Grenadiers in the Rev. Army?

[insurrectomad]

I read somewhere that a few squads or companies of grenadiers were created around 1899. Luna's New Model Army? Were standard grenades made or just homemade bombs with burning hemp (Slow-match) fuses I wonder or was half sticks of dynamite encased in nails used? I can't believe they had an elitist uniform. I have never read of grenades being used in Cuba either by the Spanish or the US troops. Strange as grenadier & fusilier regts were in existence in all Europe armies from the 1660's onwards. The American Civil War saw little use of them also. It would be fun to throw a few 'soot-bombs' again. Our Col in the Napoleonic 'Grenzer Regt.' permitted us to throw some at the French Imperial Grenadiers at the Plensenoir Reenactment Event. we use firecrackers in a papermache ball filled with flour and soot. A couple got thrown back as some fuses burnt slower than others, but what fun!- David

[RayAdillO]

General Antonio Luna was a european trained professional phamacist prior to being a militaryman. He did have something to do with refurbishing ammunition by ordering the rerounding spent cartridges whenever possible. Development of other infantry weapons such as grenades would have been his inspiration too. He even had a small 25 man "commando" force under a Captain Garcia called "Guardia Negra" or Black Guard who used expolsives and perhaps even grenades when inflitrating enemy lines to do sabotage work.

Luna was known to do regular inspections of backyard arsenals and imposed stiff penalties for anyone adulterating cordite and other chemicals used to manufacture explosives. There was one noted incident when he had a Chinese merchant executed for supplying bogus ammunition (rounds filled with sawdust) to the Philippine republican army.

This is yet another thing you can consider when your doing your film. It would be nice to show some Filipino boys collecting spent brass cartridges into sacks after or perhaps even during a battle.

[insurrectomad]

Spent cartridges is a good idea! I had thought already of someones gun jamming due to a round being recycled a time too many, after crawling under fire to retrieve some bullets from the hat of a dead comrade. I now have a 2 wk delay before my trip to Manila to purchase some CD tapes of Songs of the Revolution etc; due to my having the flu. I can just imagine the panic by staff & guests as I cough & splutter my entry into the hotel, bars & stores during the day! They would all assume I've just got in from Mexico.

[RayAdillO]

Ha, ha, yes David, we get a lot of that too here in southern california. Take care and good luck.

[dimasalang]

Apr 24, 2009 22:02:23 GMT -5 insurrectomad said:

I can't believe they had an elitist uniform. I have never read of grenades being used in Cuba either by the Spanish or the US troops. Strange as grenadier & fusilier regts were in existence in all Europe armies from the 1660's onwards. The American Civil War saw little use of them also.

This makes perfect sense to me. Not just Luna, but Rizal, Bonifacio, M. del Pilar, all the illustrados in europe, and the other military officers studied in grave detail the French Revolution. Note how Filipino soldiers shouldered their rifles backwards, unlike the Spanish and Americans. The Philippine Revolution was to be identical and modeled after the French...this would later carry over to the Phil-Am War.

[insurrectomad]

Yes of course! I had overlooked how much the French Revolution would influence military thinking in equal measure to political thinking. Bringing the gun from the ground to shoulder in the French manner requires a twist not used by U.S. or Spanish troops. So the Macabebes would have had to learn the drill before departing with Gen. Funston to capture Aguinaldo.