Ordnance Auction finds!

[Lucky 7th Armored]

I went to an auction for a Tank destroyer battalion grouping, but it sold too high for me and i ended up just buying a couple lots which ended up being very interesting. There are a lot of practice grenades that i am familiar with and then grenades where the spoon is attached and has KOREA marked on them. The mine card is dated 1970 and the demolition card is dated May 1965, I couldnt find a date on the Soviet Mine Card. Almost everything will be listed for sale after i figure out prices as well.

 

Also, I am not too familiar with everything i have pictured... I believe i have some US WWII Boobytrap pull firing devices, but would appreciate some more insight. Also, what era are the practice grenades? The name of the Vietnam explosive sack? If anyone sees anything they are interested in please shoot a PM as everything here will eventually be for sale.

 

 

Thanks guys!

 

Haydn

 

 

 

 

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[hawkdriver]

Very nice! Like the caltrops

[Lucky 7th Armored]

Thanks hawkdriver!

 

It's been a while since i posted, feels good to be back, any idea on the era of the caltrops? They look newer Vietnam + to me..

[hawkdriver]

Picture is a little hard to see the caltrops, but I think they are Vietnam vintage. Nice initiators to. By the way, welcome back!

[AustinO]

VN era caltrops, the trip devices are WWII-VN as well. That style practice grenade has been used since WWI, though yours marked Korea would be much later.

I like the rifle grenade and the VN airdrop mine thingy!

[Lucky 7th Armored]

Thanks! Life has just been crazy after getting out of training. Here's a better picture..okay for some reason photobucket will not let me rotate this picture... sorry guys.

 

 

[Lucky 7th Armored]

VN era caltrops, the trip devices are WWII-VN as well. That style practice grenade has been used since WWI, though yours marked Korea would be much later.

I like the rifle grenade and the VN airdrop mine thingy!

 

 

Thanks for the clarification! I think my favorite things are the rifle grenade and the airdrop mine as well.. If it wasnt for the last owners little note on it i would have no clue what it was.. I am still trying to figure out the correct nomenclature. I just call it "The Explosive Hacky Sack"

[AustinO]

Give it a shot, I bet you wouldn't last 30 seconds.

But seriously, I would imagine someone here has seen one of those in person and could give you details.

[Dave]

Ordnance, ordnance, ordnance.

 

NOT Ordinance.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinance

 

[Dave]

I couldn't handle it anymore. I fixed your title.

 

Cool finds!

[Lucky 7th Armored]

I couldn't handle it anymore. I fixed your title.

 

Cool finds!

Thanks Dave, and Forgive my ignorance... it is kind of embarrassing when the manual with the spelling of the word is right in front of my face..

[Dave]

Forgive my ignorance... it is kind of embarrassing when the manual with the spelling of the word is right in front of my face..

 

It's all good. On my last ship, we had a running joke about my Ordnance Officer going around and doing code violation inspections as the "Ordinance Officer"...

[Lucky 7th Armored]

It's funny now that i know. I knew it didnt look right, but the computer didnt put the red squiggly line under it so i let it go... and that's too funny!

[AustinO]

 

It's all good. On my last ship, we had a running joke about my Ordnance Officer going around and doing code violation inspections as the "Ordinance Officer"...

This is great Dave!

[SergeantMajorGray]

Usually the grenades solid grenades are WW2 trainers that were used up till Vietnam they are worth about $40 But since it's made in Korea it might be worth more.

[mpguy80/08]

Thanks! Life has just been crazy after getting out of training. Here's a better picture..okay for some reason photobucket will not let me rotate this picture... sorry guys.

 

 

Okay, left to right here for the firing devices... The plastic one is a modern M60 firing device... say, Vietnam and forward. #2 is a WWII M1 Firing device. #3 is the Fuse lighter, weatherproof, M2 and #4 looks to me to be a broken shell extractor. Be very careful with #2 (the M1 firing device) as it appears to still have the copper cap intact. It might still be live. Not much of a boom, but it would be enough to take a finger or two off or give some mean shrapnel damage. One that has been fired will look like #3 (the M2 device).

 

Hope that helps and if you ever wanna unload the M1 and M2, let me know, I'll take them.

[Lucky 7th Armored]

Thanks for the information! I have been treating everything as if it was live. How can I make sure it is not live? Or deactivate it. Everything listed here is for sale. So shoot me a pm or I'll pm you.

[ordnance]

Nice lot of auction goodies.

 

My take on the MK1A1 grenades marked "KOREA" is that they were never genuine GI issue training grenades but the first of the surplus store copies dating back to the 1960s. Just like the common surplus store grenade bodies today are cast iron copies made for resale, surplus stores have always wanted practice grenades to sell to eager young collectors and souvenir hunters. Unfortunately, the military has had demil requirements in place for decades to prevent these from getting out.

 

I remember seeing a pile of MK1A1 grenades about 12 feet high and 30 or 40 feet in diameter at the DRMO yard at Tooele Depot in the mid to late 1970s. They were on a concrete pad where they were spread out and a giant weight was dropped over and over on them to insure each was cracked or broken before going to the scrapper. It seemed pretty pointless for a one-piece cast throwing dummy that never had a filling or even a method to attach a fuze. But hey, rules are rules. So just go to Korea and have some cast up for the civilian market.

 

Your "hacky sack" is a much more interesting item. It is an XM41E1 gravel mine. These contained RDX explosive with a lead azide and ground glass initiator. Once armed, pressure of about 30-40 psi will fire the mine with enough force to remove a foot. Your inert trainer should feel crunchy when you handle it. They are armed by normal exposure to the air so they were kept in containers of liquid freon.

 

I've heard they were hated by bomb loading crews and EOD types because the containers needed constant monitoring to make sure the freon levels were kept up. A normal TNT filled bomb can just get parked out in a storage yard with little special precautions but not gravel mine containers.

 

They were made in OD, brown, and straw colors for camouflage effect and in smaller, larger, triangle, round, and rectangular shapes. Variations were known as Big Gravel, Micro-gravel, and sandwich button bombs, some with explosive fillers and others with electronic payloads that emitted a chirp when triggered. Some of these smaller ones were used as triggering devices for the trail sensors along the Ho Chi Minh trail as part of project Igloo White. It's a wide field of study and very little hard information is out in public hands. Again, good score on a rare bit of Vietnam ordnance.

[Lucky 7th Armored]

Wow, thank you for the informational post Ordnance! I really appreciate all the info and the clarification of the "explosive hacky sack".

 

Haydn

[Neuron]

You can sure learn a lot from this forum.I wonder if the young folk are interested in this stuff or just us old codgers.

[Lucky 7th Armored]

Well Neuron,

 

I am 19 and love this old war stuff! I think I am still considered young hahah! You really can learn a lot from this forum though, the guys and gals on this forum tought me almost everything I know about US Militaria.

 

Haydn

[ccyooper]

Is your rifle grenade a M11A1 or M11A2?

[Lucky 7th Armored]

I'm pretty sure it was an M11A1, I traded it with some cash for a German M35 DD.

[ccyooper]

Thank you for the reply, good trade considering the practice grenades in that condition sell for plus or minus $50-60.

[immurement]

On 8/2/2013 at 6:01 PM, Lucky 7th Armored said:

 

 

 

Wow, Lucky 7th Armored that Gravel Mine is a very nice find!

Sorry to dredge up an older thread but I just picked one up from Jason at The Dog Tag. I gut lucky by being on his site at the right time and instantly knew I needed it in my humble collection of inert ordnance. 

 

On 8/3/2013 at 1:07 PM, ordnance said:

Your inert trainer should feel crunchy when you handle it. They are armed by normal exposure to the air so they were kept in containers of liquid freon.

 

I've heard they were hated by bomb loading crews and EOD types because the containers needed constant monitoring to make sure the freon levels were kept up. A normal TNT filled bomb can just get parked out in a storage yard with little special precautions but not gravel mine containers.

 

They were made in OD, brown, and straw colors for camouflage effect and in smaller, larger, triangle, round, and rectangular shapes. Variations were known as Big Gravel, Micro-gravel, and sandwich button bombs, some with explosive fillers and others with electronic payloads that emitted a chirp when triggered. Some of these smaller ones were used as triggering devices for the trail sensors along the Ho Chi Minh trail as part of project Igloo White. It's a wide field of study and very little hard information is out in public hands. Again, good score on a rare bit of Vietnam ordnance.

 

Thank you ordnance! I've been reading as much as I can about these munitions and really appreciate the additional information especially regarding how they were a nightmare for loading crews. It's bits of info like this that make me happy I finally joined a militaria forum.