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.

E-Book Resources: Explosives, Blasting, And Treating Blast Injuries

 So when I discussed some of the more general sources of info recently, I generally listed some major repositories with the warning that you would need to explore those repositories to find the books and information that might interest you. But I thought I would periodically post more specific links to a collection, library, or specific titles that would be of interest to the prepper/survivalist.

     Today's topic has to do with explosives. While some may wonder at the relevance of explosives to prepping, the fact is that explosives play an important role in an industrialized society, such as for demolition, mining, excavation, and other specialized tasks. Even fire and rescue work may require breaching explosives to provide quick access through a ship's hull or a wall, or explosives may be used to blow out a fire at an oil or gas well. The author of the book, The Knowledge, discusses explosives and how necessary they would be to restarting civilization. In a post-apocalypse setting, you may not have ready access to commercially manufactured explosives and have to manufacture your own. Of course, explosives and blasting operations pose special dangers to health and safety. Some books and articles I came across recently in no particular order:

• Explosives (6th Ed.) by Rudolf Meyer, Josef Köhler, Axel Homburg (PDF).
• The Preparatory Manual of Explosives by Jared Ledgard (DJVU).
• Organic Chemistry of Explosives by Jai Prakash Agrawal and Robert Hodgson (PDF).
• The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives by Tenney L. Davis (PDF).
• Explosives Engineering by Paul W. Cooper (PDF).
• Engineering Rock Blasting Operations by Sushil Bhandari (PDF).
• Rock Blasting & Overbreak Control by Calvin J. Konya and Edward J. Walter (PDF).
• Blasting in Ground Excavations and Mines by B. Singh, P. Pal Roy, R. B. Singh, and A. Bagchi (PDF).
• Rotary Drilling and Blasting in Large Surface Mines by Balchandra V. Gokhale (PDF).
• Explosives and Blasting Procedures Manual by Richard A. Dick, Larry R. Fletcher and Dennis V. D'Andrea (PDF).
• Seabee Quarry Blasting Operations and Safety Manual by Department of the Army (PDF).
• Rock Blasting Terms and Symbols: A Dictionary of Symbols and Terms in Rock Blasting and Related Areas like Drilling, Mining and Rock Mechanics edited by Agne Rustan (PDF).
• High Explosives and Propellants by S. Fordham (2nd Ed.) (PDF).
• High Energy Materials: Propellants, Explosives and Pyrotechnics by Jai Prakash Agrawal (PDF).
• Propellants and Explosives: Thermochemical Aspects of Combustion by Naminosuke Kubota (1st Edition PDF) (2nd Edition PDF).
• Explosives, Propellants and Pyrotechnics (Brassey's World Military Technology) by A. Bailey and S. G. Murray (PDF).
• TM 31-210 Improvised Munitions (PDF).
• Explosives - The Anarchist Arsenal (Improvised Incendiary & Explosives Techniques) by David Harber (PDF).
• The Anarchist Arsenal: Improvised Incendiary & Explosives Techniques by David Harber (PDF).
• Advanced Anarchist Arsenal: Recipes For Improvised Incendiaries And Explosives by David Harber (PDF).
• Improvised Munitions Black Book Vol. 1 by Desert Publications (PDF).
• Black Book Companion: State-Of-The-Art Improvised Munitions by Paladin Press (PDF).
• Big Bang: Improvised PETN And Mercury Fulminate by John Galt (PDF).
• Improvised Land Mines: Employment And Destructive Capabilities by David Harber (PDF).
• Incendiaries Advanced Improvised Explosives by Seymour Lecker (PDF).
• Home Workshop Explosives by Uncle Fester (PDF).
• Kitchen improvised fertilizer explosives by  Tim Lewis (PDF).
• Better Living Through Plastic Explosives by Gartner Zsuzsi (EPUB) (MOBI) (FB2).
• Scientific Principles Of Improvised Warfare And Home Defense (Explosives) by T. Tobiason (PDF).
• FMX: The Revised Black Book: A Guide To Field-Manufactured Explosives by William Wallace (PDF).
• Improvised Shape Charges by Desert Publications (PDF).

Note: Some of the preceding are serious textbooks or treatises, while others are of more dubious sources. Use at your own risk. 

Some books on the detection of explosives:

• Aspects of Explosives Detection by Maurice Marshall and Jimmie C. Oxley (PDF).
• Counterterrorist Detection Techniques of Explosives by Jehuda Yinon (PDF).
• Explosives and Chemical Weapons Identification James B. Crippin (PDF). 
• Trace Chemical Sensing of Explosives edited by Ronald L. Woodfin (PDF). 
• Detection of Liquid Explosives and Flammable Agents in Connection with Terrorism (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics) edited by Hiltmar Schubert and Andrey Kuznetsov (PDF).
• Detection and Disposal of Improvised Explosives (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics) edited by Hiltmar Schubert and Andrey Kuznetsov (PDF).

And should you be injured, here is some additional reading material to give to your doctor:

• "Bombings: Injury Patterns and Care Pocket Guide" (PDF) by the CDC and American College of Physicians.
• "Explosives and Blast Injuries" by James M. Madsen, MD, MPH, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD).
• "Explosions and Blast Injuries: A Primer for Clinicians" (PDF) by the CDC.
• "Blast Injuries: Biophysics, Pathophysiology and Management Principles" (PDF) by CL Horrocks (J R Army Med Corps 2001; 147: 28 -40).
• Paediatric Blast Injury Field Manual (PDF) by Imperial College.
• "Blast Injury" (PDF) (ICU Management & Practice, ICU Volume 15 - Issue 4 - 2015).
• "What the intensive care doctor needs to know about blast-related lung injury" (PDF) by I Mackenzie, B Tunnicliffe, J Clasper, P Mahoney, and E Kirkman.
• "Bombings and Blast Injuries: A Primer for Physicians" (PDF) by David M. Lemonick (American Journal of Clinical Medicine • Fall 2011 • Volume Eight, Number Three).
• "Conventional Explosions and Blast Injuries" (PDF) by David J. Dries, David Bracco, Tarek Razek, Norma Smalls-Mantey, and Dennis Amundson (Fundamental Disaster Management, Chapter 7).
• Dismounted Complex Blast Injury (PDF) Report of the Army Discounted Complex Blast Injury Task Force. 
• "Blast Injuries: From Improvised Explosive Device Blasts to the Boston Marathon Bombing" (PDF) by Ajay K. Singh, Noah G. Ditkofsky, CAPT John D. York, Hani H. Abujudeh, Laura A. Avery, John F. Brunner, Aaron D. Sodickson, and Michael H. Lev (RadioGraphics 2016; 36:295–307).  [Link dead].
• "Explosions and Blast Injuries" (PDF) a Power Point presentation by Alfred Health (warning: extremely graphic photographs of injuries--NSFW).

Disclaimer: I'm not the author of any of the documents or things linked above and cannot vouch for their accuracy or completeness--use them at your own risk. I am not responsible for the posting or offering of any of the documents or things in the collections and/or libraries and have no control over whether they are posted or taken down.