Army Drops First New Grenade in 60 Years: Pure Blast, Zero Shrapnel

Ask any 10 U.S. service members whether they like occasionally chucking a live grenade on the grenade course, and nine of them will respond with a grin and an enthusiastic "Hoo-ah!"

"Hoo-ah," I should point out, is one of those words like "aloha" that can mean almost anything, including "Yes, sir," "No, sir," "We think it's stupid, but we'll do it anyway," and "Heck yeah, I want to throw a live grenade!"

Grenades have, almost since their inception, relied on fragments as the primary way in which bad guys get messed up. But now there's a new hand grenade coming into the system that does things differently.

The U.S. Army has approved the new M111 Offensive Hand Grenade, its first new offensive hand grenade since the now-retired Mk3A2 entered service in 1968.
The new M111 resembles a small water bottle rather than a traditional round grenade. It causes casualties through blast overpressure (BOE) and not fragmentation. In contrast to a frag grenade, the M111 has a plastic body that is consumed entirely by the explosion and does not turn into projected fragments.
The M111 won’t replace the M67 – the Army’s current grenade, which was also introduced in 1968 – but supplement it. Specifically, the M67, which is a fragmentation grenade, will be used in open terrain, and the M111 in urban areas, bunkers, and similar confined spaces.

The M67, that round, baseball-sized crowd pleaser, was the grenade I served with, and yes, I got to toss a few live ones. It's a pure fragmentation grenade. Unlike in the movies, a grenade doesn't go off with a prolonged roar and a big fireball, but with short, sharp bang, with only a puff of black smoke - and, of course, those fragments of shrapnel flying every which way and, if you've done your part, those fragments are ruining the days of a bunch of bad guys who have stupidly bunched together. Because that's always the ideal grenade target - a bunch of knuckleheads all gaggled together.

The new M111, though, works with just the bang, and is meant for urban warfare, where there's always the chance a fragment may hit someone you'd rather not have perforated. It apparently works like a flash-bang, without as much flash and more bang.

”One of the key lessons learned from the door-to-door urban fighting in Iraq was the M67 grenade wasn’t always the right tool for the job. The risk of fratricide on the other side of the wall was too high,” said Col. Vince Morris, Project Manager Close Combat Systems, Capabilities Program Executive Ammunition and Energetics.
Fragmentation greatly risks harming friendly forces when used in closed spaces because a grenade’s fragments can be deflected by objects in the space, whereas BOE cannot. It is likely that future conflicts will include urban combat, and being able to clear a room effectively with a grenade will save soldiers’ lives.
“[…] a grenade utilizing [blast overpressure] can clear a room of enemy combatants quickly, leaving nowhere to hide while ensuring the safety of friendly forces,” Morris added.

It's an interesting idea.

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Every conflict produces lessons, and it seems our recent scraps in the Middle East have been no exception. Close-quarters urban combat is nasty, and being able to clear a structure with rather less chance of fragments hitting one of your buddies is a good thing, even if their eardrums may suffer for it. But then, our eardrums are suffering anyway; you can always spot any gathering of veterans by noting that they are all holding a hand up to one ear and shouting, "WHAT?"

So now our troops have another tool, one that may aid them in un-aliving bad guys with less chance of collateral damage. That's good. And, we should remember, as stated in that great military guide, Murphy's Laws of Combat, "Once the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend."

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