"Mills bomb ""Mills bomb"" is the popular name for a series of prominent British hand grenades. They were the first modern fragmentation grenades used by the British Army and saw widespread use in World War I. William Mills, a hand grenade designer from Sunderland, patented, developed and manufactured the ""Mills bomb"" at the Mills Munition Factory in Birmingham, England, in 1915. The Mills bomb was inspired by an earlier design by Belgian captain Leon Roland. Roland and Mills were later engaged in a patent lawsuit. Col. Arthur Morrow, a New Zealand Wars officer, also believed aspects of his patent were"
"to British front-line troops in 1915. William Mills, a hand grenade designer from Sunderland, patented, developed and manufactured the ""Mills bomb"" at the Mills Munition Factory in Birmingham, England in 1915, designating it the No. 5. It was described as the first ""safe grenade"". They were explosive-filled steel canisters with a triggering pin and a distinctive deeply notched exterior surface. This segmentation was thought to aid fragmentation and increase the grenade's deadliness, but later research showed that it did not improve fragmentation. Improved fragmentation designs were later made with the notches on the inside, but at that time they would"
"in other nations but widely used in German grenades. During World War I, the original design of the Stielhandgranate, under the name M1915 (Model 1915), was in direct technological competition with the British standard-issue Mills bomb series. The first design model of the Mills bomb – the Grenade 5 Mk. 1 – was introduced the same year as the German Model 1915, but due to delays in manufacturing it was not widely distributed into general service until 1916. (There was a small period of time where German troops had large supplies of new Model 1915 grenades, while their British opponents"
"the tin there was a Bickford safety fuse connecting the detonator, which was lit by either the user, or a second person. The ""Mills bomb"" (Grenade, Hand No. 5) was introduced in 1915 and would serve in its basic form in the British Army until the 1970s. Its improved fusing system relied on the soldier removing a pin and while holding down a lever on the side of the grenade. When the grenade was thrown the safety lever would automatically release, igniting the grenades internal fuse which would burn down until the grenade detonated. The French would use the F1"
"model, the No. 76 Special Incendiary Grenade, was mainly issued to the Home Guard as an anti-tank weapon. It was produced in vast numbers; by August 1941 well over 6,000,000 had been manufactured. The United States developed the Mk 2 hand grenade before the war, nicknamed the ""pineapple"" for its grooved surface. This weapon was widely used by American G.I.s The heavy, segmented bodies of ""pineapple"" type grenades produce an unpredictable pattern of fragmentation. After the Second World War Britain adopted grenades that contained segmented coiled wire in smooth metal casings. Despite this, the Mills bomb remained the standard grenade"
"pins around it. The pins were filled with mercury fulminate and when the pins sensed contact on any angle with an object, it would immediately trigger the detonation. The bomb was designed by Felice Orsini, an Italian exile living in England, while the casing of the bomb was made by English gunmaker Joseph Taylor. The bomb was designed and created in Birmingham, England but was tested by Taylor in Sheffield and Devon. After thorough testing, Taylor provided the bomb to Orsini and smuggled them into France disguised as “gas machinery.” Taylor later claimed that he thought the device was a"
"as the Butterfly Bomb. It was used in World War II to attack both civilian and military targets. The technology was developed independently by the United States, Russia and Italy (see Thermos Bomb). The US used the 20-lb M41 fragmentation bomb wired together in clusters of 6 or 25 with highly sensitive or proximity fuzes. From the 1970s to the 1990s cluster bombs became standard air-dropped munitions for many nations, in a wide variety of types. They have been produced by 34 countries and used in at least 23. Artillery shells that employ similar principles have existed for decades. They"
"rather than the heat or overpressure caused by detonation, although offensive grenades are often constructed without a frag matrix. These casing pieces are often incorrectly referred to as ""shrapnel"" (particularly by non-military media sources). The use of fragmentation in bombs dates to the 14th century, and appears in the Ming Dynasty text ""Huolongjing"". The fragmentation bombs were filled with iron pellets and pieces of broken porcelain. Once the bomb explodes, the resulting shrapnel is capable of piercing the skin and blinding enemy soldiers. The modern fragmentation grenade was developed during the 20th century. The Mills bomb, first adopted in 1915"
"tonnes of high explosive, and may be the world's largest non-nuclear explosion. Birmingham was the third most bombed city in the UK after London and Liverpool; Spitfires were built in Castle Bromwich, Lancasters at Austin's works in Longbridge at Cofton Hackett, and the Birmingham Small Arms Company at Small Heath produced the M1919 Browning machine gun. Boulton Paul Aircraft had their main aircraft factory in the north of Wolverhampton. RAF Defford, in the south of Worcestershire between Pershore and Croome Park, was where many important airborne radars were developed, such as H2S (radar) and anti-submarine radars. Thomas Wedgwood, son of"
"first antibiotic M&B (sulfapyridine) as treatment for lobar pneumonia. Birmingham becomes the major British manufacturer of the phenolic plastic Bakelite. The magnetron, the core component in the development of radar, and the first microwave power oscillators are developed at the University of Birmingham during World War II (the microwave oven owes its existence to these developments). 1940: After initial teething problems with management, Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory started production of the Spitfire fighter plane. By the time production ended at Castle Bromwich in June 1945, a total of 12,129 Spitfires (921 Mk IIs, 4489 Mk Vs, 5665 Mk IXs and"
"Mark 15 nuclear bomb The Mark 15 nuclear bomb, or Mk-15, was a 1950s American thermonuclear bomb, the first relatively lightweight (7,600 lb / 3450 kg) thermonuclear bomb created by the United States. A total of 1,200 Mark 15 bombs were produced from 1955 to 1957. There were three production variants: Mod 1, Mod 2, and Mod 3. The design was in service from 1955 to 1965. The Mark 15 is widely described as a transitional design between fission and thermonuclear weapons. The Mark 15 was a staged weapon (see Teller-Ulam design) that used radiation implosion from a fission nuclear"
"variants are still in use. As late as World War I, some countries were still using hand-grenades with simple black match fuses much like those of modern fireworks: the infantryman lit the fuse before throwing the grenade and hoped the fuse burned for the several seconds intended. These were soon superseded in 1915 by the Mills bomb, the first modern hand grenade with a relatively safe and reliable time fuze initiated by pulling out a safety pin and releasing an arming handle on throwing. Modern time fuzes often use an electronic delay system. Impact, percussion or contact fuzes detonate when"
"the intended target. The 1st grenade used when war broke out in 1914 was a cast-iron canister on an 18-inch stick, which was dangerous to use because it often caught on the trench front when lobbed. Mills carried out extensive research into common design faults and came up with his own grenade, which had a central spring-loaded firing-pin and spring-loaded lever locked by a pin. A four-second time fuse allowed the thrower to take cover before it exploded. His bombs were used exclusively and successfully by the British and other Allies throughout the war and 75,000,000 were supplied. His services"
"used by RAF Bomber Command in very large numbers, declining slightly in 1944 to 35.8 million bombs produced (the decline being due to more bombs arriving from the United States). It was the weapon of choice for the British ""dehousing"" plan. The bomb consisted of a hollow body made from aluminium-magnesium alloy with a cast iron/steel nose, and filled with thermite incendiary pellets. It was capable of burning for up to ten minutes. There was also a high explosive version and delayed high explosive versions (2–4 minutes) which were designed to kill rescuers and firefighters. It was normal for a"
"grenade. After throwing the user had to take cover immediately and a competent thrower could manage with reasonable accuracy. Adopted as the standard grenade, over 33 million Mills bombs were produced in the final three years of the war. In 1914, the heaviest artillery gun was the 60 pounder gun, four in each of the heavy batteries. The Royal Horse Artillery had the 13 pounder gun and the Royal Field Artillery the 18 pounder gun. By 1918, the situation had changed and artillery were the dominant force on the battlefield. Between 1914–1918 the heavy and siege artillery of the Royal"
"Lewes bomb The Lewes bomb was a blast-incendiary field expedient explosive device, manufactured by mixing diesel oil and Nobel 808 plastic explosive. It was created by Lieutenant Jock Lewes, one of the original members of L Detachment SAS in 1941. The SAS needed a combined incendiary and explosive device light enough to be carried by a small group of commandos yet powerful enough to destroy and set fire to aircraft on an enemy airfield. Weighing approximately , the Lewes Bomb could be carried in quantity by an individual. The only available bomb at the time was too cumbersome to be"
"Billingham Manufacturing Plant The Billingham Manufacturing Plant is a large chemical works based in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, England. In agricultural terms, it is one of the most important factories in Britain. Ammonia had first been made in Germany in 1913 by BASF at Oppau, near Ludwigshafen (the plant was destroyed in 1921 by the Oppau explosion). Ammonium compounds are not only used for fertilisers, but explosives. Billingham-on-Tees was a small village in 1917, when its Grange Farm was chosen to be the site of a large chemical works. On 22 March 1918, the Minister of Munitions approved the site"
"development of nuclear weapons. In 1942, and with the threat of invasion by Germany still apparent, the United Kingdom dispatched around 20 British scientists and technical staff to America, along with their work, which had been carried out under the codename ""Tube Alloys"", to prevent the potential for vital information falling into enemy hands. The scientists formed the British contribution to the Manhattan Project, where their work on uranium enrichment was instrumental in jump-starting the project. The invention of the atomic bomb meant that a single aircraft could carry a weapon so powerful it could burn down entire cities, making"
"items were hard to locate, while others were in short supply in the wartime economy. The Manhattan Project's overriding priority overcame this problem. In some cases, the Army had representatives at the factories where items were made who designated them for use by Project Camel. Groves felt that his fears about excessive safety were realized: reinforced concrete, blast proof doors and electrical shielding drove up costs. In the end, after 115 days, the first explosives were melted, mixed and poured on 25 July 1945. After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Under Secretary of War, Robert P. Patterson,"
"check equipped Mills Bombs shot from a rifle via a cup launcher. The French grenade, named the ""V-B"" grenade after its inventors, Viven and Bessières, was fired from the standard service rifle with the use of a special adapter and a standard cartridge, providing an effective range of around 175 to 200 yards, while the effective radius of the bursting grenade was 75 yards. The grenade had a hollow through the middle, allowing the bullet to pass through, while the muzzle blast was captured by the launching device and used to propel the grenade. The bullet, after passing through the"
"several railway workshops and agricultural machinery makers, together with an order for 675,000 bombs from numerous small firms. The ML mortar was a design based on the French 240 mm Trench Mortar and introduced in 1916, the British version differed from the French LT weapon in that the propellant charge was loaded through the muzzle In June 1916, following unsatisfactory trials with the French model, the army replaced them with 30 of its own model, firing a 150-pound bomb, followed by 200 more in December 1916. The 9.45 inch mortar also known as the ""Flying Pig"" was a Corps level"
"the hammer or striker to fly forward, striking the ""firing pin,"" which then strikes the ""primer,"" igniting an impact-sensitive chemical compound (historically, first fulminate of mercury, then potassium chlorate, now lead styphnate) which shoots a flame through the ""flash hole"" into the cartridge's propellant chamber, igniting the propellant. The Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts became important to the history of firearms during the 1850s, when it debuted the Springfield rifle. Springfield rifles were among the very first breech-loading rifles, starting production in 1865. By that time, metallurgy had developed sufficiently so that brass could be worked into fixed ammunition. Previously,"
"Birmingham Mint The Birmingham Mint, a coining mint, originally known as Heaton's Mint or Ralph Heaton & Sons, in Birmingham, England, started producing tokens and coins in 1850 as a private enterprise, separate from, but in co-operation with the Royal Mint. Its factory was situated in Icknield Street (), on the edge of the Jewellery Quarter. It was created by Ralph Heaton II, using second-hand coin presses bought from the estate of Matthew Boulton. Ralph Heaton II (1794 – October 1862) was the son of Ralph Heaton I, an engineer, inventor and businessman in Slaney Street, and later Shadwell Street."
"from wound tessellated square wire, which produces around 1,400 anti-personnel fragments. A single cluster bomb produces a total of more than two hundred thousand fragments. The weapon was developed in the early 1970s by Hunting Engineering, Ltd. of Ampthill, Bedfordshire but manufactured elsewhere at their production facility. The original BL755 has been updated twice. IBL755 is a bomblet update, increasing its reliability and armour penetration. RBL755 is the BL755 weapon fitted with a radar altimeter that acts as a proximity fuze, triggering bomblet ejection at the optimum altitude whilst allowing the bomb to be released from a safe height and"
"overtly prophecised nuclear weapons. The Cavendish Laboratory has 29 Nobel prize winners, more than anywhere else, and many Western countries. Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies of Ipswich built the first engine-powered commercial lawnmower in 1902. The firm would later own Mountfield. The Chorleywood bread process from 1961 changed bread production all over world. John Dickinson Stationery of Hertfordshire was the first company to produce gummed envelopes in 1850, and windowed envelopes in 1929 (in production quantities). The Thursford Collection in Norfolk is the country's biggest collection of steam engines. The Marconi Company's New Street Works on the B1008 in Chelmsford was"
"Mayor of Birmingham and later the British Prime Minister, are two of the most well-known political figures who have lived in Birmingham. The city established its own university in 1900. The city suffered heavy bomb damage during World War II's ""Birmingham Blitz"". The city was also the scene of two scientific discoveries that were to prove critical to the outcome of the war. Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls first described how a practical nuclear weapon could be constructed in the Frisch–Peierls memorandum of 1940, the same year that the cavity magnetron, the key component of radar and later of microwave"
"M115 bomb The M115 anti-crop bomb, also known as the feather bomb or the E73 bomb, was a U.S. biological cluster bomb designed to deliver wheat stem rust. Mass production of the M115 bomb began in 1953. The weapon was a modified M16A1 cluster bomb, which was normally used to distribute airborne leaflet propaganda or fragmentation weapons. The U.S. Air Force first pointed out the need for an anti-crop weapon in September 1947. In October 1950 the Air Force began procuring 4,800 M115 bombs. By 1954, with the biological agents causing wheat and rye rust standardized in laboratory culture, the"
"October 1952, Britain's first nuclear bomb, detonated on HMS ""Plym"" on the Montebello Islands in the state of Western Australia, was made of plutonium-239 mostly made at Windscale (which began production in 1950), with some possibly from Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, Canada (where the Tube Alloys project was later moved). W. T. Glover & Co. of Salford were important electricity cable manufacturers throughout the early 20th century. BAE Systems Wind Tunnel Department at Warton—one its four wind tunnels—the High Speed Wind Tunnel—can test speeds intermittently up to Mach 3.8 (trisonic)—the second fastest in the UK, to the University of"
"occurred. The production model 3-rotor bombes contained 36 scramblers arranged in three banks of twelve. Each bank was used for a different ""wheel order"" by fitting it with the drums that corresponded to the Enigma rotors being tested. The first bombe was named ""Victory"" and was delivered to Bletchley Park on 18 March 1940. The next one, which included the diagonal board, was delivered on 8 August 1940. It was referred to as a ""spider bombe"" and was named ""Agnus Dei"" which soon became ""Agnes"" and then ""Aggie"". The production of British bombes was relatively slow at first, with only"
"Leeds, and postwar manufactured the Centurion. In October 2016, the site of Barnbow Munitions Factory was listed as a scheduled monument. Barnbow Barnbow was a munitions factory situated near the city of Leeds during the First World War. It was officially known as National Filling Factory No. 1. In 1916 a massive explosion killed 35 of the women who worked there. After the declaration of war with Germany in August 1914, there was suddenly an urgent need for large volumes of arms and munitions. Shells were already being filled and armed at ""Leeds Forge Company"", based at Armley, which by"
"get close enough to the trenches, enemies hiding in trenches could be attacked. The Germans and Turks were well equipped with grenades from the start of the war, but the British, who had ceased using grenadiers in the 1870s and did not anticipate a siege war, entered the conflict with virtually none, so soldiers had to improvise bombs with whatever was available (see Jam Tin Grenade). By late 1915, the British Mills bomb had entered wide circulation, and by the end of the war 75 million had been used. Since the troops were often not adequately equipped for trench warfare,"
"have been too expensive to produce. The external segmentation of the original Mills bomb was retained, as it provided a positive grip surface. This basic ""pin-and-pineapple"" design is still used in some modern grenades. The Mills bomb underwent numerous modifications. The No. 23 was a variant of the No. 5 with a rodded base plug which allowed it to be fired from a rifle. This concept evolved further with the No. 36, a variant with a detachable base plate to allow use with a rifle discharger cup. The final variation of the Mills bomb, the No. 36M, was specially designed"
"Birmingham experienced such rapid growth that it was nicknamed ""The Magic City."" By the 1920s, Birmingham was the 19th largest city in the U.S and held more than 30% of the population of the state. Heavy industry and mining were the basis of the economy. Chemical and structural constraints limited the quality of steel produced from Alabama's iron and coal. These materials did, however, combine to make ideal foundry iron. Because of low transportation and labor costs, Birmingham quickly became the largest and cheapest foundry iron-producing area. By 1915, twenty-five percent of the nation's foundry pig iron was produced in"