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Concept
Hales rifle grenade
Summary
The Hales rifle grenade is the name for several rifle grenades used by British forces during World War I. All of these are based on the No. 3 design.
To fire the No. 3, the user would fit the grenade into the rifle, insert the detonator, lay the rifle on the ground in the correct position, remove the safety pin, pull back the safety pin collar, insert a special blank round into the rifle, then fire.
With variants that lack the vale, the grenade was activated in exactly the same way as the ones that have a vale, but the user did not need to remove the safety pin collar, as it lacks one.
In 1907, Frederick Marten Hale (sometimes Martin) developed the rod grenade. "A simple rod was attached to a specialized grenade, inserted into the barrel of a standard service rifle and launched using a blank cartridge." However, the British did not immediately adopt the idea and entered World War I without any rifle grenades. As soon as trench warfare started, however, there was a sudden need for rifle grenades. The British government purchased a rodded variant of the No. 2 grenade as a temporary solution.
By 1915 Hale had developed the No. 3, which is commonly known as the Hales rifle grenade. The Hales grenade was improved throughout World War I to make it more reliable and easier to manufacture. However, production of the grenade was slow. In order to speed rod grenades to the front, the British also made rodded versions of the Mills bomb.
Although a simple approach, launching a rod grenade "...placed an extreme amount of stress on the rifle barrel and the rifle itself, resulting in the need to dedicate specific rifles to the grenade launching role, as they quickly became useless as an accurate firearm. This led to the search for an alternative and resulted in the reappearance of the cup launcher during the latter years of World War I." After World War I, the rod-type rifle grenade was declared obsolete and the remaining Hales were replaced with Mills bombs shot from a rifle via a cup launcher.
Official source
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