French Three Cell Grenade Pouch, Surplus

Aren’t you unhappy with the fact that you can only carry one mobile telephone in a stylish horizontal belt pouch? No more! If you need to carry three, or three pairs of sunglasses or reading glasses – or some combination of these – get a good old French triple grenade pouch! A one-off lot, by the looks of it.

Features

The main feature is that these things take three smallish items inside the vertically stacked pouches with flaps. These seem to be French versions of US grenade pouches that saw action at least in WW2. The attachment is different, these French ones just use a belt put through a channel at the top of the item.

• Three pouches
• Flaps close with two "Lift-the-Dot" snap fasteners
• Pouch size about 18 x 7 x 5 cm / 7” x 3” x 2”, fits one Mk II(2) type grenade (or 12 oz. beer can)
• Belt attachment
• Thigh straps on the lower part
• Color varies from green to brownish green

How about them potato mashers?

Grenades like the Stielhandgranate don’t fit that well, for example a Hungarian exercise item will have some protrusion. On the other hand, the stick handle is then quite ready for a good grab!

French surplus

These surplus items seem unused, and they are most likely from the 1950s. The pouches have some patina on them from decades of storage – some of the metal parts might have some oxidation, but can be brought back to their prime with some TLC. Until they have recently been unearthed, these beauties have laid in boxes in some surplus dungeon, right there behind the guillotines. Yes, behind, because the guillotines have probably seen more recent action than this sort of pouches, as heads were a-rollin’ in France until the late 1970s.