Grenades and helmets....

[Lucky13]

1. Which grenade packed the biggest punch?
2. Which helmet offered the best protection?

Short and sweet, eh?

[B-17engineer]

I want to say the Patato Masher packed the biggest punch..

Then the American Helmet gave the Most protection...I went to an airshow and bought one....it is a very thick and heavy duty helmet....especially with the liner which is a hard plastic helmet on the inside of the big helmet

[evangilder]

I think the US M1 "Steel Pot" helmet was a good helmet, but I think the German Steel Helmet was good as well. Modern America kevlar helmets have a look similar to the German steel design of WWII, so they must have been doing something right.

While looking at that kind of thing recently, I cam across a dealer of militaria from the Civil War (US) to Vietnam. Neat stuff here:
Time Traveler - Quality Authentic Historical Militaria

[B-17engineer]

Wasn't the German helmet so easy to manufacture where as the British helmets took a long time to make?

[parsifal]

Of the four grenades that I know the most about, (the british Mills Bomb, the german M-24 "Potato Masher", the US M-61 and the US M-67), there is very little to choose from in terms of their lethality. All are rated as having a kill zone of 5 metres, and an injusry radious of between 10 and 20 metres though they are capable of hurting someone out to about 50 metres.

The M-24 is no more lethal than the US grenades, but they are much bulkier, and somewhat clumsy in operation. Thei big advantages were their relative accuracy and range. The stick seemed to give the germans the ability to "lob" grenades with greater accuracy than the allied "egg" grenades, and they were able to throw grenades about 25 metres ofr so, whereas the US and british types could only be thrown about 12-15 metres, under combat conditions. on the other hand, the average allied soldier could carry roughly twice as many grenades as the germans soldier because the M-24 was very bulky and space consuming.