Why China Kept Using Stick Grenades

In the 1960s, the Chinese army chose something that looked backward to almost everyone else in the world. Instead of

adopting modern hand grenades like the Americans, Soviets, or Europeans, the People's Liberation Army doubled down on a weapon that still had a wooden handle.

That was a design that dated back to the First World War. But it wasn't nostalgia, and it wasn't technological backwardness, and it certainly was not an accident. The woodenhandled grenade

an accident. The woodenhandled grenade was exactly the weapon the Chinese army thought it needed for the kind of war that it expected to fight. To understand

why, let's go back to the early decades of the People's Republic. When China's

military planners weren't preparing for small border conflict, but for a great big industrial war of survival. In that

imagined war of the future, factories would be bombed and supply lines would collapse and millions of militia fighters would need a weapon that could be produced almost anywhere. That's how

the PLA came to build one of the most recognizable weapons in modern Chinese military history, the woodenhandled stick grenade. What kind of war would

stick grenade. What kind of war would call for a weapon like that? Well, in

the 1950s and the early 1960s, Chinese military planners expected to fight a war much different from the limited border conflicts that they later fought, like with India and Vietnam. China

believed that a confrontation with the United States or the Soviet Union would escalate into a big industrial war that threatened China's cities and factories

and transportation networks. And during

the Korean War, American air power had ravaged China's forces badly enough to convince many Chinese planners that centralized industry and logistics just

might not survive in a future conflict.

So based on that thinking, the PLA prepared for a war where weapons production might have to continue in dispersed workshops and small factories and improvised local facilities even

while they were suffering bombing and severe material shortage. And in that kind of war, weapons would have to be produced in enormous numbers for years

on end. Why? Because Chinese planners

on end. Why? Because Chinese planners didn't plan to fight the war just with the regular army. They expected militia forces across the country, so farmers

and workers and students to fight alongside the PLA under the people's war doctrine that had brought the communist movement to power in the first place.

For those militia fighters, weapons would have to be simple, safe, cheap, and easy to produce locally. Once you

understand the war they expected, then the grenade itself becomes much easier to understand. With those assumptions,

to understand. With those assumptions, their wooden handled stick grenade made great sense. First, you didn't need

great sense. First, you didn't need precise manufacturing. You could cast

precise manufacturing. You could cast the explosive bodies in small factories using simple molds and assemble the fuse mechanisms in other little workshops and

turn out the long wooden handles with ordinary woodworking tools. That last

detail about the woodworking mattered more than it might seem. China had

plenty of cheap, lowgrade wood and plenty of people who knew how to work it. So making wooden handles didn't call

it. So making wooden handles didn't call for specialized machinery or scarce industrial materials. So production

industrial materials. So production could continue even if factories got bombed and supply lines were cut. And

with that simple design, the PLA could keep arming militia fighters safely and effectively. Next, the long handle also

effectively. Next, the long handle also helped militia fighters use the weapon safely and effectively. inexperienced

fighters could fling the grenade farther than a compact metal grenade. And in

close combat, that extra distance could matter a lot. And that long shape also made the stick grenade easier to carry,

either in simple belts or homemade cloth carriers, so the wooden bodies of the grenades wouldn't bang together. The

same logic appeared inside the grenade.

Chinese designers relied more on a grenade's blast than on carefully engineered fragmentation that cut down on precision metal working and it made large-scale production easier under

rough conditions. Were these grenades

rough conditions. Were these grenades advanced weapons? Absolutely not. That

advanced weapons? Absolutely not. That

was the point. They were crude and that was exactly why Chinese planners chose them. In a war effort stymied by bombing

them. In a war effort stymied by bombing and shortages and mass mobilization, the woodenhandled grenade fit Chinese strategy better than a more

sophisticated design could have. Next,

the importance of the grenade gets even clearer when we look at the militia forces that the PLA expected to rely on.

Throughout the 50s and 60s, China organized and trained militia units across the country. These were not full-time soldiers. nothing even close.

full-time soldiers. nothing even close.

They were farmers, factory workers, students, and local officials. They

trained occasionally, but they were expected to fight if war came. For those

forces, simplicity mattered a whole lot more than sophistication. A militia unit might not have reliable access to rifle or machine gun ammunition. In fact, make

that they definitely wouldn't have access to ammunition. The militia unit probably wouldn't have support from armored vehicles or heavy weapons, but it could store and distribute grenades.

Grenades required no fuel, no complex maintenance, and no steady supply of spare parts. Once produced, they could

spare parts. Once produced, they could stay in storage for a long time and still be ready to use. And in close combat, in villages or cities or

mountain passes or just regular defensive positions, grenades could be devastating up close. Chinese training

materials from that period emphasized exactly that. Grenades were weapons that

exactly that. Grenades were weapons that ordinary fighters could use effectively with limited training. A coordinated

volley of grenades could disrupt an attack. It could help defend a position

attack. It could help defend a position and it could buy time even when heavier weapons were unavailable. And in the

logic of people's war, that reliability mattered hugely. If regular army forces

mattered hugely. If regular army forces got pushed back, then the militia units were expected to keep fighting. They

would defend local areas, harass enemy forces, and generally buy time for China's industry and army to recover and regroup.

So in that kind of war, the humble stick grenade became one of the most dependable weapons that the system could rely on. So for Chinese military

rely on. So for Chinese military planners in the mid 20th century, the stick grenades were something important, a weapon that could survive bombing and

shortages and mass mobilization. So in

theory, it was exactly the kind of weapon needed for people's war.

But war rarely unfolds the way the planners expect. When Chinese forces

planners expect. When Chinese forces entered modern conflicts in the decades that followed, the strength of the stick grenade became clear, but so did its limitations.

And those later lessons then shaped how the PLA thought about grenades and militia forces and industrial warfare in general for decades afterward. In the

next episode, then we'll look at how those grenades actually performed in training, in exercises, and eventually in real combat. Because the story of the PLA's grenades isn't just how they were

built. It's about what happened when

built. It's about what happened when they actually got used for real.