Quote Originally Posted by Firn View Post
Somebody's light bulb clicked on a little earlier, and designed the (rifle ) grenade sight T59, for the use of low-angle and high-angle fire. It could be fitted to pretty much every US WWII rifle and carbine.

Slings were already marked with tape in WWII, usually with the aid of a clinometer. When used in the high-angle role, an additional, rimmed .45 propulsion cartridge was inserted into the launcher tube.

The interesting thing about rifle grenades was the broad range of uses, already in WWII. Here are just some of the lesser known ones:

- After removing the detonator, a 30-yard cordtex (explosive 1/4 inch cord) was tied to the (Mills) rifle grenade and shot across the minefield, clearing a long and 8-inch narrow path. By using two such paths 10 feet apart, a cordtex net could be dragged across the minefield to open a 10-feet street (Source: British Commandos, Nr.1 of the often mentioned Special Series)

- "Grapnel" Grenades were first improvised to clear from a covered position trip-wire up to a 100 yards away. A simple AT rifle grenade got almost completely stripped down and a wooden plug with three inserted hooks got fixed with a screw as new head. A heavy 150 yard chalk line was attached and coiled up. ( Combat Lessons 4, WWII series)

- In a similar way com. wire was layed across streams, to up to 130 yards. (Combat lessons 6, WWII series)

- 60mm Mortar bombs were attached by wire and pliers to the grenade projectors M7 and M1 and fire to up to a range of 110 yards. Used to clear houses and hedgerows. (Combat lessons 6, WWII series)

- WP (smoke) rifle grenades with reduced WP charge were used by grenadiers to mark hidden targets, especially for the supporting tanks. (The reduction of the WP avoided the concealment by the very smoke) (Combat lessons x, WWII series)

- Some German rifle grenades could also be thrown by hand, lightening the combat load. This was considered to be very useful for mobile, light units operating far from the next base. ( Other countries had also special rifle adaptors for hand grenades) (Small unit action in Russia)

All in all it seems that the rifle grenade can still be useful in some "odd" or special jobs which need an odd or oversized warhead shape. Breeching, Mine-clearing, Grapnelling are just some of them.

The 40mm grenades at one side of the spectrum and the shoulder-fired weapons on the other seem to cover the big rest well enough. We will see how well the 25mm grenades widen that spectrum.
Der Kampf der Infanterie, the fight of the infantry, a swiss army movie of 1976 is interesting for a couple of things I noticed. Of course the Swiss German makes it rather hard to understand the talking of the soldiers, even for fluent German speakers.

Rifle grenades are featured very often both while defending and attacking, against infantry and AFV.

1) An strongpoint gets attack one of the defender calls out the range, and another adjusts his bipod with engraved range scales on it. Later you see how different defenders engage out of the trench the attacking infantry with massed indirect rifle grenade fire.

2) Armored infantry advances through forests and meadows in alpine terrain and,while still mounted, get attacked by various AT-weapons, like mines, ATM and rifle grenades.

3) Airmobile infantry inserted behind the frontline get counterattacked by infantry supported by MGs, mortars. Some riflemen get tasked to support the advance by using their rifle grenades in the same mini mortar-like role as seen in 1).

The rifle grenades were quite heavy and thus the recoil was wild, making it quite (un)popular in soldier stories. In direct fire the shooter had to be careful to follow the correct procedure.

Overall the greater ease of use of the 40 mm GL as well as the spread of ATM might have been key factors in the decline in popularity of rifle grenades. With training time ever limited it certainly is sensible to focus it on weapons expected to be widly in use.