| OTO Mod. 35 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Offensive type grenade |
| Place of origin | Kingdom of Italy |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1935–1945 |
| Used by | Regio Esercito |
| Wars | Spanish Civil War World War II |
| Production history | |
| Manufacturer | OTO Melara |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 150 g (5.3 oz) |
| Height | 75 mm (3.0 in) |
| Diameter | 50 mm (2.0 in) |
| Filling | TNT |
| Filling weight | 36 g (1.3 oz) |
Detonation mechanism | Percussion on impact |
The OTO Mod. 35 was a hand grenade issued to the Regio Esercito during World War II.
Entered into service in 1935, the OTO Mod. 35, together with the SRCM Mod. 35 and the Breda Mod. 35 represented the new generation of hand grenades with which the Regio Esercito faced the Second World War. It is an offense type hand grenade consisting of an aluminium body bomb painted red, contains 36 g of TNT that at the time of the explosion fragment a ball of lead containing lead pellets. [1]
The O.T.O. is the simplest of the three Mod.35 Types. The Allways fuze is driven by a lead ball held between a cone shaped cap and a spring loaded striker. An interesting feature is the design on the ball, it's a lead-wrapped assembly of small lead shot, intended to rupture at the moment of detonation, a safety feature. Since the grenade was an offensive type, designers didn't want to have a heavy part of the bomb flying far away from the intended point of detonation and possibly injuring the thrower. That's the reason why the ball should break into tiny parts at the moment of detonation. [2] The internal capsule contains the explosive and a primer/detonator tube. A thin wire ring locks the two body halves together at a specific place, fixing the overall length, so as not to bind the internal parts.
To use, the pull tab with the attached safety strip is withdrawn, just prior to throwing, unlocking the safety lever. When thrown the lever was to catch the air and be pulled from the grenade, removing the safety bar from between the firing pin and the primer. This was an open terrain grenade, as some amount of time and distance was required to allow the mechanism to function properly, which it had a tendency not to do.
"Mills bomb" is the popular name for a series of British hand grenades which were designed by William Mills. They were the first modern fragmentation grenades used by the British Army and saw widespread use in the First and Second World Wars.
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OTO Melara was a subsidiary of the Italian company Finmeccanica, today Leonardo, active in the defence sector, with factories in Brescia and La Spezia. The Mod 56 pack howitzer, in service throughout the world, and the 76mm naval gun, adopted by 53 navies and installed on over 1,000 naval vessels, are among OTO Melara's best known weapons since World War II.
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The SFG 87 is a defensive fragmentation hand grenade created in Singapore. It is one of the grenades used for infantry divisions of the Singapore Armed Forces. The grenades are produced mainly by Singaporean weapons manufacturer ST Kinetics. It has been mass-produced since 1987, replacing the older SFG 82 and SFG 75 variants.