The problem with leather is that it is likely to tear in one place and so the explosion will be directional (and without control). The iron banding might help, but if this primitive society can band iron around leather, they can make iron grenades anyway.
Is there a good reason not to use thin pottery filled with a mix of black powder and sharp scrap metal? The only real problem with those is their fragility in terms of transport.
I have a whole series of half-written novels that feature as a central plot point the introduction of black powder to a culture, and have spent some time considering the kind of experiments and uses that it might be put to. As it was "discovered" being used in mining in a foreign land, the first main thought is "if it can break rock, it can break walls" so it changes seige warfare, but once the secret begins to come out and the initial monopoly on it has gone, all sorts of fun ensues...
Brian Dolton
Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex #25 "Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"What The Heart Bears" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"Above The Clouds" - Paper Blossoms, Sharpened Steel (forthcoming)
"The Gray World" - Every Day Fiction (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals Feb-Apr 08
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force #5
"The Last Arrow Of Liang Xi" - Darwin's Evolutions (forthcoming)
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"Call Centre" - Necrotic Tissue #1
"When Winter Came" - ASIM #32
"Cold Fire" - Flashing Swords #9
"St. Saviour And The Devil's Dandy" - Flashing Swords (forthcoming)
"In This City" - Fantasy Magazine (forthcoming) |