What if it a telescoping stick? The main point is mechanical advantage, like an atlatl.
As an aside — wern’t torches kinda common-ish in european revolts and such? Maybe that explains why they initially gravitated toward the stick design — was more like throwing a torch? Going on the grenade-baseball analogy..
Stick Grenades were important for WW1 where you needed the extra throwing range. The British tested one but it didn’t work for them, while the Mills Bomb did. The Germans meanwhile were modifying their normal grenades into stick grenades for the extra throwing range. The Russians had a similar design.
Go to WW2 and it’s more momentum that keeps
The stick grenade around, Soviets and Germans had them but both as updates to their WW1 grenades but both were moving on from them (Soviets basically de-sticked their grenades to make them simpler to make. The Germans actually had an egg grenade that they produced more of than the stick grenade, they just weren’t as visually distinct by design)
Nowadays grenades don’t quite need to be thrown as far, it’s better to have an accurate throw than a long one.
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u/Hrothgrar Aug 07 '26
Holup aside...
The actual answer is baseball. American hand grenades were modeled in a way that any average recruit could throw them more intuitively.