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Small part of my grenades

EODGUY

Well-Known Member
The glass bottle in photo 7 holds 1,987 steel balls that I took out of an indentical M-93 grenade shown on the left of the bottle. Yes, I know, I have to get a life! It took forever to eat away the plastic body, pick the balls out of the goo and count them.
 

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Nicely done Bob. I'm Ok with all of them except the first one on photo 9; what is that please?
 
The grenade you asked about is the Yugoslav M93P2. The complete markings are: "UPUTSTVO 1. Odvrnuti poklopac 2. Aktivirati udarom 3. Baciti ODMAH. RB M93 P2". Haven't translated it, but from the few words I can see I assume it is instructions to deploy the grenade. The body is steel, 3 5/8 inches long. Diameter is about 1 1/2 inches. The base of the grenade is capped with a sheet metal piece. Although mine is not complete, the fuze appears to be a percussion type.
Just to help make it clearer, the two black grenades in photo 7 are: Left, the BR M93 and right, the BR M91. Thought people might think they were the BR M75.
 
I run it through Google translator and got this text: INSTRUCTIONS 1st unscrew the lid 2nd Activate coup 3rd throw NOW. RB M93 P2.
:tinysmile_classes_t


Cheers</SPAN>
 
Makes perfect sense to me, especially the "throw NOW". Once that delay starts to burn is not the time to stand there and think about whether you want to throw it or not. Usually that only happens in war movies.
 
Makes perfect sense to me, especially the "throw NOW". Once that delay starts to burn is not the time to stand there and think about whether you want to throw it or not. Usually that only happens in war movies.

And war games :tinysmile_tongue_t:
 
Whats the difference between the M75 and the M95?
The M95 was made in Slovenia, right? The M75 in Yougoslavia?
 
GREAT diverse collection EODGUY, what a showing of fine examples. Thanx for sharing with us other members...Dynamite (pun intended)...Dano
 
Mikey25...Can't answer that one. I have no reference to an M95, nor an example. I have an RH Alan brochure on the RB CT-91 and it is produced in Herzogovina. It is esentially the BR M75. I know of an example where the original embossed BR M75 designation on the body has RB M91 embossed over it. One would think then that it was a standard M 75 grenade body. Only problem is it has an internal coiled steel fragmentation liner instead of the embedded steel balls. To complicate matters my BR M93 has steel balls and appears to be a copy of the M75. However, again, I know of a marked BR M93 with a coiled steel fragmentation liner. I have no reference to any of these grenades being produced with coiled steel liners, but they obviously were.
 
Beautiful sample of your collection. The scary part of it is the title of the post: A "Small" Part of my grenades.
 
EODGUY,your M50 grenade(the second row,third pic from the left) has incorrect fuze.You see,grenade with that type of percussion fuze(M50 fuze) has been marked in cyrillic ROB,M50P1,R and from the other side of the body:"SRB XXXX".Those xxxx are the year and serial of manufacturing.You have body of M50P3 grenade which was modernized M50P2 grenade.So it should have the same fuze with safety lever as on M52P3 grenade.Your grenade on the pic is not the original example,because M50 grenade was modernized in three stages:
-first it was M50,but during late 50s,Yugoslavian Peoples Army modernized all M50 grenades by changing the initial part of the fuze and those grenades were repainted and marked as ROB,M50P1,R
-after that,from 1969 to 1975 most M50P1 grenades were modernized by changing fuze mechanism(new fuze was M69) so they were repainted again and remarked as ROB,M50P2,R
-the last stage of modernization of M50 grenade started in 1975 and it lasted till 1991(till SFR Yugoslavia finished to exist as unique state).In that stage,all M50P2 grenades fuzes(m69 fuzes) were changed to new fuze based on M75 fuze.But that fuze had left thread to fit the body of M50 and M52 grenades.In that last stage of modernization M50P2 grenades were repainted again and remarked as BR,M50P3,RZK XXXX,R.Those xxxx were the year of modernization and the serial.Of course all marking were in cyrillic.

So you have remarked body of M50P3 with old M50 fuze.It is not original.

About 90% of all M50P1 and M50P2 grenades were modernised,but about 10% stayed non-modernized in local storages of yugoslavian local teritory units.All those from YPA storages were modernized.
 
EODGUY,your M50 grenade(the second row,third pic from the left) has incorrect fuze.You see,grenade with that type of percussion fuze(M50 fuze) has been marked in cyrillic ROB,M50P1,R and from the other side of the body:"SRB XXXX".Those xxxx are the year and serial of manufacturing.You have body of M50P3 grenade which was modernized M50P2 grenade.So it should have the same fuze with safety lever as on M52P3 grenade.Your grenade on the pic is not the original example,because M50 grenade was modernized in three stages:
-first it was M50,but during late 50s,Yugoslavian Peoples Army modernized all M50 grenades by changing the initial part of the fuze and those grenades were repainted and marked as ROB,M50P1,R
-after that,from 1969 to 1975 most M50P1 grenades were modernized by changing fuze mechanism(new fuze was M69) so they were repainted again and remarked as ROB,M50P2,R
-the last stage of modernization of M50 grenade started in 1975 and it lasted till 1991(till SFR Yugoslavia finished to exist as unique state).In that stage,all M50P2 grenades fuzes(m69 fuzes) were changed to new fuze based on M75 fuze.But that fuze had left thread to fit the body of M50 and M52 grenades.In that last stage of modernization M50P2 grenades were repainted again and remarked as BR,M50P3,RZK XXXX,R.Those xxxx were the year of modernization and the serial.Of course all marking were in cyrillic.

So you have remarked body of M50P3 with old M50 fuze.It is not original.

About 90% of all M50P1 and M50P2 grenades were modernised,but about 10% stayed non-modernized in local storages of yugoslavian local teritory units.All those from YPA storages were modernized.


Goran,
While I have no doubt that your information is complete and correct, I would slightly challenge your statement that the M50P3 with the old fuze in not "original". As part of a commercial UXO/demining team in Bosnia immediately after the Dayton Accords in 1996 we saw large quantities of grenades, factory and improvised, using every possible fuze combination, which had been in use during the conflict. I have seen the old M50 fuze and variations on everything from the early German type egg grenades to the M50s, as well as on a number of improvised pieces.

In this context, while the fuze/grenade combination is not correct (as you rightly point out) for Yugo/Serb grenades of the different periods, it was at times historically accurate for the Bosnian war. In a similar fashion we also saw WWII German bombs that had wagon wheels attached, in order to roll them down hillsides into fighting positions. No less incorrectly fuzed, but still historically accurate in context.
 
US-Subs,
I have also seen many war-made combinations of different fuzes and grenade bodies during the war in Croatia...but I reffered to Yugoslavian pre-war grenades,which were laborated in strict combinations of fuzes and grenade bodies.Of course during the war in former Yugoslavia many local improvisations have been made,using all available materials,so I believe that this kind of hybrid grenade was often seen in the field,but I just reffered to Yugoslavian Peoples Army pre-war system of laboration and marking of grenades in my previous text.
If we reffer to period from 1991-1995 all hybrid grenades could actually be original.War-production which has been using all available at that moment is the reason for that fact.
 
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While I recognize that there are fuze/grenade combinations that are correct in regards to timeframes and how they were assembled at the time of manufacture, there are also other "correct" combinations in my mind as a collector. All of the Yugoslav and Former Yugoslav grenades that I have in the collection were taken out of original boxes or containers as found in the country. The mismatch of fuze to body is a common problem throughout the world as we all know. However, in my mind if you find a grenade that was assembled with the intent to use it and it has a fuze different than it is supposed to be, it does not make it a mismatched item. The grenade in question I personally removed from a full unopened crate.
 
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