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Introduction
In the ever-evolving landscape of modern warfare, grenades remain a stalwart presence on the battlefield. These small yet powerful explosive devices have a long history of military use, and their applications have expanded and adapted over the years. From attacking enemy personnel, and piercing tanks, to clearing bunkers grenades have proven their worth in a wide range of combat scenarios. In this comprehensive article, we will explore the different types of grenades, their evolution, and their roles in contemporary warfare.
The Anatomy of a Grenade
Before delving into their various applications, it is essential to understand the fundamental components of a grenade. To understand the intricate mechanics of grenades, one must first dissect their anatomy. They typically feature a core of high explosives, such as TNT, enclosed in an iron jacket or container.
Explosive Charge (“Filler”): The core of the grenade containing high-explosive material.
At the heart of every hand grenade lies the explosive charge, known as the “filler.” This core component contains a potent high-explosive material, the very substance that gives the grenade its destructive power. It is the filler that, when ignited, sets in motion a chain reaction of events that culminate in a devastating explosion.
Detonator Mechanism: The component responsible for initiating the explosion.
The detonator mechanism stands as a critical component responsible for initiating this explosion. It serves as the gateway through which the destructive force of the explosive charge is unleashed. Often intricately designed and precisely calibrated, the detonator mechanism ensures that the grenade functions as intended, delivering its payload with precision and efficiency.
Internal Striker: The trigger that sets off the detonator.
Triggering the detonator mechanism is the role of the internal striker. This small but crucial element of the grenade is what sets off the detonation process. When the safety lever is released and the linchpin removed, the internal striker springs into action, initiating the sequence that leads to the explosion. Its design is meticulous, ensuring reliability and accuracy in even the most demanding combat situations.
Safety Lever: Secured by a linchpin, this lever prevents accidental detonation until removed.
A linchpin secures the final piece of the puzzle: the safety lever. This lever is a critical safety feature, essential for preventing accidental detonation. While it remains in place, it acts as a barrier, ensuring that the internal striker cannot engage the detonator mechanism prematurely. Only when the linchpin is deliberately removed and the safety lever is released does the grenade become armed and ready to fulfill its destructive purpose.
In the hands of skilled soldiers, this combination of components transforms the humble hand grenade into a potent and versatile tool of warfare. Understanding the intricacies of its construction allows for safe handling and effective deployment in the heat of battle, making it a formidable asset in modern armed conflicts.
Attacking Personnel: Anti-Personnel Grenades
Grenades have long been employed as effective anti-personnel weapons. When thrown accurately, they can create a lethal blast radius, making them invaluable for close-quarters combat. The two primary types of anti-personnel grenades are fragmentation grenades and concussion grenades.
- Fragmentation Grenades: These grenades are designed to disperse lethal metal fragments upon detonation. When thrown amidst enemy personnel, the explosion sends shrapnel flying in all directions, causing injuries or fatalities to anyone within the blast radius. These grenades, typically weighing less than 2 pounds (0.9 kg), are highly effective in attacking enemy personnel in close-quarters combat, including foxholes, trenches, bunkers, and during street fighting. The segmented grooves on the exterior aid in fragmenting the casing, while further design improvements have incorporated grooves and segments on the inside, enhancing both fragmentation and grip.
- Concussion Grenades: Also known as “stun grenades” or “flashbangs,” concussion grenades produce an intense burst of light, sound, and pressure upon detonation. Their primary purpose is to disorient and temporarily incapacitate enemy combatants, making them easier to neutralize.
Beyond Explosives: Chemical and Gas Grenades
Another class of grenades, chemical and gas grenades, operate differently from their explosive counterparts. Instead of exploding, they often burn and release various chemicals or gases. This category includes:
- Smoke Grenades: Used to obscure visibility on the battlefield.
- Incendiary Grenades: Designed for fire-setting.
- Illuminating Grenades: Emitting bright light for night operations.
- Chemical-Warfare Grenades: Delivering chemical agents in warfare.
- Tear-Gas Grenades: Employed for riot and crowd control.
These grenades may serve multiple purposes simultaneously, such as a white phosphorus grenade that combines smoke, incendiary, and anti-personnel effects.
Furthermore, grenades can be launched from rifle muzzles using the force of a cartridge or expanding gases from a blank cartridge. These specially designed grenades have elongated, streamlined bodies, differing from the round shapes of traditional hand grenades. Some small-arm grenade rounds, resembling large-diameter bullets, are equipped with their propellant charges and are shot from specialized launchers attached to infantry assault rifles.
Clearing Bunkers: Bunker Buster Grenades
Bunkers and fortified positions can pose significant challenges, but specialized grenades known as “bunker busters” or “breaching grenades” offer a solution. These grenades are designed to penetrate thick walls or barriers before exploding, neutralizing threats within fortified positions.
Piercing Tanks: Anti-Tank Grenades
Perhaps one of the most remarkable applications of grenades is their ability to damage or disable armored vehicles, including tanks. The technology that enables grenades to pierce tanks has evolved significantly over the years. This role is typically fulfilled by specialized anti-tank grenades or rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).
- Anti-Tank Grenades: Anti-tank grenades are designed to penetrate the armor of tanks and armored vehicles. They often have a shaped charge that focuses the explosive force in a specific direction, allowing them to penetrate the armor and cause damage to the vehicle’s interior.
- RPGs: Rocket-propelled grenades are shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons capable of delivering a powerful explosive charge to armored targets. They are highly effective against tanks and armored vehicles and are widely used by infantry and specialized anti-tank units.
The Evolution of Grenades
Over the years, grenades have undergone significant advancements in design, materials, and technology. These improvements have led to increased accuracy, reliability, and lethality. Modern grenades often feature safety mechanisms to prevent accidental detonations and enhanced fuses for precise timing.
Innovations in Grenade Technology
Over the years, grenades have undergone significant advancements in terms of design, materials, and technology. These improvements have led to increased accuracy, reliability, and lethality. Additionally, modern grenades often feature safety mechanisms to prevent accidental detonations and are equipped with enhanced fuses for precise timing.
Recent developments in grenade technology have introduced new levels of versatility and safety for soldiers. For example:
- The US Army’s Enhanced Tactical Multi-Purpose (ET-MP) grenade allows soldiers to switch between fragmentation and concussive effects with ease, accommodating both right-handed and left-handed users. This grenade enhances precision, minimizes collateral damage, and simplifies the choice of force for each situation.
- India’s Multi-Mode Hand Grenade (MMHG) addresses issues with existing grenades, offering two modes—defensive and offensive. It provides uniform distribution of fragments and enables soldiers to adapt to various combat scenarios.
- The introduction of tiny drones as grenades, exemplified by the Drone40, offers a new dimension to modern warfare. These miniaturized drones can carry various payloads, including sensors or small high-explosive warheads, providing troops with unique capabilities to engage targets that were previously challenging to reach. Drone40 can stay in the air for 30-60 minutes, reach speeds of up to 45 mph (72 km/h), travel up to 12 miles (19 km), and detonate on command. It can be used for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, or as a kinetic payload, smoke or flash grenade, or even a laser designator.
- The Russian army has secured the delivery of the latest RDG-U smoke grenade, which is envisioned to shield troops and supplies from high-precision missiles.The Russian military has acquired the RDG-U smoke grenade as a defense measure against Ukraine’s high-precision missile strikes. The hand-held grenade, developed by the Central Research Institute of Precision Engineering, provides camouflage for troops and equipment against infrared-guided missiles and high-precision weapons with thermal imaging targeting systems. The RDG-U generates an instant air curtain and can produce a smoke screen for an extended period. It achieves this using a phosphorus-based smoke-generating mixture. It remains effective in extreme temperatures and is non-transparent in the visible and infrared spectra. The RDG-U is effective in a wide temperature range, capable of functioning in temperatures ranging from -50 to +55 degrees Celsius.
This development aims to counter Ukrainian UAV, artillery, and missile attacks, providing Russian forces with enhanced protection and camouflage capabilities against precision munitions.
Conclusion
Grenades, with their versatility and effectiveness, remain essential tools of warfare in the 21st century. From countering enemy personnel to clearing bunkers and piercing tanks, grenades have evolved to meet the diverse needs of modern armed forces. As technology continues to advance, grenades will likely continue to adapt, ensuring their crucial role in military operations while minimizing collateral damage and civilian casualties. In a rapidly changing world, grenades continue to play a vital role in ensuring the success and safety of military operations.
A modern hand grenade generally consists of an explosive charge (“filler”), a detonator mechanism, an internal striker to trigger the detonator, and a safety lever secured by a linchpin.
The grenades most commonly used in wartime are explosive grenades, which usually consist of a core of TNT or some other high explosive encased in an iron jacket or container. Such grenades have a fuse that detonates the explosive either on impact or after a brief (usually four-second) time delay that is long enough for the grenade to be accurately thrown but is too brief for enemy soldiers to toss the grenade back once it has landed among them.
A common type of explosive grenade is the fragmentation grenade, whose iron body, or case, is designed to break into small, lethal, fast-moving fragments once the TNT core explodes. Such grenades usually weigh no more than 2 pounds (0.9 kg). Explosive hand grenades are used for attacking the personnel in foxholes, trenches, bunkers, pillboxes, or other fortified positions and in street fighting.
The peculiar pineapple-like look was given because the outside segments and grooves aid the fragmentation of the casing. In the further improved designs, the grooves and segments were put from the inside and pineapple like outer structure was also retained for better grip.
Another major class is chemical and gas grenades, which usually burn rather than explode. This class comprises smoke, incendiary (fire-setting), illuminating, chemical-warfare, and tear-gas grenades. The latter are used by police for riot and crowd control. Several uses may be combined, as in a white phosphorous grenade that has smoke, incendiary, and antipersonnel effects.
World War II saw both fragmentation grenades, which explode shrapnel into people, and concussion grenades, which kill through powerful shock waves and are designed for clearing bunkers.
Grenades can be launched from the muzzle of a rifle either by the force of a cartridge or by the expanding gases of a blank cartridge. Such grenades usually have long, streamlined bodies, in contrast to the round shapes of hand grenades. There are also small-arm grenade rounds, shaped like bullets but of much greater diameter (usually 40 mm). These contain their own low-energy propellant charges and are shot from special large-bore launchers similar to shotguns or from launchers attached to infantry assault rifles.
Another type of grenade is the antitank grenade, which contains a special shaped-charge explosive that can pierce even the heavy armour of a tank. Since these are usually delivered by small rockets launched from shoulder-held tubes, they are commonly referred to as rocket-propelled grenades.
US Army’s Enhanced Tactical Multi-Purpose (ET-MP) grenade
US Army’s Enhanced Tactical Multi-Purpose (ET-MP) grenade alows soldiers set the grenade to fragmentation or concussive effect with the flip of a switch. The weapon is also designed for ambidextrous use so it can be both armed and thrown easily with either hand. Current grenades require a different arming procedure for left-handed users, according to the Army. Army’s current M67 grenade was designed for right-handed soldiers, so left-handed troops are trained to flip the grenade upside and hold the safety lever down with their left thumb, while pulling out the ring with the opposite hand.
The Army is also touting the new grenade’s ability to provide both fragmentation and blast overpressure more effectively and safely. Blast overpressure refers to the impact of the grenade’s shock wave on body surfaces. Defense expert Peter Quentin, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, sees the ET-MP as an important addition to the Army’s arsenal. “What’s quite interesting is the objective they are trying to achieve with this, which is a discretionary weapons system,” he told FoxNews.com. “This is important because it is all about minimizing collateral damage and civilian casualties, ensuring the appropriate effect is easily achieved and simple concussion/fragmentation selection makes it more likely to employ appropriate force.”
The weapon will give more flexibility to troops. “They are currently carrying one M67 grenade that provides lethal fragmentation effects,” said Jessica Perciballi, ARDEC Project Officer for ET-MP, U.S. Army, Grenades & Demolitions Division, in the statement. “With the new multi-purpose grenade, they can carry one ET-MP grenade and have the ability to choose either fragmentation or concussive effects desired for the situation.”
India’s Multi-Mode Hand Grenade
“Grenades of natural fragmentation type have been in use by the infantry world over for a long time. Indian Army still uses the 36M, a grenade which also has severe reliability problems and uneven fragmenting pattern making it unsafe even to the thrower. The multi-mode grenade has been developed to overcome these defects. It uses preformed cylindrical mild steel pre-fragments to achieve uniform distribution,” says the official page of the DRDO’s facility Terminal Ballistic Research Laboratory (TBRL) which has developed the MMHG.
The MMHG can be used in two different structures resulting in two different modes — defensive and offensive. The grenades being used by the forces in India till now have been mainly the defensive mode grenades, which means that they are to be hurled when the thrower is in a shelter or has a cover and the target is in an open area and can be harmed by fragmentation. On the other hand, the offensive grenades do not fragment, and the adversary is harmed by the blast or is stunned while the thrower is safe.
For the MMHG’s defensive mode, the grenade has a fragamenting sleeve and a lethal radius of 10 metres. In the offensive mode, the grenade is without a sleeve and mainly used for blast and stun effect. In the offensive, it has a lethal radius of 5 meters from point of burst.
The Acquisition Wing of the MoD on Thursday signed with Economic Explosive Ltd — EEL in Oct 2020, a subsidiary of Nagpur-headquartered Solar Group — for the supply of 10 lakh MMHG to the Indian Army at an approximate cost of Rs 409 crore. For conducting field tests of the grenade, the DRDO had transferred the technology to the company four years ago. The grenade has been tested in various types of conditions and is said to have achieved 99 per cent safety and reliability.
The MoD press statement in this regard said, “This is a flagship project showcasing public-private partnership under the aegis of Government of India (DRDO and MoD) enabling ‘AtmaNirbharta’ in cutting edge ammunition technologies and accomplishes 100 per cent indigenous content.”
According to the company website, the product has a shelf life of 15 years from the date of manufacturing if stored under normal circumstances. The website also states that the product has twin delay tubes for additional safety and 3800 uniform fragments for higher lethality.
US Marines are testing tiny drones that can work as grenades
The US Marines conducted training exercise with the Drone40 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The miniaturized, low-cost, expendable drone can be deployed by hand or launched from a 40 mm grenade launcher.
The device provides soldiers with a way to lob explosives to targets that would typically be out of reach or to leave the grenades hovering in the air like a sort of aerial landmine. This is the first time U.S. troops have been seen training with the versatile, potentially game-changing unmanned systems. The drones can carry a wide variety of payloads, including various sensors or small high-explosive warheads.
Its payload can be swapped easily in the field, and the drone could fly out on a separate mission with an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) payload capable of streaming full-motion videos. Apart from the ISR, the drone can carry a kinetic payload, function as a smoke or flash grenade, and even carry a laser designator.
According to the specifications, the Drone40 can stay in the air for 30-60 minutes, travel at speeds up to 45 mph (72 km/h), and travel up to 12 miles (19 km) away before detonating. Weighing at around 190 grams, the military drone has a maximum take-off weight of 300 grams. The Drone40 features a GPS-based autopilot system with a portable ground control station communicating over an encrypted radio data link. The drone can hit the target and detonate or simply return back to the base, whether it can be caught using a tether and reused for a future mission.
The drone can simply be launched by hand when required but can also be repurposed as a multiple round simultaneous impact (MRSI) munition when launched through a 40 mm grenade launcher. The drones’ manufacturer even claims that it uses mass manufactured printed circuit boards to make its low-cost and recoverable nano-unmanned aerial system.
References and Resources also include:
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/army-building-new-ambidextrous-multi-purpose-grenade
