So, You find a hand grenade....

[sc_rufctr]

...

FWIW In the Australian army all hand grenades are treated as "live or real" regardless of what color they are.
The training ones were painted blue but all of the safety protocols for handling real ones are the same.

From memory the live ones were olive drab with yellow txt.

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by craigster59

We trained a little bit with frags but first practiced with inert (painted blue) practice grenades. I think it depends on your MOS, but as a Combat Engineer and I'm sure Infantry also did a little more explosives training.

I just remember the Drill Sergeant saying that if a grenade was dropped, the safest thing to do was drop to the ground as far away as possible as the grenade had a "V" shaped blast zone.

Didn't sound very convincing to me but I grew up playing baseball so throwing at a target was a breeze.

I told kids if they dropped it, they needed to fall on it. They were careful.

It has been a long time, but if I recall, they seemed awfully heavy to throw like a baseball. More like a junior shot put ball.

[craigster59]

Originally Posted by fintstone

I told kids if they dropped it, they needed to fall on it. They were careful.

It has been a long time, but if I recall, they seemed awfully heavy to throw like a baseball. More like a junior shot put ball.

Throwing a grenade was like throwing a can of soup, weight wise.

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by craigster59

Throwing a grenade was like throwing a can of soup, weight wise.

Maybe...never threw a can of soup (and not a lot of grenades).

[Norm K]

Originally Posted by fintstone

It has been a long time, but if I recall, they seemed awfully heavy to throw like a baseball. More like a junior shot put ball.

Oh, you can throw them like a baseball alright. To be sure, I couldn't through a strike from center field like I could with a baseball, but could certainly have thrown one across the diamond if asked.

_

[Noah930]

I could certainly throw a can of soup--even a Chunky one--over a 3-foot wall of sandbags directly in front of me.

[Por_sha911]

...all hand grenades are treated as "live or real" regardless of what color they are.
The training ones were painted blue but all of the safety protocols for handling real ones are the same.

From memory the live ones were olive drab with yellow txt."

- Alec Baldwin

[masraum]

Originally Posted by craigster59

We trained a little bit with frags but first practiced with inert (painted blue) practice grenades. I think it depends on your MOS, but as a Combat Engineer and I'm sure Infantry also did a little more explosives training.

I just remember the Drill Sergeant saying that if a grenade was dropped, the safest thing to do was drop to the ground as far away as possible as the grenade had a "V" shaped blast zone.

Didn't sound very convincing to me but I grew up playing baseball so throwing at a target was a breeze.

I had a buddy that did IT work in Iraq on the bases that were over there. They had training and often had to deal with mortar fire. He said that they were told the same, get as flat as possible to the ground. And he did deal with some sort of live fire and said that he ran and then got flat, and was able to see where the schrapnel hit stuff, and it did hit mostly knee high and up.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

- Alec Baldwin

LMAO. I thought the same thing as I read it.

[sc_rufctr]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

- Alec Baldwin

My prediction: I a few years "Baldballs" will be sitting alone in his mansion thinking about what happened & he wont be able to rationalize it away because at the end of the day he pulled the trigger!

Arrogance only gets you so far in life.

(IMO: This is what happens when you cheap out and start cutting corners to save money)

[masraum]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

My prediction: I a few years "Baldballs" will be sitting alone in his mansion thinking about what happened & he wont be able to rationalize it away because at the end of the day he pulled the trigger!

Arrogance only gets you so far in life.

(IMO: This is what happens when you cheap out and start cutting corners to save money)

Except that he's saying "I didn't pull the trigger" and he'll eventually convince himself of that. Hopefully, he'll be at least a little haunted the rest of his life by it.

[tops911]

When I was a Battalion Command Sergeant Major I had an artillery battery doing a grenade live fire range. I went out to check on the range before it started and they had 4 grenades for me to throw. The safety was a young lieutenant, so we take all commands from the tower and I thumb off the thumb safety then pull the pin, but rather than throw the grenade I just dropped it outside the concrete wall (we were behind a concrete wall about 4' high with sloping ground from the top of the wall and away) and allowed the grenade to just roll away. You should have seen the look on that lieutenant LOL. Great times

[KFC911]

^^^^ LOL ... bet the Lt. had brown undies too .

Saw a doc about grenade training in the "pit" recently... I recall it saying that the blast radius was greater than the distance that some could throw it.

Do you get to toss soup cans first?

If true ... I'd bet I could throw a grenade further than I ever threw a baseball .... 'cause motivated I would be... yep !!!

[craigster59]

Originally Posted by KC911

^^^^ LOL ... bet the Lt. had brown undies too .

Saw a doc about grenade training in the "pit" recently... I recall it saying that the blast radius was greater than the distance that some could throw it.

Do you get to toss soup cans first?

If true ... I'd bet I could throw a grenade further than I ever threw a baseball .... 'cause motivated I would be... yep !!!

We would throw a little different than a baseball due to the weight of a grenade. Think of a "hook shot" in basketball, overhead motion with a bit of a finger roll thrown in. More of an arcing toss as opposed to throwing out a runner at second base.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by craigster59

We would throw a little different than a baseball due to the weight of a grenade. Think of a "hook shot" in basketball, overhead motion with a bit of a finger roll thrown in. More of an arcing toss as opposed to throwing out a runner at second base.

Plus, technically, to maximize distance, you want to throw at an initial angle of 45º, at least, that's what I've always heard and how the math works out.

[Por_sha911]

If I'm seeing it correctly, the dude in the pit at the 2:14 mark had a grenade bounce into the pit he was in. That didn't end well.

[sc_rufctr]

Oh and BTW they are designed to wound not kill.

If you kill the enemy you've got one less soldier on the front line. If you wound a soldier it takes 3 people out of the battle field (evacuation + the wounded) and consumes lots of resources behind the front line.

[David]

As a kid I had a couple of inert WW2 type pineapple grenades. I assume they were real with the powder and detonator removed. I bought them at an army surplus store. They never seemed dangerous to me since I’d had them around for so long but I took one to college as part of an art project. Nothing came of it but the look on the professor’s face showed he had some concern! This was almost 40 years ago. I doubt it would go unnoticed these days.

[Dpmulvan]

Never waste a grenade, they are hard to come by and you might need one someday.

[Por_sha911]

Who needs grenades when you can by an 9mm automatic assault pistol with 30 rounds and just one round will blow the lung out of the person being shot? (as stated by a clueless politician)