Help with Identification of German Pistol Grenade

[Ordnance]

I was visiting a friend a friend a few months ago and took the opportunity to photograph some of his German pistol grenades. In the photo below, there are two of the late style sprenggranate-Z rounds for the Kampfpistole including one in the tube with the very late steel cartridge case. To the right of those two is one of the early HE rounds for the Z pistol. To the right of that one is a particularly nice message grenade that still has the writing paper and tiny pencil inside. And on the far right is the mystery grenade.



It is similar to the 326 HE round for the flare pistol with the stabilizing tail fin but the body is made of some sort of brown bakelite material. The nose is steel and I am not sure if it has a steel liner in it as I did not have the time to disassemble it. Perhaps just a late war substitute material in use? Can anyone provide a positive identification of this one? Thanks.

[Lon]

That's an interesting collection. I wasn't aware there was such a thing as pistol grenades. I guess though if there are rifle grenades, why not pistol? I found the message grenade particularilly surprising. Sorry I can't help with identification, but thanks for my new bit of knowledge for today!

[Ordnance]

Lon,

Not only were there German pistol grenades, there were a whole bunch of different ones. Some were to be used only in the rifled Z-pistol, others only in the smooth-bore flare pistols, and I think some others only for the pistols with the removable liner.

At the risk of detouring my own post, here a a couple more views of the message grenade. If I recall correctly without hitting the manuals, this one emitted a smoke trail in flight to help the recipient find it when the message was incoming. I especially like the little pencil packed in each cartridge. This example was made in May of 1943.

[dogtagman]

Do the He rounds have steel liners in the main body? Could you show some pictures of the headstamps?

Thanks in advance!

[MARCUS08]

HI,
The last grenade seem to be the second of the WURFGRANATPATRONE 326 LP, 2,6 cm family. His name is non officialy "verbessert" or improve with main charge of trotyl : 12g. D.W.M Lübeck manufacture this grenade like the others. There is not much documentation about it but at WOODIN laboratory Tucson, AZ, USA, we can see one. The dimensions are: height 142,36; weight 92,50g.

[Ordnance]

Usually, the Z pistol HE rounds have a thin steel fragmentation liner inside the body. This can be a problem for collectors as I've seen and owned several of the 2nd pattern style that were split open from the swelling rusty steel insert inside.

I wish I could provide additional headstamp images but I only took one more, that of the very late steel case HE round. I was just too busy taking other photos that day to do an in-depth study of each round.



Marcus, Thank you. That was the information I was hoping for. I suspected it was a late war ersatz version of the 326 LP round but had no solid data. And you are certainly aware about where the survivors are----all 5 of these grenades were photographed at Woodin Labs when I visited Bill in December.

Among the many reasons for my visit was to compare examples of the launching cartridges for German rifle grenades. These are quite scarce in the U.S. and I am happy to have 5 or 6 different styles in my collection gathered over the years. When you open the drawer of grenade cartridges at Woodin Labs, it's a very humbling experience. Nothing makes you feel more like an amature ammunition collector than a visit to THE cartridge collection.

[MARCUS08]

some helps perhaps

Hi,
very good pictures! then, I don't know when this grenade was made but, if we see the last grenade of the serie, the famous wurfgranate patrone LP Na, it was mentionned for the fist time in a document from Ballistik und munition the 26 november 1944, and 12000 of them were built in 17 décember 1944 by D.W.M, so, we can think that your model was made courant 43, 44...(waffen revue N°91/1993)
http://www.lexpev.nl/grenades/europe...tpatronez.html
Just for looking, if you don't know it, this pictures could help you.. glad..

[dogtagman]

The point why I asked for the steel liners is, 2 years ago fake Kampfpistole Z rounds showed up, looking very good, only point was the missing steel liner, wrong material for the bakelite parts of the fuze and the silver primer in the case.

The germans did´nt use nickel plated primers in ww2, thats why you can be sure that at least the case of the Nachr Z is a postwar production. These were sold by a french dealer.

[fieldgear]

Hi All

I have a few of these in my personal (ie not for sale) collection too. You can see these on my site at http://www.fieldgear.org/pistolgrenades.htm

Maybe this will also add to the knowledge base.

Best,..Rob

PS I have seen several examples of the message round & never with the steel base so perhaps the comment re post war is correct??

[klarkon]

Ordnance
………….And on the far right is the mystery grenade. It is similar to the 326 HE round for the flare pistol with the stabilizing tail fin but the body is made of some sort of brown bakelite material. The nose is steel and I am not sure if it has a steel liner in it as I did not have the time to disassemble it. Perhaps just a late war substitute material in use? Can anyone provide a positive identification of this one?


I suppose that's it "Wurfkörper deutpatrone roter rauch " with strange tailfin section :

[BrunoH]

Hi,
If you want to have a quick overall picture of what was fired by a Kampfpistole, have a quick look there below:

http://leuchtpistole.free.fr/Sommair...l#Kampfpistole

Regards

[WWIIBuff]

Thanks Bruno. I had forgotten about that site. There are some great reference examples on there.