"Just how dangerous are hand grenades?" Topic

I came across a study by the US Department of Ordnance on the Hand Grenade, Mk II.

They determined the total number of effective fragments (effective seems to be determined by the size) and the average number of effective fragments per foot.

Using this data I came up with about how many fragments a man in different postures/exposure could be hit with at different distances.

Since I've never been unfortunate to have been caught in a grenade burst I cannot give any first person experience (WP grenades I can). Hopefully, this helps some of the amateur game designers out there.
link

Enjoy,
Wolfhag

Grenades are much more deadly in enclosed spaces, and fragmentation is only part of it. You still have to worry about blast and blunt force trauma, possible thermal trauma, as well as sensory overload.

There's a pretty visually informative episode of Mythbusters that experiments with it as well.

Their conclusion seem to be:
"Lying down in the blast radius = messed up
Standing up in the blast radius = badly messed up"

While I was in Afghanistan, after one night attack, we counted up 33 "Stick type" chinese grenades lying on the ground. They were inside "the wire" for the most part(some "too close for comfort" if you know what I mean LOL), and all 33 were duds.

The Bomb guys told us everything about the grenades seemed fine…they were "new issue" condition. Just a bad batch of "friday last shift" chinamen specials, We guessed.

Dad told me that once they were under mortar fire and one of his section had a grenade that was hung on his belt struck by shrapnel and it exploded cartwheeling the guy end over end. The Mills grenade split but didn't fragment and all the blast went out the hole the mortar fragment made. Guy was badly cruised and shaken up but otherwise unharmed.

Yup. Hollywood focuses on the metal bits. The shock wave will still turn your organs to pudding.

The stun effect can be as important as the actual blast effect, figure that even folks who aren't directly wounded are going to be out of the fight at least for a few seconds which can be critical if say they are in a room being assaulted. The stun effect is more effective in a closed space.

In World War II, twenty-seven Marines used their bodies against thrown enemy grenades in order to save their comrades' lives. Four of these Marines survived and were awarded the Medal of Honor — Richard Bush, Jacklyn H. Lucas, Carlton R. Rouh, and Richard K. Sorenson.

I think altogether 14 US personnel survived lying on a grenade in WWII.

I think Lucas put two grenades under his helmet and one went off. I think it was a concussion grenade. Rouch was bent over the grenade on his hands and knees when it went off. He was wounded badly but did not lose consciousness.

Kyle Carpenter survived lying on a grenade but had body armor. Jason Dunham put his kevlar helmet over a Mills 36M grenade and died later from a brain injury.

Not all grenades are equal. The ChiCom's in VN were poorly made and did not have full coverage. I think the German potato mashers were offensive/concussion grenades unless it had a fragmentation sleeve on it.

From what I've read the concussive effects dissipate very rapidly with distance. My son was on a mission (not sure exactly where) and they tossed two frags into a room and he was the first one in the stick to enter. He said the bad guys popped up almost right away spraying AK fire from across the room. I didn't get the details of what they were hiding behind.

Wolfhag

From what I've read, within 5m is usually lethal.

Shrapnel can be an issue for 25 – 30m, or so, or about as far as you can typically throw them.

The blast effect is dramatically reduced by distance – pretty much the square of distance. Unless the blast is contained.

So yes they can kill you but…
Mostly, they mess you up a bit which then allows someone to kill you.

IIRC some modern ones have specially notched wire wrapped round the explosives which breaks up into many pieces for added misery.

Once the pin is pulled Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend

As noted, frag and blast effects are best in an enclosed space. Or at very close range. The blast effect will have a somewhat similar effect as a "flash bang" grenade. A little "shock & awe", as well … But with a Fragmentation Grenade you get the shrapnel too.

As you see in some movies, after a grenade is thrown in a room, etc., … The thrower(s) waits for the blast. Then goes in. That was basically how we were trained. It has happened historically in the heat of battle. The thrower didn't wait for the blast. With obvious results.

Also there were cases of grenades being thrown in a bunker, etc., and were thrown back out. Before it went off. The IJFs were supposed to be pretty good at this tactic at times. Probably as they were not too concerned if they died. By the grenade going off in their hands ?

The US hand two types of Hand Grenades when I was on active duty. I forget the designations. IIRC, one went off on impact with the ground. But I'm not too sure about all the details about that now … I goggled it … here it is the M67 and M68 that is what we were trained to use … link

Also as noted. You'd see concertina, etc., around a position or location. That concertina was meant to be laid outside of hand grenade range, @ 30m. As to limit or negate the effects. So those that are throwing the grenade(s), the blast won't reach the position and those inside it.

Also be aware that throwing a grenade in a bamboo hut, canvas tent, etc., …that probably won't stop the fragmentation … If you are standing outside entrance. You'd be surprised, that had to be added to the training. Many of our NCOs were Vietnam Vets. They made sure we got those "handy little tips" for surviving in a combat zone. They were living proof …

I have read that the American WW2 pineapple grenade did not always fragment into small pieces, but sometimes in a few large ones. There were also incidents of soldiers having a grenade go off at their feet and not being touched by the fragmentation, but blown off their feet and concussed.

Many Hand Grenade Ranges I was on had duds … The first one when I was an ROTC cadet at Ft. Lewis WA. in '78. A thrown grenade didn't go off. Everyone was pulled off the firing line and put a safe distant away, etc.

The Range OIC was an EOD Officer. Didn't wait for the EOD Tm to come with all their equipment. To more safely blow the grenade in place. He tried to carry it to a grenade sump on the range. It went off, he died instantly and his NCOIC was seriously wounded in the arm. My first experience with hand grenades …

A few large ones plus the baseplate and fuse assembly, both of which would fly farther than the grenade could be thrown. The post-war studies on grenades led to their complete redesign, resulting in today's far more lethal models.

Legion,
I was at the grenade range only three times. Each time about 50-60 guys went through. Twice we had duds EOD handled.

I read (but cannot confirm) the pineapple grenade was made that way so it would not slip out of your hand, not so much for fragmentation. The grenades we had during the VN period were smooth on the outside but with a segmented wire coil on the inside designed to fragment into pieces about 1/2" in length.

Steve

Being the Pit NCO on a grenade range was just about the scariest thing I ever had to do. Over and over again.

Lots of storys, but the worse one for me was a E-5 who managed
to only throw one about 4 feet. Rang both our bells pretty good, which probably saved him because OI was looking for a BFR when the safety NCO got there and hauled him away.

owen

The pineapple grenades broke up into irregular patterns about half the time. I know this from stumbling upon an unmarked practice range on Ft. Hood. The pineapples were in various broke shapes. Although they may not have spread as many fragments as the new grenades, those big chunks of pineapple metal would have torn out big chunks of flesh and broken bones.

Outside the concussive effect dissipates quickly. You could probably be 10 feet from one and remain standing from the force of the blast (fragments aside, that is). They are most effective in enclosed areas, which is where we trained to use them (including lobbing them into enemy trenches where the walls would confine the blast).

I don't know when cooking off a grenade came into play, but I would think that practice was as old as the grenade itself. Pop the spoon, count to 3 and toss it in. It won't be coming back out.

The blast wave dissipates quickly. Concussive effects within the brain do not but the head has to be subjected to the blast wave in order to trigger concussive effects. This is why Wolfhag's caveat is important when interpreting the anecdote he provided.

Robert

Took an m26 in the kisser in RVN (booby trap) Rang my bell seriously but only took a bit of shrapnel. Must have been the orientation or someone upstairs was watching out for me :0 Spent a few days at 10th Hospital Co. while they picked it out of me.

Grenades may not be as reliably deadly as the impression given by war movies--but you would not want to rely on that very much. When I was in basic training (Vietnam era) our grenade range had old rubber tires as targets. You probably have some idea how tough tire rubber is. Anyway, one of our guys made an excellent throw and landed his grenade inside the tire, which was ripped to shreds.

As to the German grenades, in Currahee a WWII memoir of a member of the 101st, the author notes getting a stick grenade shoved through a hedgerow during the fighting after Normandy. He picked it up in an attempt to throw it back and it went off inches from his head. He was blinded for a few days and suffered burns on his face as I recall (read this in high school) but any fragments missed and he returned to duty after a short stay in the hospital.

He didn't note as I recall whether it had the fragmentation sleeve. Might have been to keyed up…

P.S. Pineapple grenade and Mills bomb surfaces were grooved to improve handling not fragmentation. In the trenches muddy grenades were harder to handle – at least per Ian Hogg in his Grenades and Mortars.

No one has mentioned that grenade fragments travel further on hard flat surfaces like tarmac or concrete, but considerable less on soft or muddy ground.

I was at the grenade range only three times. Each time about 50-60 guys went through. Twice we had duds EOD handled.

Yes, Wolfhag, at least twice I've been on grenades ranges that were shut down for duds.

No one has mentioned that grenade fragments travel further on hard flat surfaces like tarmac or concrete, but considerable less on soft or muddy ground.

That is generally true for many HE rounds, as well …

Nothing beats the movies, where a knucklehead tosses a grenade and an explosion goes 300 feet high and brings the entire building down ;)

My experience was that modern US grenades are 10 x more effective than modern Russian (and other Eastern European) and Chinese-manufactured hand grenades, and even the US grenades are not worth much unless it's in a relatively small, enclosed space. The concussive effect, even in an alley (maybe 8 feet across) is not much, doesn't knock anyone down, and you're mentally recovered in about a second and a half.

Fragments may travel 30 yards, but there's not many of them and you've got to be pretty unlucky to get hit by one unless you were within a couple feet of the grenade, and even then the foreign grenades had a habit of coming apart in big sections, and all going one way, so that you could be right next to it and not even get touched (I saw this with their 82mm mortar rounds as well).

All the same applies to our 40mm grenades as well; if you put it through a window or door it really caused them a bad day for anyone in that room, but in the open you had to put it practically between their feet. Probably should have just used 5.56, but it's more fun firing Nintendo bullets ;)

Of course, if you've got a Mk-19 one of them grenades is bound to get him!

I guess I was pretty lucky, I never saw any of our grenades dud out. On the other hand, I guess I wasn't so lucky, I never saw any of the enemy grenades dud out either. I did see some of their 82mm mortar rounds and 107mm rockets dud.

V/R,
Jack

As noted effectiveness is very much related to where the grenade was made, where it is thrown and other environmental conditions

As well as duds, the fuse delay could vary.
Cooking off ww2 grenades had an element of risk.
They've got better.

Based on the guy's experiences that have been there and done that the report seems to be fairly accurate. If you are kneeling 8-10 feet away you may get hit by one fragment or none. Standing up 20 feet away about a 10% chance to be hit by one fragment.

Of course, this is the old WWII pineapple grenade. I think I have grenades overrated in my games. It looks as if WWII grenades are more for giving a few seconds of suppression for advantage rather than large causalities on a dispersed team/squad. Maybe grenade templates are a little too powerful.

Then there is the issue of grenade sumps in prepared positions. Every time we dug a fighting hole the squad leader checked our grenade sump. They came in handy if you needed to make a head call and could not leave your hole.

Wolfhag

Yes, it seems grenade sumps may be better than nothing …

I thought that the primary purpose of the "grenade" sump was making sure your fighting position didn't fill with water?

Secondary purpose was to avoid standing in your own waste when you couldn't leave your hole.

last-resort purpose was to give Mister Grenade a place to go when he decided to share your hole.

Once again from Hogg's Grenades and Mortars – the ideal grenade has a limited blast and fragmentation radius. The design should put out a uniform cloud/spray of fragments that travel less distance than the grenade can be thrown. At least for offensive grenades – on the defense the user presumably can duck back into a foxhole or trench after throwing.

Large fragments that are sprayed in random directions and travel too far are more of a menace to the thrower than the defender. A fairly common occurrence with the pineapple grenade in particular.

Mythbusters took a look at grenades in one of their episodes. Probably available on youtube. Amusingly they used the same board test the War Office did in their study in WWII.

From John Salt's compendium of War Office reports -

WO 291/543 Note on an experiment with Grenades 36 on dummy targets at
Birmingham.
"One of the main effects of a grenade 36, indoors, is blast. Our methods do not, however, allow us to
assess this effect quantitatively."
"Personnel within 3 feet of the burst stand a very small chance of escaping incapacitation if not
otherwise protected. Ordinary doors and planks afford little protection, ceiling and floor together are
good, and even a thin brick wall gives absolute cover against this weapon."
"A man would seem to stand a more than even chance of escaping incapacitation if 5 feet or more
away from the burst. A fuller trial in the open at the School of Infantry (by AORG 6) showed a risk
rate falling from 45% ten feet from the grenade to 17% twenty feet from the grenade."

There is another more detailed report that I may post separately as it is a bit long.

I came across this, not sure if it has been posted before:

Matthew Croucher, a Royal Marine
link

Wolfhag

Grenades are dangerous and should never be swallowed.

There is a little bit of specific information here on this thread at "the other place": link