Hand grenade training advice

Be careful, I have had many grenades bounce off a wall and come right back at me. This always makes me lose the game...

Fire in the hole!!!
 
just to add some thing else It's like throwing a base ball only thing is it goes bang at the end ... oh ya and don't forget the duck after you throw it. :D It's actually pretty anti climatic. Shooting a 7.62 GPMG is way funner.
 
I had a kid drop a grenade on me, I just knew he would so I was already hunched down to grab it. Over the wall it went. 4 seconds is quite long when you need it to be. Not by the book and got a moderate amount of sh*t, but I doubt I could have hustled him out of the bay in time. It was a M67.

On my recruit course we got M62, M67 and M36's, next year we got a crate of V40, but then they got the call that they were not safe. The M36's had to be fuzed. One guy dropped a M67 on my course, but had left the safety on, the instructor had buggered over the wall and forgot about the recruit. Fair bit of crap came out of that.

Common cause of failure to explode on the M67 was having the spoon across the palm of the hand, as you let go of the grenade the spoon could not fly free and the striker would drag across the inside of the spoon striking the fuze primer with not enough force.
 
Practice grenades in the U.S. Military normally have longer fuses in case the student drops the grenade in the throwing pit. This give the instructor time to grab and throw the grenade out of the pit and plant his boot in your ass.

True story, my father was retired military and our next door neighbour was a Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant (MGySgt). His one son was the same age I was so he decided to teach us how the throw a grenade in the back yard.

We were throwing the practice spoon and blasting cap just like below (No explosive charge).

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Everything was going fine and we had killed half the Japs on Guadalcanal, then one of the blasting caps decided to blow off the crimping grooves and flew like a rocket between us and hit the sliding glass windows to our backs...instant air conditioning and glass everywhere.

After that the MGySgt just gave us rubber bayonets to kill each other with, I was killed on every island the Marines ever landed on in the Pacific. Makin Island was the worst, I had to wait for his son to sneak up behind me and slit my throat.
(my dad was in the Navy so I always had to be the Jap) :(
 
On our grenade course they had a steel shield with a small armoured glass window in it for the officer to stand behind and observe. The group that came before us had one soldier rear back his arm to throw the grenade. On the swing back, he lost the grenade which unfortunately flew back Over the shield and landed in a case of grenades behind the lieutenant.
I now know why we were instructed to throw the grenade like a shot put after that. If someone dropped the grenade there was a hole dug in the enclosure where it could be kicked into.

How hollywierd can turn a single sharp grenade blast with NO flame into an equivalent of a tank of naplam hitting is beyond me.

All five second fuzes will burn down in THREE seconds.:eek:
 
just to add some thing else It's like throwing a base ball only thing is it goes bang at the end ... oh ya and don't forget the duck after you throw it. :D It's actually pretty anti climatic. Shooting a 7.62 GPMG is way funner.

Nothin says lovin like 84mm anti-tank!!

I think they've retired the Carl-G now. But Ooooh what a feelin!!

Grenades, very cool. Don't drop it with the pin out!! There's no vest in the world that'll save ya.

Listen to the instructor... and watch out for flying tires!!
 
I now know why we were instructed to throw the grenade like a shot put after that.

The overhead throw stems from our British roots. Brits don't play baseball but they do play cricket. And in cricket an overhead type throw is used. So it was simply easier to teach young men to throw a grenade the same way they throw a ball.

We in N America don't play cricket but we all grew up playing baseball or softball and so we better understand that kind of throwing style.

Grenades, very cool. Don't drop it with the pin out!! There's no vest in the world that'll save ya.

Incorrect. Dragon Skin does a demo where one of their vests is placed on top of a frag grenade and no shrapnel penetrates the armour.
 
Incorrect. Dragon Skin does a demo where one of their vests is placed on top of a frag grenade and no shrapnel penetrates the armour.

I'd rather run from a dropped grenade then jump on top of it and hope the vest saves me. 'Dragon skin' is fine for upper body protection but what about the family jewels if the grenade is dropped at your feet ? :D
 
Nothin says lovin like 84mm anti-tank!!

I think they've retired the Carl-G now. But Ooooh what a feelin!!

Grenades, very cool. Don't drop it with the pin out!! There's no vest in the world that'll save ya.

Listen to the instructor... and watch out for flying tires!!

We had them on my last course. Now a Javelin that would be the cats a$$.

Got to go for a ride in a Leopard Tank over the summer ... Not something everyone get to do.
 
I got to shoot the 3.5 rocket, I guess I am dating myself..... At least I didn't train with Sniders like some old farts around here! :p
 
I had a kid drop a grenade on me, I just knew he would so I was already hunched down to grab it. Over the wall it went. 4 seconds is quite long when you need it to be. Not by the book and got a moderate amount of sh*t, but I doubt I could have hustled him out of the bay in time. It was a M67.

Common cause of failure to explode on the M67 was having the spoon across the palm of the hand, as you let go of the grenade the spoon could not fly free and the striker would drag across the inside of the spoon striking the fuze primer with not enough force.

That's why I prefer to be the prep bay NCO. It's easier handling boxes of grenades than it is nervous candidates. :D

Funny you mention throwing style. I've always thrown grenades with the spoon across my hand, at least 20 or more, and the only duds I ever got (or saw someone else get) were with the first batch of C-13's a few years back... which were apparently linked to faulty fuzes. :confused:
 
Well we got to train a little with the Colombian Special forces but they cancelled the hand grenade training because it was raining and we are klutzy civilians. We did get to shoot a bunch of stuff like M203, M4, M249 and M60. We also rappeled with them from their 18m training tower which was fun. I'll post pics shortly.
 
After you've thrown the grenade look at your other hand. You should be holding a ring with cotter pin attached. If not, throw the friggin grenade!
 
I had a kid drop a grenade on me, I just knew he would so I was already hunched down to grab it. Over the wall it went. 4 seconds is quite long when you need it to be. Not by the book and got a moderate amount of sh*t, but I doubt I could have hustled him out of the bay in time. It was a M67.

On my recruit course we got M62, M67 and M36's, next year we got a crate of V40, but then they got the call that they were not safe. The M36's had to be fuzed. One guy dropped a M67 on my course, but had left the safety on, the instructor had buggered over the wall and forgot about the recruit. Fair bit of crap came out of that.

Common cause of failure to explode on the M67 was having the spoon across the palm of the hand, as you let go of the grenade the spoon could not fly free and the striker would drag across the inside of the spoon striking the fuze primer with not enough force.

Got the story on the V-40s. These were made in the Netherlands and some anti-western idiot in the factory decided it would nice to swap out the NATO standard 3-5 second fuzes, with 0 delay fuses instead.
Hence the grenade would go off as soon as the spoon flew off.
This was the story we were told when the nation wide ordnance recall came out in the late 1980s.
 
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