Hand Grenades

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gajabhau
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Hand Grenades

#1

Post by gajabhau » 23 Jun 2010, 20:19

To activate a hand grenade (such as the Mills grenade of the British army) one has to pull out the safety pin by hooking one's finger in the ring attached to it. I believe most types of grenades have more or less similar mechanism. But I remember having seen in some war films, on World War II, American soldiers pulling out something with their teeth before throwing the grenade. What type of grenades were these ? I don't think one can pull out the pin of a Mills grenade with one's teeth without loosing some teeth in the process.
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Cannonade
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Re: Hand Grenades

#2

Post by Cannonade » 23 Jun 2010, 22:37

gajabhau wrote:To activate a hand grenade (such as the Mills grenade of the British army) one has to pull out the safety pin by hooking one's finger in the ring attached to it. I believe most types of grenades have more or less similar mechanism. But I remember having seen in some war films, on World War II, American soldiers pulling out something with their teeth before throwing the grenade. What type of grenades were these ? I don't think one can pull out the pin of a Mills grenade with one's teeth without loosing some teeth in the process.
Gajabhau
gajabhau,

The safety pin on the American fragmentation and offensive grenades was fairly easy to remove, and some accidents occurred due to this often causing mortal wounds to those in the vicinity. The safety pin ring could be removed using one's teeth, but as you point out, it was not good for them. I think Hollywood made their battle scenes more dramatic by having the actors pull the pin with their teeth (I imagine the slight bends toward the end of the clevis pin were straightened out so the actors would not hurt themselves.) I have no doubt men did this in combat under exceptional circumstances, but it was not the preferred manner of arming a grenade.

Cannonade


Graeme Sydney
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Re: Hand Grenades

#3

Post by Graeme Sydney » 23 Jun 2010, 23:39

I think it is 99% Hollywood BS.

As Cannonade states, the pin that stops the handle flying off and releasing the internal striker is held by a split pin. The split pin is quite difficult to remove. I'm not going out on to a limb and say it can't be removed with the teeth but I would say it is quite difficult and unreliable. (I haven't handled all WW2 grenades, I've thrown 'Mills' and later American grenades, and I'm assuming they are quite similar.) We were taught a technique to have the knuckles together and 'roll' them together leveraging the pin out.

Most of the split pins I saw, and I saw a few :wink: , the pin was split at about 30 degrees. A nervous or cautious soldier could, and sometimes did, bend it further apart (making it even harder to come out).

Ditto the Hollywood image of having grenades hanging by their lever on the outside of webbing etc. Talking for my period and the Australian experience, this was a 'no no'. SOP's actually specified that grenades were to be carried inside the basic pouches. External grenades could have pins pulled out by snagging when walking through heavy vegetation, crawling, etc etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_grenade

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Re: Hand Grenades

#4

Post by JonS » 24 Jun 2010, 00:24

Graeme Sydney wrote:As Cannonade states, the pin that stops the handle flying off and releasing the internal striker is held by a split pin. The split pin is quite difficult to remove. I'm not going out on to a limb and say it can't be removed with the teeth but I would say it is quite difficult and unreliable.
Yep. It's much the same as popping beer-bottle crown-caps off with your teeth - you can do it, but I really wouldn't recommend it (and yes, that's the voice of experience speaking :roll: )
Ditto the Hollywood image of having grenades hanging by their lever on the outside of webbing etc. Talking for my period and the Australian experience, this was a 'no no'. SOP's actually specified that grenades were to be carried inside the basic pouches. External grenades could have pins pulled out by snagging when walking through heavy vegetation, crawling, etc etc.
Yep again - IIRC the first Aussie cas in Vietnam were cuased by some Rambo wannabe jumping out of a truck and snagging a grenade hanging on his shoulder straps.

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Re: Hand Grenades

#5

Post by Cannonade » 24 Jun 2010, 00:36

Hey Guys,

One of those little unspoken bits of battle savvy that separated veterans from the new guys involved how they treated their hand grenades. Veterans would check the split on the cotter pin to make sure it was plenty wide. If necessary they would bend it out a little more just to be sure it would not come out by accident. As JonS correctly pointed out, pulling the pin with your teeth was something akin to opening bottle caps with your teeth -- Not to be recommended, but it could be done. :D

Cannonade

Graeme Sydney
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Re: Hand Grenades

#6

Post by Graeme Sydney » 24 Jun 2010, 01:20

Cannonade wrote: One of those little unspoken bits of battle savvy that separated veterans from the new guys involved how they treated their hand grenades.
Grenades lesson 101. "The grenade is an unaimmed uncaring weapon - it will kill you as fast and as surely as it will kill the other guy" :milwink:

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Re: Hand Grenades

#7

Post by JonS » 24 Jun 2010, 01:31

"Mr Grenade is not your friend once you take the pin out"

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phylo_roadking
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Re: Hand Grenades

#8

Post by phylo_roadking » 24 Jun 2010, 16:13

As for hanging them on your webbing by the lever - there was a spate of U.S. casualties in the Pacific IIRC caused by the levers being of too-light alloy construction and simply bending from the abuse.
Twenty years ago we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Cash, no Hope and no Jobs....
Lord, please keep Kevin Bacon alive...

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The_Enigma
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Re: Hand Grenades

#9

Post by The_Enigma » 25 Jun 2010, 01:15

Grenade abuse? :( The world becomes a sicker place every day!

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Re: Hand Grenades

#10

Post by gajabhau » 25 Jun 2010, 19:13

Thanks all of you, Cannonade, Graeme Sydney, JonS, Phylo_roadking, and The_Enigma.It is a burden off my mind !
Gajabhau

gajabhau
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Re: Hand Grenades

#11

Post by gajabhau » 26 Jun 2010, 19:39

In my previous mail by "burden" I meant the burden of a feeling I had that that I had not
understood something about the grenades. All the replies were most helpful. Thanks again to all.
Gajabhau

PF
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Re: Hand Grenades

#12

Post by PF » 10 Dec 2014, 20:09

at least two movies had the old Pin out with your teeth:
*The Big Parade
*Objective Burma

Felix C
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Re: Hand Grenades

#13

Post by Felix C » 11 Dec 2014, 02:10

Another question. Was the delay 3 seconds or 10 seconds or other?

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Re: Hand Grenades

#14

Post by Graeme Sydney » 11 Dec 2014, 10:40

Felix C wrote:Another question. Was the delay 3 seconds or 10 seconds or other?
We were taught 3-5 seconds "with no guarantees".

Having been in the throwing bay with 100's of nervous novices the instruction were "just get it over the wall?" :milwink: My guess would be they were on average closer to 5 than 3.

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Re: Hand Grenades

#15

Post by Felix C » 06 Aug 2018, 13:35

I am watching the Smithsonian docu The Pacific War in Color and in the Okinawa segment there are two grenade tossing GIs in real time and the count is 4 seconds for their grenades.

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