"Hand Grenades" Topic

My son asked why hand grenades are (seemingly) thrown overhead and not like a baseball. I opined that a grenade is used when LOS issues prevent direct fire as such, so the overhead throw is used to create 'plunging' fire as it were. Am I close?

My guess is that they're too heavy to throw like a baseball.

The bloke(s) you're throwing a grenade at is not a hitter. He won't be intimated by speed of the pitch.

Do you let your son throw stones? Go and try it this weekend.

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The hand grenade is significantly heavier than a baseball. WWII grenades, their weight and shape really preclude a baseball throw.

While I was in (1983-2004), the throw style depended on the distance you needed to reach with it. While at first glance a baseball-style throw would seem, "more accurate," the overhand throw gives better distance due to weight.

With modern grenades shaped like a baseball, I've seen and experienced both types of throws.

Exactly what Mardaddy said. Hand grenades, especially frags, are surprisingly heavy.A throw, like throwing a baseball, would not go all that far and probably not being used to throwing one very often, would cause the throw to be inaccurate as well.

Also has to do with bounce/the grenade staying where you want it to kill the bad guys.

Set up a hula-hoop in your back yard by just laying it on the ground.

Throw a baseball 'baseball style' and try to get it to land and stay in the hula-hoop. Now try with quite a bit more arch to your throw. I suspect you'll have less bounce/roll on the ball, meaning it stays closer to where it landed/where you want it.

And grenades do not roll/bounce in a predictable manner. Anything you can do to mitigate the randomness and improve accuracy is a good thing.

I've got a fob from WWI. A neighbor lady gave it to me when I was about 10 yrs old. Her husband had brought it home from the war. Man we had fun playin' "Army" with that thing!
No way could you throw that hunk of steel like a baseball!

Don't have it handy, but Ian Hogg in 'Grenades and Mortars' cited a study performed by the US Army (during or just before? WWII) on designing a spherical grenade. The idea was to capitalize on the American soldier's familiarity with throwing baseballs. Not having it to hand (and it has been a long time since I read it) I can't recall the exact results, but it didn't pan out.

I do believe that the reasons stated above were among those for the abandonment of the concept.

At any rate it was studied.

So, how heavy is a frag grenade?

Goragrad – modern US frag grenades are spherical, or nearly so. Weigh close to a pound.

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Much easier to grip the grenade and hold the spoon down with a full fist while you pull the pin and then throw it rather than trying to regrip the "live" grenade to possibly throw it farther. Especially true of the old pineapple or smoke grenades.
As already mentioned above, often you are trying to place the grenade into a window, slit trench, doorway, vehicle, etc. Try things out as Captain Jake suggests.

Funny there has been almost the same discussion on TMP about Ancient Roman heavy darts ("plumbata" or "matiobarbuli"), were they thrown overarm or underarm:

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Thank you for your timely responses.

Rubber Suit, I would presume we have had quite a bit of research put into the subject and some tech advances since the '30s-'40s.

Back then they were still figuring out the best fragment sizes and how to get optimum fragmentation out the grenades they had.

Goragrad – modern US frag grenades are spherical, or nearly so. Weigh close to a pound.

About 3x the weight of a baseball, more than twice the weight of a softball.

Plus, it has a timer, so throwing it in a high arc burns off some of that, making it less likely to be thrown back in your direction by the bad guys.

Ideally you're going to throw it from cover – preferably a trench. Also having it come down in an arc means it's more likely to go off in the air over the enemy position, and as Mako said, lessens the chance of them grabbing it and throwing it back at you.

Pineapple grenades, at least the British & Commonwealth ones from WW2, weigh in at TWO pounds each. They also have a 25 yard lethal zone, and a 25 yard throw distance at best – note those 2 figures, you do not want to be standing, exposed when it goes off.

And the British design had a reinforced base so it could be shot from a launcher, which usually came away in one big piece and had a lethal range of several hundred yards.

In 1971 we used the M67 during training exercises. Before live throw, we practiced tossing a dummy grenade so that it exceeded the height of a line 12 ft above the ground about 10 yds away and landed at least another 10 yards beyond that. The training sgts wanted to see it land consistantly at least 30 yards from you before they allowed you to go to the live fire line. The height line aided the thrower in getting it to land at least that far. Otherwise the thrower may not throw it far enough away and be liable to be hit by fragments. Killing diameter is listed as 2 yds (5 ft) and casualties within 15 yds but while we waited in line in the wooded above ground "tunnel" that snaked about 100 yds from the live fire range, there would be times that frags were heard to bounce off of its upper walls.

Using the M15 grenade launcher was another fun event during training. I remember the training sgts constantly screaming during both training at the the recruits. Actually I think it was their attitude that made us more scared of the grenades than we would be otherwise. But of course I expect they had to be super concerned with the number of possible things that would/could go wrong if they wanted to join their family at the supper table that night.

Um, 2 yards is 6 feet when you add the tax :)

The British #36 (Mills Bomb) weighs 1 pound 11 ounces and had a large lethal area – 20 yards from the point of detonation with fragmentation up to a phenomenal 80 yards. It contained 2.5 ounces of TNT

The US M2 'Pineapple' weighs in at 1 pound 5 ounces with a 2 ounce bursting charge giving a a killing radius of 5 to 10 yards a Blast Radius of 30 yards

Scary things, grenades link

Doesn't really matter how you throw as long as it gets near to the enemy then you.

In basic training when I did the Grenade course (using dummy grenades) I did the most perfect throw…

Right into the tree branch that was right over the pile of dirt that I was behind.

Good thing that it bounce in front of the dirt and not on my side because I doubt the Drill would have let me off easy if that happened.

Back in the 1980's while at Fort Lewis we were out firing the M203's and due to the rain no one was sitting up in the breachers.

Good thing to since one individual fired off a grenade that only went like 30-40 yards. We all could hear the shrapnel pinging up in those bleachers.

Did get everyone's attention.

Once the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade has no friends!