{"id":470,"date":"2013-02-14T18:12:19","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T18:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/?page_id=470"},"modified":"2019-05-14T17:59:58","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T17:59:58","slug":"useless-toxic-glass-bottles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/?page_id=470","title":{"rendered":"Useless toxic glass bottles"},"content":{"rendered":"

AW BOMBS WERE TOXIC MASS PRODUCED<\/strong> JUNK<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The real effectiveness of the AW \u201cMolotov cocktail\u201d weapons mentioned by\u00a0 Threlfall\u00a0and the story often repeated in some local history books by PR men from the company\u00a0should be put in their historical context.<\/p>\n

THEY WERE UTTERLY USELESS AND REJECTED BY THE REGULAR ARMY AS BEING SUCH, INSTEAD BEING FOISTERED ON THE NEWLY FORMED HOME GUARD- WHO ALSO REGARDED THEM AS USELESS.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

In \u201cThe Home Guard\u201d\u00a0 <\/b>by\u00a0\u00a0SP Mackenzie\u00a0\u00a0 (Oxford Press 1995 on page 92 of chapter\u00a0 6 it is revealed \u201cOrdnance Board tests revealed that the glass would not break when thrown down on grass or even tarmac, and that it had to be dropped from a height of eight feet onto concrete before it would ignite. Once ignited, moreover, the grenade produced fumes which could choke the thrower if he was not careful.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Stuart Macrae <\/b>in his book \u201cWinston Churchill\u2019s Toyshop\u201d (Amberley pubishing ISBN 978-1-4456-0370-4) <\/b>is even more blunt about their worthlessness after a demonstration to the RAF at RAF Farnborough in 1940; even the name of the manufacturer being forgotten. From page 108<\/p>\n

\u201cThere had been a lot of talk about the deadliness of the latest Molotov cocktail made up by some chemical firm and large stacks of these bottles were laid out ready for use. There was some concern that, if the tank drivers could not pull up quickly enough and were likely to be frizzled to death, but after looking at the bottles, they said they would be happy to take a chance. The demonstration of this phosphorus grenade was an utter and complete flop, and having had our own setbacks, we could sympathise with those who put on the show. That particular weapon was out, and nothing would bring it back.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

As they were officially known in military circles, The<\/b> No 76 SIP<\/b> (self igniting phosphorus) grenades <\/b>or Albright and Wilson bombs<\/b> referred to in Chapter 13 of Threlfall\u2019s book were crudely stockpiled by \u00a0home guard units for an anti tank war which never came to this country after coming off the Albright and Wilson production line.<\/p>\n

Though Threlfall quotes a figure of \u201cover seven million\u201d having been filled by Albright and Wilson\u2019s factory, an official record from the Director of small artillery from 1947 of \u201c6,340,719 grenades were received in Ordnance depots, but as this grenade was in use as a hand grenade before the introduction of the Northover projector, we are unable to state the quantity ordered for use with the projector.\u201d\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

National Archives \u201dWO 185\/23 nothover projector and it\u2019s ammunition.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

As this figure does not tally with the earlier quantity referred to in the Ministry of supply contract<\/a>,\u00a0 perhaps Albright and Wilson kept a large cache for themselves- or maybe many of them broke before packing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AW BOMBS WERE TOXIC MASS PRODUCED JUNK The real effectiveness of the AW \u201cMolotov cocktail\u201d weapons mentioned by\u00a0 Threlfall\u00a0and the story often repeated in some local history books by PR men from the company\u00a0should be put in their historical context. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":135,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10630,"href":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/470\/revisions\/10630"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}