Fun with Hand Grenades

[s&wchad]

Some interesting comments made (I hope mostly in jest). If I found a frag grenade, I wouldn't touch it. Not only is it very illegal, it's extremely dangerous. I'd clear the area and call the authorities. There was a grenade found in an alley in Detroit last year. The bomb squad showed up with their bomb disposal trailer, hauled the grenade off to a safe area and blew it up. They're experts and they don't trust them. The one pictured here is old and there's corrosion on the pin and ring… heck, if was brand new I wouldn't touch it. Even taking it out of the can is foolish, it acts as a safety keeping the spoon down.

De-mil it??? Great idea…

A recognized "expert" got blowed up recently de-milling a Civil War shell and he supposedly know what he was doing. It you ever attempt it, please resist the urge to yell "Hey, watch this". No sense taking out other people with you.

 

[jondar]

Apparently you've not thrown a lot of them either.

 

[s&wchad]

No sir, I was never in the military. I haven't been to prison either and I don't want to go!

 

[foolproofoak]

the grenade did have the yellow ring, and no one in the family would even allow me to take it out of the canister much less demil it. And no, sadly we didn't find the 1911.

 

[jag312]

A guy I used to work with had been in Navy EOD during Viet Nam. He told me that some WWII granades had faulty fuses. Some didn't go off, and some didn't have a delay. If it doesn't go off; no big deal. If it doesn't have a delay; then "tu et foutu" which I believe is French for something I can't say here.

 

[therevjay]

"Pineapple" grenades were used in VN. at least as late as 1966 although the 'egg' style was the currant issue at that time. (I never heard them called lemon)

Although as a tanker I never had a (military) reason to use a grenade. I have err,ahh, heard some troops did use them for fishing (to the delight of local 'mountinyards')

 

[Eagle 477]

Bet someone at your local Bank would have given you lot's of money for it.

Bob

 

[walnutred]

As a young boy I found a 105mm shell casing. We played with that thing for weeks pretending it was a cannon. Then our neighbor noticed that the primer had not been fired. Did I say "found"? Actually we stole it from the trailer of a jeep that was parked at a local restaurant.

He told my dad we should not play with it because if dropped just right the primer could go off. From a distance I watched him remove the primer with a hammer and screwdriver. After spending 5 1/2 years in FA I would probably do the same now.

 

[Bob R]

As a young boy I found a 105mm shell casing.

I won't even tell you the wonders we found out on the impact area at Ft Sill in the late 60's. We would head out on the range to fish when the range was cold and sometimes, just sometimes, make a short side trip.

The things we found would make any teenage boy's heart beat faster. At that time it was better than sex, because there was no sex!.

bob

 

[Gutpile Charlie]

Bob R, I hope you didn't find anything out on the Cache Range that I had anything to do with in the early 60's?

I'm hoping everything we fired exploded?

 

[Bob R]

I'm hoping everything we fired exploded?

I can say in all likely hood, it didn't.

Sometimes I wonder how I survived without getting blown up.

bob

 

[walnutred]

I was out on the old Cashe range surveying in late 80's and it was amazing what was still turning up. I once found a complete clip of M1 ball ammo. The clip itself had turned to dust but the 8 ctgs were in surprisingly good shape, all 1943 dated.

I showed them to my DI and he said: You know you should really give those to me? I asked why and he replied: Because I would like to have them as souvenir, I would rather you gave them to me freely than the hard feelings that would result if I had to take them from you and you can't take them back to the barracks anyway without getting in trouble.

I instantly recognized the wisdom in his words, smiled and handed over the ammo.

 

[dennis40x]

In our OP positions we had grenades they were I believe what is referred to as the egg style with a flat pedestal base. We had box of them which contained at least a couple dozen packaged in cardboard tubes. I was always extremely careful with them.

At night we employed them as rifle fire was a big no-no with the battalion commander. Discharging a rifle with out justification brought the raft of God down upon you. We even had our day positions and night positions to keep them guessing. One night several days before I was to rotate home I heard noise to my front and a trip flare went off. I started pitching grenades joined by the other two guys on post. In the morning we found where the wire had been cut along with stakes planted in the ground. The stakes were so positioned that an RPG laid on the stakes fired would have knocked out bunkers. They got in real close scary close scouting our positions. Farther done the hill we found evidence that we had done them some damage.

You don't appreciate how lethal some thing can be until you've seen it first hand.