Re: Impressive weapons

[Robert <wanaki@infi.net>]

My friend brought one home and still has it.
I dis-armed a "Potato-masher Grenade", and shipped it home from reserve.
Talk about a simple but effective device. A cast Iron cast head, containing
a powder of pitric acid, a small packet of apparently black powder, a match
head on a long piece of twine, and a bamboo handle with the part joining
the head having one orifice lined with sandpaper to ignite the match when
the twine was pulled to arm the grenade. The packing in the handle, believe
it or not, was news print from "The New York Times".


LACarr@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 12/30/2002 5:58:51 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> AMPSOne@aol.com writes:
>  
>  
> > I
> > was pretty impressed with those "inferior" weapons 
>   
>  
>  Gang
>  
>  I broke a burp gun down ( with a little help) It was really simple. probably
> cost about 1/4 as much as a machine gun of ours even less I think. All I
> can remember of it was a block of hard wood on a rail with a spring to slam
> it home. An ejector to throw the empty shells out. The one I worked on had
> a wooden stock that looked homemade. 
>  The thing may have been cheap to produce but very efective in combat.
>  
>  Maury