gorilla Posted October 19, 2000 Share Posted October 19, 2000 Oi!! I missed the M34! It's hard to see, but your right... it does have that serrated outside (why I missed it I think). Thanks for pointing it out tho. (never thrown a WP grenade, but seen WP 155mm arty go off... I wouldn't want to be anywhere near it!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Duquette Posted October 19, 2000 Share Posted October 19, 2000 Not that this has anything to do with anything…but as I recall from basic training…and mind you this was back in 83…the grenades we were throwing were supposed to be fragmentation grenades. They were smooth surfaced…non-pineapple type grenades. Almost shaped like a slightly squashed baseball. Perhaps the serrations on the old pineapple was some kind of grip "thingie". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gorilla Posted October 24, 2000 Share Posted October 24, 2000 Yes, modern day grenades do not have any knobbies on the outside of the grenade, cause they learned that it didn't work too well. Just like any other military device, grenades have become improved/more refined. For example: One of the US rifles.. M44 I think... used a VERY big round. 7.62mm x 88 I think. The actual bullet is about the same size of the modern day nato 7.62, but the casing is much larger. Holds more bang. And trust me (a friend has one) it realy does have more bang! The ideas behind the weapons were different. Not as well tested. They thought the bigger round was needed... for whatever reason. But look at the changes to todays M16A2. it's a 5.56mm bullet... not much bigger than a .22. They chose it cause it's smaller, lighter, and it does the same job, maybe even a better job, than a larger bullet. I think the idea was the same behind the grenade shape in the past. You need larger fragments to make a difference. So they made them with lil-knobbies on them. The germans initially thought that it was the blast that killed, not the fragments (to some extent it will...), so they didn't make their grenades with much on the way of fragmented material. I don't doubt that it helped in grip, but I really do think that the primary purpose was to help create a specific sized fragment. Modern day grenades are able to be modern day grenades, cause they use modern day stuff to build them. New construction materials, new designs, new manufacturing methods, better battlefield data.... Look at how the tank or airplane changed, just from 1940-1945. By the way... Is this horse dead yet, or should I still be beating it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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