Vietnam and grenades - a myth?

[spearedum]

yada yada ayada... I'm still here... of course... my memory is not a sharp as in the old days... so I'd wouldn't bet a lot o money that's what we did with the frags... But I'm pretty sure.

We had a LOT of practice with H&I during night-time. The survey NCOIC was also NCOIC of the ammo bunker. Instead of sending <3 month old ammo, and HE to the rear, he sent it to our OP! We were in a HHB battery, so most of the non-surveyors there were Remington Rangers and did not use much of the pow-bang stuff. We had boucou ammo. frags, claymores, smoke, flares.

We tried to shoot down a tree with our M-60... when I left it was still standing but it sure weight'd a lot more!

thanx Dante'

[Tom-May]

"...The correct way was to pull the pin.. and not with your teeth, like the movies... then toss the granade and let the handle fly off with the granade in the air. ..."

Never having seen a post-WW2 US grenade close to.

How was the pin secured? Were the pins difficult to remove ?

In the Mills Grenade (British) of both World Wars, the pin was a simple cotter (split) pin fitted with a ring, and splayed at the end to prevent accidental removal.

Was the system any different on the American grenades?

Tom

BTW. During the Great War, specialist 'bombers' in the British Army were issued with a small hook (rather like a miniature stevadore's hook) to allow continued pulling of pins.

[Niner]

The M33 baseball grenade was often used in Vietnam, although there were others.. some left over from WWII it seemed. The M33's had the cotter pin like the ones you discribe. When the grenades came out of the paper canister they were shipped in they also had a wire safety over the spoon handle that could be flicked off with your thumb. The regular cotter pin with ring was somewhat difficult to remove... it took a good tug to pull the pin out.

I never carried many fragmentation grenades because I was part of the FO team. But as I remember, the spoon handles would bend easy and were used to attach the grenades to webgear. The wire spring safety was left on as well..... I think, from memory... while attached to gear for carry.

The old Wolfhound, wh12725, would be more of an expert than me on this topic.

[spearedum]

The grenades were sucered with cotter pins with rings (I still have a ring, and they work great for keys ), and even after you straightened out the pin it was difficult to remove. The pin sucurred the spoon and the spring loaded hammer beheath; when the pin was removed the hammer 'sprong off the spoon' and the hammer traveled in a semi-circular mannor to strike the detenator... 3-5 seconds later..kabloomey!!!!!

You can seperate the detenator assembly from the 'Compasition B' (HE) portion of the grenade, touch-off the detonator and have a dud grenade. That's how I know about grenades! (I may be crazy but I'm not stupid!)

When your in combat the corect way is what kills the enemy! Ask General Patten. That extra second I hold the gnerade, that air blast may kill the sapper that has my name on his bullet. All the hundreds of my grenades were air bursts.

We used to attach a 'B-3' C-rat can to where the ammo box attaches on the side of an M-60 machine gun; It allowed an easer access of the ammo belt into the gun. Our M-79 man could explode three grenades at the same time by changing the elevation of the tube. We used the M-16's three pronged flash suppeser to cut the wire on our C-rat cartons... used C-4 to cook our C-rats... was all that correct.

When you have the VC trying to blow you away your attitude gets a different outlook towards taking risks and being flexable.

Thanx Dante'

BTW if the cotter pin was still bent, you'ed have to be superman to pull it out. We had some of the 'baseball' grenades, but they didn't have the pineapple fragments and they were alot lighter then the 'frags'. We also had 'baseball' tear gas grenades.

Niner you are right, when we went out on surveys or recon we'ed use the spoons to attach to our web gear.

[parmour]

Many soldiers were hurt by grenades that were hanging exposed.

They would be in the over growth areas on patrol or running,etc and the pin would get pulled by accident.

This happened enough that the Army changed it's policy on how grenades were to be carried.

[spearedum]

.. and monkeys might fly out of my butt! If you did not striaght out the cotter-pin, when and if you got cought running past a tree your on your A**.



I was only in Nom for 10 months and 19 days, so maybe I did not have enough experience. I tried to, and I never knew, anyone that could extract the pin if it was not straghtened out. Even after that, it was dificult to streght out the bend in the pin to pull it through the hole to extract the pin and pop the spoon! I will state unequitcully, the pin did not just fall out!

I could take a frag gernade with a bent pin, put my finger through the ring, and wipp around my head untill I was dead from exhaustion.

Hand grenades are a piece of cake.

Thanx Dante'

[warshield]

Right you are niner , I never held a grenade after letting the spoon fly,I was NOT on kp the day we had grenade training.

I am shure it happend that some one did that but it was not a common occurence and most likely not done out of stupidity, It was my obsevation however that if you could stop accidentel shootings and unintentionel self inflicted wounds the casualty rate would go way down.Remmember thier is a lot of leathel ordenance at the disposal of very young men every one is armed and all weapons were locked and cocked.Given that senario no matter how good the training you are going to have accidents.I think I may have seen as many accidentel or friendly fire casualtys as I did enemy inflicted and I have seen evidence that it happend on the other side too.Think about the poor Charlies who had the job of dismanteling duds to salvage the explosivs inside.I wonder what thier life expectancy was.Severel guys were injured by m79 fragments in the beginning as the round was armed when it left the tube and would detonate right in front of you if it hit something. thy quickly solved that by putting a detonating device in the round that had to travel a safe distence befor detonating on impact which in turn made the m79 useless at close quarters.

[spearedum]

Hey, you could always bounce the 79 off the ***** head if he was closser than 10 meeters!



As far as being on KP durring grenade traning... and as I was on GOOD standing with all the Americans in the mess hall, I imanage it was one of the gooks that placed the bomb in the bottom my trash can.

Now, I did not say that the 1st. couple O' dozzon frags I through I held on to, but after a while I found the timing. Before I was stationed on one of our flash observation out post(we had cases and cases of ammo, grenades, C4, Claymors, flares, so when you have four GI sitting on top of a hill next to VC Valley, for months at a time... you get a lot O' armament) I used to pop the spoon and through the frag immediately. Most times I iminage it detenated on the ground, effectilly reducing the 'killing zone'!

I was that much of a coward I wanted to leave thaT SHIT HOLE BREATKING ... I wanted that extra meeter of distroying any Bas**erd that wanted to eveserate me! Then, my grenades detenoted in the air insurring there total effectness.

Forturnally, you and I are still here so we both were sucessful.

Thanx Dante'