Hand Grenades Of The Spanish Civil War

Karl Dahl has published an interesting article on "Commercial and Artisanal Hand Grenades of the Spanish Civil War." The "artisanal" refers to the fact that for much of the war, the combatants relied on hand grenades that were produced locally in small scale cottage industries. As a result, there were a number of designs, explosives and materials used throughout the war.  

    Dahl begins:

One fascinating aspect of the Spanish Civil War is the distinct manner in which the entirety of Spanish society, in both the Nationalist and Republican Zones, became organized around the war. This included a level of military industrialization rarely addressed in the few English-language sources about the war, as both sides lacked sufficient equipment needed for modern war as established during World War One, not to mention the new age of mobile warfare of which this war was a harbinger. A curious element of this militarization was the local and factional development of hand grenades, as some sides in the war already came to the fight with their own hand grenades, referred to in the Spanish as “artisanal,” which has the same definition as in modern-day English – boutique, small batch, locally-sourced, and hand-crafted with love by skilled artisans.

He goes on to discuss the difference between defensive and offensive grenades, some of the explosive mixtures used, different types of fuses employed on different models, and, finally, looks at some of the more widely used grenade designs. If the history of the Spanish Civil War and/or pyrotechnics interests you, you will probably find this article educational. The author has also published a few other articles over the past year on the Spanish Civil War.