and in 1929 introduced the remote fuse, codenamed Gr. 29, based on earlier Cherpinsky projects. It was adopted as the standard fuse for the new Granat obronny wz defensive grenade. KC. In the end, the line of these fuses came to the final version, adopted by the Zapalnik wz. Gr. 31 (“Fuse of the 1931 model, Pomegranate factory”). [2]
Wz. 31 was one of the best in the world, shortly after its adoption by the Polish Army, France and Romania bought a license for its production. [5] France originally bought 310,000 wz. 31 in 1935 and two years later acquired a license and accepted it as a standard fuse for all defensive grenades of the French army [6] . Another country that adopted the Polish fuse was Greece in 1931 . [7]
Notes
- ↑ Zasieczny , pp. 14-15.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Zasieczny , p. fourteen.
- ↑ Peverelli , Granat Obronny wz. 17-1.
- ↑ Peverelli , Granat Obronny wz. 23.
- ↑ Deszczyński & Mazur , p. 152.
- ↑ Deszczyński & Mazur , p. 199.
- ↑ Deszczyński & Mazur , p. 201.
Literature
- Aszyk, Marek Granaty ręczne (Polish) (Neopr.) ? . Uzbrojenie Wojska II Rzeczpospolitej (2012). Date of treatment June 13, 2014.
- Franczyk, Grzegorz. Polskie granaty 1919-1939: [] . - Kraków: Grzegorz Franczyk, 2010 .-- P. 153.
- Deszczyński, Marek Piotr. Na krawędzi ryzyka: eksport polskiego sprzętu wojskowego w okresie międzywojennym: [] / Marek Piotr Deszczyński, Wojciech Mazur. - Neriton, 2004 .-- P. 455. - ISBN 9788388973987 .
- Peverelli, Lex Polish hand- and riflegrenades . Grenades, Mines and Boobytraps (2012). Date of treatment June 20, 2014.
- Zasieczny, Andrzej. Broń Wojska Polskiego 1939-1945: wojska lądowe: [] . - 2. - Alma-Press. - P. 149. - ISBN 9788370203542 .