Paul,

When I was doing some research on WWI recently, I ran across a website
dedicated to hand grenades and their development. Like an idiot, I didn't
bookmark it at the time, however.  Apparently there are some that have been
recovered with intact fuses. Hope that helps a little.

John Dendy
Archeologist
Dynamac Corporation

> -----Original Message-----
> From: paul courtney [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 5:30 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Mortarshell  contents
>
> Seeing the question about bottle contents reminded me of an old interest
> of mine in hand grenades and mortar shells (grenadoes) - (purely academic
> if the CIA or MI5 is monitoring this)- I once wrote up some 17th century
> ceramic hand grenades. I am interested to know if anyone has every done
> chemical analyses of mortar shell contents as these and hand-granades are
> sometimes recovered with their wooden fusees intact. In most cases I have
> come across they seem to have washed out as quickly as possible or the
> shells buried due to safety worries.
>
>
> paul courtney
> Leicester
> UK