Thank you for your input, Adrian.
This item was also a good addition to my litlle collection ... which includes an example that came all the way from Austrália
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I tend to forget that my emprical conversation in english is sometimes a bit unorthodox.
Having learnt the language outside school (self taught), i favour terms that are idiomaticaly valid in both languages; which sometimes doesn't work.
Apparently the attribution of the term grenade differs between languages.
The term shell, meaning originaly the hard outside covering (cuirasse) of an animal, had its idiomatic attribution extended to military lexicon in the english language , but not to others, i would say.
Over here, and not only, howitzers and mortars throw explosive projectiles which, in period military terminology, were called bombs, later called grenades, a term still used nowadays. Mortar greanades and hand grenades are terms dealt separately.
And a shell remains the cover of a clam, a crustacean, a mollusc, etc.
On the other hand, a solid shot is called here bala (bullit) a term derived from ball (french balle, italian palla).
In a way that an artillery force doesn't shell a position but, instead, bombards it.
I hope i have made myself understood
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