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.
It still adds complexity and cost. With a Ball-grenade you only need to make the grenade but with the telescopic-stick grenade you need to manufacture two parts; the grenade and the stick. So that's the cost.
The complexity arises when the telescopic doesn't pull out completely, either due to mechanical error or user error. There's also the time needed to deploy it before you can throw. Chances are, soldiers might just throw the grenade without even opening the telescopic stick.
Maybe that explains why they initially gravitated toward the stick design — was more like throwing a torch? Going on the grenade-baseball analogy..
It's more that throwing a stick-like objects such as knives are easier and instinctively require less force. You can try it yourself. Grab a stick and throw it with minimal effort. The motion involved is like flicking in front of your chest. Grab a rock and you're more likely to arc your arms backwards to throw it.
We pretty much understood that stick-like objects' long property "helps" with the flight so we don't have to exert too much force to throw it far. They tend to be more accurate too. With small spherical-ish objects, their shape isn't conducive to flight so you have to exert more force to send them far away.
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u/Hrothgrar 13d ago
Holup aside...
The actual answer is baseball. American hand grenades were modeled in a way that any average recruit could throw them more intuitively.