The VB Grenade.
There was a very simple problem with the use of defensive (high explosive) grenades; namely that of the blast area. Something like the British Mills Bomb or French F1 presented an overall blast radius of approximately 32 square metres. Obviously it was impossible to use such a grenade in the open, without the person throwing the grenade from being caught up in the blast. Because of this, the person throwing it had to take into account not only their own personal safety, but also that of his comrades (hence this type of grenade is defined as being for defensive, rather than offensive battlefield use).
Naturally, the greater blast of a defensive grenade offered more potential for damage, but it was important to overcome the limitations that the blast radius enforced upon its use. In short, anything which could propel the grenade further from those who issued it was seen as desirable. This was achieved by the creation of the rifle-propelled grenade. However, this created its own set of unique problems; namely arming the grenade and the effects this would have on the gun used to fire the grenade.
The first rifle grenades involved the addition of a rod, which when placed into the muzzle and a blank round fired, would propel the grenade up to as much as 700 metres, depending on the angle of the rifle. It is important to point out that this is impossible to do from the shoulder as the force of the recoil would simply shatter the bone, so the butt of the gun would be placed firmly onto the ground. The excess pressure generated had a detrimental affect on the gun as a whole, so only particular types of gun were capable of being used in this way and invariably, those capable required an external skeleton of bracing wires. There was also the issue of the resulting damage, that a steel rod had on the rifling itself, something for which no gun was designed to deal with. This is without factoring in the dangers that carrying both live and blank rounds into battle presented, or that of how to actually safely arm the grenade.
Messrs Vivien and Bessières, devised a solution in WW1, which allowed for the grenade to be both fired and simultaneously armed using a standard live round. This is best explained via the diagram below. These worked so successfully, that not only were they adopted as well as copied by the Americans and Germans, but the use of the VB grenade continued to be used during WW2. See the WWI gallery in the Wider Collection page for an example of the German launcher and grenade.
The launcher was transported in a leather pouch which was worn on the webbing belt. It resembles a wine bottle and was simply placed 'neck' first over the muzzle of the Lebel, creating a 'cup' discharger into which the grenade was placed.
There was also a version for signals which consisted of a phosphorus core housed in a steel container. Unlike the actual grenade, these were fired by means of a blank round which came attached to the casing of the signal VB and when fired, would propel the unit out of the launcher, as well as igniting the phosphorus. These were available in different colours depending upon the message to be conveyed.
