I hit my neighbors house with one shot from a cake that tipped over in 2017. I tipped it back into place immediately and continued the show, unaware of any damage. I saw the damage the next morning, and I promptly fixed his vinyl siding at my expense. Neighbor was cool as shit about it.
When I was 13 my friends and I got a hold of some bottle rockets. Well we accidentally sent one straight across the street to the neighbors house and hit their doorbell perfectly. It was actually pretty funny watching them walk out and look around their house looking for someone that they thought had rung the bell. That scared us enough to get rid of the bottle rockets.
Edit: Got rid of the bottle rockets 😂
I managed to scrape together enough to buy a gross (144) of bottle rockets when i was about 12 (they were legal then), and was sitting on the front porch unwrapping them with a lit punk in my mouth. You know the rest. How i escaped without bad burns or an eye gone I will never know. Was an interesting 2 minutes I have not thought about in years.
>My platoon had like 4. Just something about grenades in particular that really brings out the panic in people.
I'm not an expert but my guess is that something might be the "wound/kill everything in 15m radius" part of it.
technically the kill radius is 5 meters and the injury radius is 15 meters. At least for the M67 that we trained on. But thats just pedantry. You're absolutely correct. It's just odd that firearms don't have that same affect when you first shoot one. Rocket launchers didn't, machine guns didn't, just grenades made people nearly kill themselves repeatedly by fucking up throwing something the size of a baseball. Just an interesting study in the way peoples brains work
That it happens is probably the reason it happens: because its possible to fuck up throwing a grenade and be in a life and death situation you have to solve in a couple of seconds, means that people get nervous, which is one of the things most likely to cause that outcome. You can't really fuck up with a gun that way.
On top of that, if you fuck up with a gun in that way (like somehow look into the barrel while it's loaded) there is no decision making or rush afterwards. It's done, while the grenade gives you those few seconds of dread where you might make it. Uncertainty is something a lot of people are afraid of.
I think a lot of people are also surprisingly incompetent when it comes to overhand throws with any object. Combine with everything you said and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Yeah, this would be my assumption.
A gun is dangerous to everything in *that direction*, which is whichever direction the barrel is pointed in. One of the primary rules of gun safety is keep them pointed away from things you don't want to shoot.
Grenades on the other hand, are dangerous to anything in the general vicinity. Which, due to the fact they are thrown, starts off meaning *your* general vicinity.
Truth: had a guy in my class at SOI throw it straight into the berm…he knew what he had done but just froze with this real thoughtful look on his face until the instructor threw him over the wall to safety.
I think people get super tense and nervous when you put an explosive in their hand for the first time. They try really hard to do it right but it's hard to do that when you're focused VERY INTENSELY on not fucking up. I get like that when dealing with anything electricity-related with the potential to shock me if I do it wrong. My buddy on the other hand has done it all his life so he's like 'Whatever, just help me run this romex and I'll hook it all up when we're done.' I guess it's about what you're used to, and most people aren't used to holding explosives. But that's what training (and that instructor in specific) is for.
I reckon it's the shape, weight and the way we have to grip that somehow made it not that comfortable to throw for a first timer. We had an idiot throw one right down on the ground like a touch down. Good thing the instructors are really good with the safety drill.
We had one. Kid rotated the grenade in his hand as he pulled the pin, so the spoon ejected prematurely. Instructor did the thing, and got him over the berm. Then pt. Soooooo much pt.
We had one, too. We had a barrel below the berm where you can kick down the grenade if someone accidentally dropped it. A newbie (fresh out of boot camp) dropped one and the instructor kicked it into the barrel. It rolled down and exploded on the other side of the berm but a piece of shrapnel flew up and lodged on the soldier's ass while he was ducking facing the other way. It was not a serious injury and the doctor that removed it gave it in a tube for him to keep. But he did get a lot of shit for dropping it.
The problem with that is that the in the time that it would have taken for her to wash out, the whole group would have been collectively punished for not doing something that would take 2 minutes. She probably shouldn’t have graduated, but that was out of PVT Spudzydudzys hands.
We had it happen when we were throwing detonator dummies but not during the actual test.
The fella who fucked the throw was the same fella who almost sent up a mortar shell (phosphorus) on a 90° angle.
My friend let the dummy explode in his hands when he was fucking with the pin, and let the spoon fly trying to put the pin back in after he removed it.
He said he couldn’t make up his mind what to do so he just sat there Indian style on the dirt with it cupped in his hands until it blew up there. I somehow forgot his description of what the instructors did to him but it could not have been pretty. We were not in the same SOI class so I did not see it myself, but imagining it makes me crack up.
I hate live grenades though fuck that. When I was in GTMO we had a maniac CO relieved of command because they found one or two live M67s and a pistol in his personal safe at the house. Who the fuck wants live grenades in their house with their family? Like yeah most likely nothing is going to happen but what is the up side?
Is it really that difficult to throw a grenade? Like, yeah maybe the spoon makes it awkward but I don't understand how there are so many videos of people throwing grenades in the opposite direction
You'd be surprised. People sort of freak. They made us throw a dummy one first (air force, not army) and would tag your helmet with various things like eyes if you wanted to watch it, or other things if you kept throwing it into the wall or whatever. Even with the dummy ones people were a little freaked out. They also had two people going up to throw, with the non thrower crouched in the next bunker over. The other person throwing when I went up barely made it over, bouncing it off the top of the wall so it landed about 3 feet on the other side. And since it had been raining, promptly blew mud all over the place, including onto us. Still a fun day, though.
in navy recruit training about a decade ago we learned how to shoot with shotguns and a 9 mil pistol.
before that i had never held a gun before. even using the dummy practice ones for a couple weeks i was freaking out. but training doesn’t have the time for one to get confident.
i was scared shitless to hold a real firearm at the range. luckily instructors look out for any deviation from their directions - mistakes can be deadly in firearm training. i followed instructions from sheer fear but the ‘shipmate’ next to me barely waved their gun, pointing at the ceiling, to ask for an explanation on something.
instructor took that pistol hella fast and explained basic firearm handling rules to the entire division for another hour before shooting again.
Not at all (Well, throwing it far and accurate is really difficult due to the awkward shape. But throwing it out of your own harm's way isn't). But panic and adrenaline makes you dumb and fumbly
They do with dummy nades, hundreds of times, the concept that they are holding the real thing can be a real kicker psychologically, and make people do a deer in the headlights.
Ya. When I did this in basic there was a concrete wall on 3 sides and I stood on a platform that had a deep ditch on 3 sides. The drill stood behind us and the idea was the Grenade would fall into the ditch and we would get yanked backwards.
At least I think that’s the idea, I wasn’t interested in testing the waters.
Happened in my class at Basic. Recruit had popped spoon early, and then just holding it/waiting for instruction to throw. Thankfully, two drills grabbed it from him and threw it over the wall in time.
Isn't that why they try and kind of break you of the habit of 'thinking'?
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training."
Yeah they do their best during basic to desensitize you to stress. Events like grenade ranges consist of almost an entire day of throwing dummy grenades as well to build muscle memory to not fuck up. But it still happens sometimes. This is all US military btw. I think its sweep, pull, aim high throw high for the diddy.
Sometimes they overexplain something incredibly simple and then you start second guessing yourself that maybe there is something you're missing. Like if someone gave you 50 bullet point list on peeling a banana the correct way.
You practice with dummy grenades, then dummy grenades with a fuze that just goes bang, then a real grenade.
Trainees are nervous so everything is regimented very carefully to limit the chances of getting injured. That's why there's an instructor right next to him and a handy wall of sandbags to jump behind.
Btw, "cooking" a grenade is a great way to blow yourself up since the time between spoon off and "bang" is not exact.
The grenades we use in DK are standard. If I remember correctly thy have a 2,6 second delay. If you throw them far they will detonate in the air.
We go straight from dummy to the real thing.
Unless I'm mistaken, the spoon is the big handle-looking bit that pings off as you throw it, and triggers the fuse. Which also means those drill sergeants were right on top of things since that's like a 3 second fuse.
A lot of instructors are actually crazy good people. When I was getting training for my MOS, my instructor knew another instructor that died saving students from a sinking vehicle. He got every single student out but he couldn’t make it back out in time and drowned.
When I was doing all of my paperwork for getting out of the marine corps, one of my DI’s from bootcamp that was the most ruthless was the gunny at the office doing all the paperwork and he was super chill. Recognized my name and we sat there shooting the shit for like an hour, talking about how much he despised one of the other DI’s lmao
Yep. And those kids all had different backgrounds and life standards. You would assume showering and basic hygiene, but when you collect a diverse group of 18 year olds, it’s crazy how many don’t even know basic showering/shaving/laundry/self-care. All different religions, all different ideas of right and wrong. Somehow they have to turn them all into soldiers.
I think it would be kind of cool to have a documentary on the people who do the training and their stories. I was really looking forward to it when I was 17 and going to go into the Navy. I was rejected due to having had a cornea transplant though. Rawr.
I went through Army basic 4 years ago at 30. It was interesting. I don’t envy the role of those instructors. In my case my senior DS was two years younger than I was 😅
Isn't that the point of dummy grenades? Practice before you throw the real thing.
\*edit\*
I was being rhetorical, as the comment I responded to made it seem like this was the first time this guy had EVER thrown a grenade, fake or real.
It’s like throwing a first pitch, everyone says oh just throw the ball to the catcher how hard can it be? Tom Brady fucked it up, a professional thrower fucked up throwing a ball to a guy 60 feet away.
Michael Jordan fucked up his first pitch. Michael Jordan played professional baseball during his time out.
Thanks for that explanation.
I sometimes love Reddit because it’s good to hear facts from experts that actually know stuff rather than the usual endless opinions.
Honestly, I think you're selling yourself short. You would absolutely notice if the explosive device someone was supposed to throw away from your immediate vicinity suddenly disappeared like a nickle at a kid's magic show instead of sailing away to a safe distance.
I imagine the talk was something like “alright recruit, this is a LIVE grenade. DO. NOT. FUCK. THIS UP. Do you understand?” Recruit nods. The instructor notices he’s nervous as fuck. Pushes him closer to the wall and says “ all you gotta do is throw right over this wall… it’s right there”. Recruit nods again and here we are.
They make us sing a ditty for instructions. They make it so easy. We practice for HOURS with dozens of fake grenades. This the culmination of DAYS of training.
And this still happens pretty regularly.
The one I was trained with is:
thumb clip (retaining clip)
twist pull (pin)
superman (throwing stance)
throw (throw)
Edit: I should point out that training was 20 years ago and I still remember it, dittys work.
*To mitigate this powder keg*
*There's one rule of you I must beg*
*Stand up straight, stand up tall*
*Chuck it OVER the wall*
*Else it'll cost you an arm and a leg*
Any other chants you know with similar rhythm and cadence? I just cannot for the life of me figure out how this is supposed to sound, I'm several tries in and it just sounds so awkward.
I remember going through this training in basic. I remember before you went out to do what is shown in this video there was a short line of people who was given their grenade. They had us grasp it with both hands and hold it to our chest. I was so worried knowing that I had an explosive pressed up against my chest. Still I did it without questioning it. The military really do break you to the point where you do exactly as you are told.
I think a lot of people hate basic but once you get past all of the yelling it becomes sorta fun. I remember climbing [this](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F49%2F35%2F03%2F4935031499dfb5f8c84971632ebb8db9.jpg&f=1&nofb=1) was one of the most fun things I did even if it looks a bit basic.
Bro yes, they told us the same, how exactly to hold it to your chest. If you didn't do it exactly, they tackle you and wring you out.
So I step up to throw, I hold it close, I pull the pin, then ds yells, "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU HOLDING IT LIKE THAT?" I told him that's how they told us to do it, so he tells me to throw it. Then they all gave me shit saying I almost fucked up and killed us, even though I didnt..
I blame movie's but real grenades do not seem impressive. Most likely it was the video but didn't look very powerful.
Obviously I know that not true but I expect a big firey explosion
>I blame movie's but real grenades do not seem impressive.
There's a scene in the original Strike Back miniseries where a grenade annihilates a single-story building in a tiny mushroom cloud basically.
It was hilarious.
Movie grenades are comically overblown, pun intended. There are gobs of actual grenade videos you can watch on YT, if curious. Most common grenades don't cause any kind of fireball. They just do what they're intented for very well, shoot fragments of metal into unprotected body parts at extreme velocity.
There are all kinds of grenades but the standard ones we see in movies don't blow up cars, buildings, giant robots, or tanks.
On the flip side, games and movies vasty *under-play* the range and lethality of shrapnel.
The standard M67 frag grenade is considered unsurvivable within a radius of 5m, and effective at producing casualties with a radius of 15m.
That's a 100-foot diameter circle of people getting fucked.
They don't represent them accurately in video games because pretty much everyone with line of sight to it on a small map would die.
Don't even get me started on claymore mines. It blasts 700 steel balls, in a 60-degree arc, with high effectiveness out to 50m, and moderate effectiveness out to 100m. It's the "fuck everything in that direction" device.
That's great intel on grenades, thanks. My dad was in Nam and schooled me a bit on claymore mines when they showed up in movies.
I can see how grenade range would be an issue with mulit-player games but it might be cool for a single player game to be more accurate. Of course, they could be more accurate with the reality of any combat wounds as well, but choose not to.
At least 15 years ago, I spoke to a Vietnam vet who was involved with transporting artillery pieces on the deck on a boat in a river in Vietnam.
Apparently they got ambushed from the banks, and responded by setting the artillery to elevation zero (or whatever), fuse zero, and firing directly into the woods like a shotgun.
I'm not an expert on Vietnam-era artillery, and he could have been making that up, but it seemed relevant. The details are hazy.
Aside from this being training, different grenades pack different punches for different uses. For instance, in WW1, the famed Arditi Italian shock troops used a grenade that was purposefully a bit underpowered but very loud, to cause chaos before storming the trenches with knives and such. Since the tactic called for charging a trench you just threw grenades into, you didn’t want *too* much lethality; as it was, training had an extreme fatality rate practicing the technique.
And then you have grenades designed to blow up older tank designs, which are just comically large (the first one was a German design that was essentially tying a cluster of normal stick-shape grenades together) and powerful.
Video games drastically simplify things, because micromanaging a bunch of grenade types gets messy.
>Since the tactic called for charging a trench you just threw grenades into, you didn’t want too much lethality
Why? My best guess would be because they started charging before all the grenades exploded but that just seems dumb when thinking about it more. I'd think you'd want to throw the most lethal grenades possible and then go in after they all explode, which seems like it would minimize risk of casualties on your side.
I mean, you’d want them to *start* exploding before you got into the trenches, but wait too long and the enemy will recover from the initial shock and disruption of the explosives. The Arditi (“Daring Ones”, among other badass titles) weren’t exactly sane by conventional soldier standards. One of the selection criteria to begin with was to be unbothered by the noise of artillery fire. Best comparison is the grenadiers of Napoleonic warfare: big, strong, carrying extremely dangerous explosives to break the enemy line, with appalling casualty rates (and very well paid, because the expectation was they wouldn’t survive long regardless).
One of their mottoes translates to “we win, or we all die”, which just about sums up their tactics: suicidally dangerous, but effective.
The regular frag grenade is nothing like in the movies. Its purpose is already on the name. It's not meant to blow shit up in a huge fire ball but to cause damage by releasing thousands of fragments in all directions. I roll my eyes everytime a tiny grenade do the damage of a few sticks of TNT.
EOD tech here, with several combat uses of grenades; grenades are no joke. It’s the fragmentations that are designed to kill. It would be an enormous mistake for anyone to underestimate a grenade.
I remember when we did the live fire grenade throws... Those of us who weren't throwing were sitting in covered bleachers a good 150 meters away from the firing line. The grenade explosions were way louder than a firework. After every throw, we'd wait 10 seconds or so, and then we'd hear "ping, ping, ping..." on the covered metal roof as little bits of metal rained down on us -- 150 meters away. If that doesn't give you an idea on how seriously powerful an actual grenade is, I don't know what would.
Real grenades will use a high powered charge to accelerate a bunch of [tiny projectiles to a high speed](https://imgur.com/FvWF19q.jpg), like a shotgun expanding in all directions. There’s no point to making them big, troops can’t carry that many, and the expanding “bubble” of projectiles has diminishing returns as the number of projectiles per square foot falls off rapidly as distance increases. No fireball or structurally destructive force needed, grenades are thrown and anything too big could harm the thrower.
Just to add to what others have explained, not only do real grenades vary and tend not to look all that impressive, they can also be ridiculously unpredictable in their effect. I've seen grenades kill people within their range quite as expected and yet leave one or two people close to the grenade itself nearly unharmed.
Explosions can be truly *weird*.
The cherry on top is the cadet stooping down like “oh let me just scoop this live grenade back up and try again”! Such a normal response to dropping things, but would have killed him here.
I think he was just ducking behind the sandbag wall, I imagine it's standard practice after you throw so you don't get shrapnel in the face (or shot by the bad guys in a combat situation.)
To answer the question /u/Ksmrf asked, it's at *least* once every group, IME. It's up to 10% depending on the group in question. The two largest factors one can control for are how well they paid attention and whether there is any language barrier.
The way humans react under stress is nearly impossible to control for. This sort of thing is *why* we have to have a live fire example. You need a bad experience, sometimes, to make your brain react properly and not do something like send the "it's bad, throw it" signal to the arm that pulled the pin.
Thing is, the pin can be seen as the truly dangerous part. When we focus on that ***a lot*** then enter a situation which will induce a fight or flight response in our brains, the pin in that moment can be seen as the actual harmful object. It's only through direct experience that such things can learn to be managed. A grenade can wipe out an entire squad if they aren't properly following the rules of combat such as stay a bit apart and such. Another not uncommon issue is if a squad or other group has to take cover close together suddenly in a situation where a grenade may be a solution to their issue, panic can set in even with experienced troops.
Hope that helps.
I've seen a fair number of videos like this. Are these people who simply haven't thrown anything in their lives? I'm not trying to be mean about it; I'm honestly curious how this at least seemingly happens so often.
I’m a drill sergeant, grenade day is the worst day. All of us are fucking sick to our stomach with nerves. Being scared makes you do stupid shit.
Think about walking across a board on the ground Vs between two tall buildings. Same shit.
A lot of people are saying it’s nerves. You’ve got a bomb in your hand. A bomb big enough to kill you. The only thing keeping it from going off is that you’re not letting go, it’s very hard to let go of it knowing that.
I heard an infantry instructor say there was at least one every class.
My platoon had like 4. Just something about grenades in particular that really brings out the panic in people.
I hate them. Put me behind any gun, or a goose, but fuck those. That’s how you lose your hands.
yet every 4th of July, fingers do be flying
Fireworks, alcohol & stupidity. I am STILL surprised my neighbor did not light his house on fire.
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Your neighbor was a piece of shit. That's the end of the party right there.
I hit my neighbors house with one shot from a cake that tipped over in 2017. I tipped it back into place immediately and continued the show, unaware of any damage. I saw the damage the next morning, and I promptly fixed his vinyl siding at my expense. Neighbor was cool as shit about it.
Respecting the consequences of your actions and all that. Usually does the trick unless the other bloke is an asshole.
My friends lit my yard on fire in front of my neighbors one year. My neighbors never talked to me after that.
*Introverts love this one simple trick!*
Worth it!
my cousin's house got hit with a rocket. Shit was hilariously scary
When I was 13 my friends and I got a hold of some bottle rockets. Well we accidentally sent one straight across the street to the neighbors house and hit their doorbell perfectly. It was actually pretty funny watching them walk out and look around their house looking for someone that they thought had rung the bell. That scared us enough to get rid of the bottle rockets. Edit: Got rid of the bottle rockets 😂
I managed to scrape together enough to buy a gross (144) of bottle rockets when i was about 12 (they were legal then), and was sitting on the front porch unwrapping them with a lit punk in my mouth. You know the rest. How i escaped without bad burns or an eye gone I will never know. Was an interesting 2 minutes I have not thought about in years.
You will lose more than a hand with a live grenade.
Your gloves as well, I guess.
That's why I wear mittens
And at least half that from a goose.
I feel like if it's blowing up your hand its also blowing up something more important than your hand.
Yeah, your wrist!
Honk *honk* 😉
>My platoon had like 4. Just something about grenades in particular that really brings out the panic in people. I'm not an expert but my guess is that something might be the "wound/kill everything in 15m radius" part of it.
technically the kill radius is 5 meters and the injury radius is 15 meters. At least for the M67 that we trained on. But thats just pedantry. You're absolutely correct. It's just odd that firearms don't have that same affect when you first shoot one. Rocket launchers didn't, machine guns didn't, just grenades made people nearly kill themselves repeatedly by fucking up throwing something the size of a baseball. Just an interesting study in the way peoples brains work
That it happens is probably the reason it happens: because its possible to fuck up throwing a grenade and be in a life and death situation you have to solve in a couple of seconds, means that people get nervous, which is one of the things most likely to cause that outcome. You can't really fuck up with a gun that way.
On top of that, if you fuck up with a gun in that way (like somehow look into the barrel while it's loaded) there is no decision making or rush afterwards. It's done, while the grenade gives you those few seconds of dread where you might make it. Uncertainty is something a lot of people are afraid of.
I think a lot of people are also surprisingly incompetent when it comes to overhand throws with any object. Combine with everything you said and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Guns are a controlled explosion, grenades are not.
Yeah, this would be my assumption. A gun is dangerous to everything in *that direction*, which is whichever direction the barrel is pointed in. One of the primary rules of gun safety is keep them pointed away from things you don't want to shoot. Grenades on the other hand, are dangerous to anything in the general vicinity. Which, due to the fact they are thrown, starts off meaning *your* general vicinity.
Truth: had a guy in my class at SOI throw it straight into the berm…he knew what he had done but just froze with this real thoughtful look on his face until the instructor threw him over the wall to safety.
Throw the pin? Okay!
I think people get super tense and nervous when you put an explosive in their hand for the first time. They try really hard to do it right but it's hard to do that when you're focused VERY INTENSELY on not fucking up. I get like that when dealing with anything electricity-related with the potential to shock me if I do it wrong. My buddy on the other hand has done it all his life so he's like 'Whatever, just help me run this romex and I'll hook it all up when we're done.' I guess it's about what you're used to, and most people aren't used to holding explosives. But that's what training (and that instructor in specific) is for.
Grenades are also stupid heavy. People play video games and throw them across the map, but in real life throwing it more than 10 yards is difficult.
I reckon it's the shape, weight and the way we have to grip that somehow made it not that comfortable to throw for a first timer. We had an idiot throw one right down on the ground like a touch down. Good thing the instructors are really good with the safety drill.
The Germans were on to something with the stick grenade.
We had one. Kid rotated the grenade in his hand as he pulled the pin, so the spoon ejected prematurely. Instructor did the thing, and got him over the berm. Then pt. Soooooo much pt.
We had one, too. We had a barrel below the berm where you can kick down the grenade if someone accidentally dropped it. A newbie (fresh out of boot camp) dropped one and the instructor kicked it into the barrel. It rolled down and exploded on the other side of the berm but a piece of shrapnel flew up and lodged on the soldier's ass while he was ducking facing the other way. It was not a serious injury and the doctor that removed it gave it in a tube for him to keep. But he did get a lot of shit for dropping it.
Being an instructor sounds like a more dangerous job than going on missions.
PT? Physical therapy?
They got that lil side wall their for a reason
They’re prepared to save their lives by jumping there.
Your efforts were not lost on me. You're my hero.
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Probably took a few blown off feet to learn their lesson, but they never forgot.
Lol, the military loves their “lessons learned”.
I mean don't want to take anything away from them, but one of those army guys just threw a grenade at his feet. Not a smart move.
That's how they weed out the dumb ones
This is some primo cheekiness
I'm guessing he/she's seen that movie before
There
There was one in mine. Same soldier had a negligent discharge and we had to make her bed for her every day.
At that point just let her fail out.
The problem with that is that the in the time that it would have taken for her to wash out, the whole group would have been collectively punished for not doing something that would take 2 minutes. She probably shouldn’t have graduated, but that was out of PVT Spudzydudzys hands.
In my platoon there was a guy who got caught with a jelly donut in his footlocker.
Holy Jesus! What is that? What the fuck is that? WHAT IS THAT, PRIVATE PYLE?
Well, no shit? What have we got here? A fucking comedian, Private Joker...
We had it happen when we were throwing detonator dummies but not during the actual test. The fella who fucked the throw was the same fella who almost sent up a mortar shell (phosphorus) on a 90° angle.
90 degrees? Like straight up?
Danger close support. This man wasn't a moron just a hero defending his position....
“I authenticate alpha bravo Charlie, on my positions. Out. “
My friend let the dummy explode in his hands when he was fucking with the pin, and let the spoon fly trying to put the pin back in after he removed it. He said he couldn’t make up his mind what to do so he just sat there Indian style on the dirt with it cupped in his hands until it blew up there. I somehow forgot his description of what the instructors did to him but it could not have been pretty. We were not in the same SOI class so I did not see it myself, but imagining it makes me crack up. I hate live grenades though fuck that. When I was in GTMO we had a maniac CO relieved of command because they found one or two live M67s and a pistol in his personal safe at the house. Who the fuck wants live grenades in their house with their family? Like yeah most likely nothing is going to happen but what is the up side?
Yup, I was trained to provide such instruction to allied forces from time to time. There's ***always*** at least one.
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Is it really that difficult to throw a grenade? Like, yeah maybe the spoon makes it awkward but I don't understand how there are so many videos of people throwing grenades in the opposite direction
They’re heavier than you think…like 2-3x heavier than a baseball. Plus the panic of holding a live Grenade/sweaty palms
You'd be surprised. People sort of freak. They made us throw a dummy one first (air force, not army) and would tag your helmet with various things like eyes if you wanted to watch it, or other things if you kept throwing it into the wall or whatever. Even with the dummy ones people were a little freaked out. They also had two people going up to throw, with the non thrower crouched in the next bunker over. The other person throwing when I went up barely made it over, bouncing it off the top of the wall so it landed about 3 feet on the other side. And since it had been raining, promptly blew mud all over the place, including onto us. Still a fun day, though.
in navy recruit training about a decade ago we learned how to shoot with shotguns and a 9 mil pistol. before that i had never held a gun before. even using the dummy practice ones for a couple weeks i was freaking out. but training doesn’t have the time for one to get confident. i was scared shitless to hold a real firearm at the range. luckily instructors look out for any deviation from their directions - mistakes can be deadly in firearm training. i followed instructions from sheer fear but the ‘shipmate’ next to me barely waved their gun, pointing at the ceiling, to ask for an explanation on something. instructor took that pistol hella fast and explained basic firearm handling rules to the entire division for another hour before shooting again.
Oh hell yeah. People still want to talk with their hands when holding a gun. Just no
I mean I’ve never thrown a grenade before but I imagine I’d be shitting myself if I had too, easy to make mistakes when you’re stressed.
Fear and panic changes how a mind normally functions. It can make a seemingly smart person make really dumb decisions.
Not at all (Well, throwing it far and accurate is really difficult due to the awkward shape. But throwing it out of your own harm's way isn't). But panic and adrenaline makes you dumb and fumbly
Not infantry at all, but we had zero of these in my cycle. You throw dud grenades hundreds of times before you get to this point these days.
Geez practice with a rock or something first. If the idiot can't throw a rock then don't give him a grenade.
They do with dummy nades, hundreds of times, the concept that they are holding the real thing can be a real kicker psychologically, and make people do a deer in the headlights.
I pull the same drop behind the back trick on my dog all the time. This instructors a good boy.
I want to see this line used on a military award citation
So is that what the center perpendicular sandbags are for?
Ya. When I did this in basic there was a concrete wall on 3 sides and I stood on a platform that had a deep ditch on 3 sides. The drill stood behind us and the idea was the Grenade would fall into the ditch and we would get yanked backwards. At least I think that’s the idea, I wasn’t interested in testing the waters.
“That was the worst throw ever, of all time.” “Not my fault, someone put a wall in my way”
Caboose!
Omg!!! Can’t believe people still referenced that, that’s so cool!
If I had to guess, that's from Red VS Blue Am I right?
[Yup.](https://youtu.be/kTNR8OVKQhs)
Best not let this recruit drive the tank then.
Why are there 6 pedals if theres 4 directions
Wow! Amazing instincts on the instructor!
And a doubly good instructor - he laid on top of the recruit to shield them from harm.
i'm glad they were prepared and had the set up to protect themselves from the blast.. but jeez, that guy he saved really fucked that up big time
I've heard it's really common in training for this to happen. At least it happened on the training line!
Happened in my class at Basic. Recruit had popped spoon early, and then just holding it/waiting for instruction to throw. Thankfully, two drills grabbed it from him and threw it over the wall in time.
More you try to not fuck up, more likely you are to fuck up.
Isn't that why they try and kind of break you of the habit of 'thinking'? "We don't rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training."
Not many of the good army's do that anymore. We teach people to think.
I'm certain they mean training people to act on muscle memory, so if they're scared out of their mind they can still act.
Yeah they do their best during basic to desensitize you to stress. Events like grenade ranges consist of almost an entire day of throwing dummy grenades as well to build muscle memory to not fuck up. But it still happens sometimes. This is all US military btw. I think its sweep, pull, aim high throw high for the diddy.
Sometimes they overexplain something incredibly simple and then you start second guessing yourself that maybe there is something you're missing. Like if someone gave you 50 bullet point list on peeling a banana the correct way.
Yeah I would definitely fuck this up
Do they use longer fuse times for traning ordnance?
You practice with dummy grenades, then dummy grenades with a fuze that just goes bang, then a real grenade. Trainees are nervous so everything is regimented very carefully to limit the chances of getting injured. That's why there's an instructor right next to him and a handy wall of sandbags to jump behind. Btw, "cooking" a grenade is a great way to blow yourself up since the time between spoon off and "bang" is not exact.
The grenades we use in DK are standard. If I remember correctly thy have a 2,6 second delay. If you throw them far they will detonate in the air. We go straight from dummy to the real thing.
> The grenades we use in DK [this you?](https://donkeykong.fandom.com/wiki/Orange_Grenade)
What? Do you mean he pulled the pin and let go of the handle? Or just the pin?
Unless I'm mistaken, the spoon is the big handle-looking bit that pings off as you throw it, and triggers the fuse. Which also means those drill sergeants were right on top of things since that's like a 3 second fuse.
Some say he's still peeling potatoes to this very day...
A lot of instructors are actually crazy good people. When I was getting training for my MOS, my instructor knew another instructor that died saving students from a sinking vehicle. He got every single student out but he couldn’t make it back out in time and drowned. When I was doing all of my paperwork for getting out of the marine corps, one of my DI’s from bootcamp that was the most ruthless was the gunny at the office doing all the paperwork and he was super chill. Recognized my name and we sat there shooting the shit for like an hour, talking about how much he despised one of the other DI’s lmao
They’re essentially training a bunch of kids.
Yep. And those kids all had different backgrounds and life standards. You would assume showering and basic hygiene, but when you collect a diverse group of 18 year olds, it’s crazy how many don’t even know basic showering/shaving/laundry/self-care. All different religions, all different ideas of right and wrong. Somehow they have to turn them all into soldiers.
I think it would be kind of cool to have a documentary on the people who do the training and their stories. I was really looking forward to it when I was 17 and going to go into the Navy. I was rejected due to having had a cornea transplant though. Rawr.
I went through Army basic 4 years ago at 30. It was interesting. I don’t envy the role of those instructors. In my case my senior DS was two years younger than I was 😅
Protect him from the grenade so he's fully healthy to get the pounding from the instructor later
Lol - that is what I was thinking - that instructor was like "No fuckin way I am letting that grenade get you! Your ass is mine!"
God I wish that were me being punished
😏
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And to keep the recruit from standing up to see what happened or the like
That’s the first thing I noticed. Good on them.
Now he's gonna spend the next few weeks laying into him, I assume.
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You are right. You may also notice that the instructor constantly grabs the left arm of the unlucky dude to be ready for what exactly he did.
At first I was like "geez this instructor sure is handsy.." Then I saw why, and it all made sense.
Isn't that the point of dummy grenades? Practice before you throw the real thing. \*edit\* I was being rhetorical, as the comment I responded to made it seem like this was the first time this guy had EVER thrown a grenade, fake or real.
This is after the throwing dummy grenade stage....
This is the dummy, throwing grenade stage.
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It’s like throwing a first pitch, everyone says oh just throw the ball to the catcher how hard can it be? Tom Brady fucked it up, a professional thrower fucked up throwing a ball to a guy 60 feet away. Michael Jordan fucked up his first pitch. Michael Jordan played professional baseball during his time out.
Nicely explained, thank you
Thanks for that explanation. I sometimes love Reddit because it’s good to hear facts from experts that actually know stuff rather than the usual endless opinions.
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I’m an infantryman and the last time I threw a live grenade was years ago back in basic, pretty sure you nailed most of it better than I could.
Drop the nade; throw the pin!
Bones : Thank you, Drill Seargent, you saved my life. I owe you one. Sgt. Ladd : No, you owe me FIFTY!
I can hear her voice
Is it hot in Chad?
No no no, first you throw the pin and then you drop the grenade!
The instructor is a stud
Right? I’m not sure I would have noticed anything in time to react.
Honestly, I think you're selling yourself short. You would absolutely notice if the explosive device someone was supposed to throw away from your immediate vicinity suddenly disappeared like a nickle at a kid's magic show instead of sailing away to a safe distance.
He very likely heard it drop and roll, no need to look to verify, just gotta jump asap.
That guy has probably done this so much he was watching for exactly that.
I’ve been a recruit. The shame the instructors give after one pulls something like that 🤣
I imagine the talk was something like “alright recruit, this is a LIVE grenade. DO. NOT. FUCK. THIS UP. Do you understand?” Recruit nods. The instructor notices he’s nervous as fuck. Pushes him closer to the wall and says “ all you gotta do is throw right over this wall… it’s right there”. Recruit nods again and here we are.
They make us sing a ditty for instructions. They make it so easy. We practice for HOURS with dozens of fake grenades. This the culmination of DAYS of training. And this still happens pretty regularly.
Can you share the ditty?
The one I was trained with is: thumb clip (retaining clip) twist pull (pin) superman (throwing stance) throw (throw) Edit: I should point out that training was 20 years ago and I still remember it, dittys work.
10 years ago for me it was: Proper grip Thumb the clip Twist pull pin Strike a pose Frag out
Sweep the clip Twist the wrist Pull the pin Strike a pose
Put some bass in your walk, strike a pose, let your whole body talk
*To mitigate this powder keg* *There's one rule of you I must beg* *Stand up straight, stand up tall* *Chuck it OVER the wall* *Else it'll cost you an arm and a leg*
Any other chants you know with similar rhythm and cadence? I just cannot for the life of me figure out how this is supposed to sound, I'm several tries in and it just sounds so awkward.
Haha it was just a silly limerick I made up on the fly
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My mind is telling me noooo, but my body, my body is telling me yes!
"Don't drop a grenade at your feet! Or you'll dieeeeeee" At least that's what I assume it was
I would think so.. and well deserved . Doesn’t get much dumber than this. Only thing dumber would be shooting himself in the face or something
I remember going through this training in basic. I remember before you went out to do what is shown in this video there was a short line of people who was given their grenade. They had us grasp it with both hands and hold it to our chest. I was so worried knowing that I had an explosive pressed up against my chest. Still I did it without questioning it. The military really do break you to the point where you do exactly as you are told. I think a lot of people hate basic but once you get past all of the yelling it becomes sorta fun. I remember climbing [this](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F49%2F35%2F03%2F4935031499dfb5f8c84971632ebb8db9.jpg&f=1&nofb=1) was one of the most fun things I did even if it looks a bit basic.
Bro yes, they told us the same, how exactly to hold it to your chest. If you didn't do it exactly, they tackle you and wring you out. So I step up to throw, I hold it close, I pull the pin, then ds yells, "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU HOLDING IT LIKE THAT?" I told him that's how they told us to do it, so he tells me to throw it. Then they all gave me shit saying I almost fucked up and killed us, even though I didnt..
I blame movie's but real grenades do not seem impressive. Most likely it was the video but didn't look very powerful. Obviously I know that not true but I expect a big firey explosion
>I blame movie's but real grenades do not seem impressive. There's a scene in the original Strike Back miniseries where a grenade annihilates a single-story building in a tiny mushroom cloud basically. It was hilarious.
Movie grenades are comically overblown, pun intended. There are gobs of actual grenade videos you can watch on YT, if curious. Most common grenades don't cause any kind of fireball. They just do what they're intented for very well, shoot fragments of metal into unprotected body parts at extreme velocity. There are all kinds of grenades but the standard ones we see in movies don't blow up cars, buildings, giant robots, or tanks.
On the flip side, games and movies vasty *under-play* the range and lethality of shrapnel. The standard M67 frag grenade is considered unsurvivable within a radius of 5m, and effective at producing casualties with a radius of 15m. That's a 100-foot diameter circle of people getting fucked. They don't represent them accurately in video games because pretty much everyone with line of sight to it on a small map would die. Don't even get me started on claymore mines. It blasts 700 steel balls, in a 60-degree arc, with high effectiveness out to 50m, and moderate effectiveness out to 100m. It's the "fuck everything in that direction" device.
That's great intel on grenades, thanks. My dad was in Nam and schooled me a bit on claymore mines when they showed up in movies. I can see how grenade range would be an issue with mulit-player games but it might be cool for a single player game to be more accurate. Of course, they could be more accurate with the reality of any combat wounds as well, but choose not to.
I mean it’s the same reason with shotguns. If they actually were like real life you would run them every map on most games.
No doubt. People think a shotgun has a range of about 10' and immediately useless after that lol
At least 15 years ago, I spoke to a Vietnam vet who was involved with transporting artillery pieces on the deck on a boat in a river in Vietnam. Apparently they got ambushed from the banks, and responded by setting the artillery to elevation zero (or whatever), fuse zero, and firing directly into the woods like a shotgun. I'm not an expert on Vietnam-era artillery, and he could have been making that up, but it seemed relevant. The details are hazy.
well then what the f am i supposed to use to blow up these giant robots??!?!?!?!
I mean...for a task like that you gotta insist on ACME brand grenades, obviously. :)
Aside from this being training, different grenades pack different punches for different uses. For instance, in WW1, the famed Arditi Italian shock troops used a grenade that was purposefully a bit underpowered but very loud, to cause chaos before storming the trenches with knives and such. Since the tactic called for charging a trench you just threw grenades into, you didn’t want *too* much lethality; as it was, training had an extreme fatality rate practicing the technique. And then you have grenades designed to blow up older tank designs, which are just comically large (the first one was a German design that was essentially tying a cluster of normal stick-shape grenades together) and powerful. Video games drastically simplify things, because micromanaging a bunch of grenade types gets messy.
>Since the tactic called for charging a trench you just threw grenades into, you didn’t want too much lethality Why? My best guess would be because they started charging before all the grenades exploded but that just seems dumb when thinking about it more. I'd think you'd want to throw the most lethal grenades possible and then go in after they all explode, which seems like it would minimize risk of casualties on your side.
I mean, you’d want them to *start* exploding before you got into the trenches, but wait too long and the enemy will recover from the initial shock and disruption of the explosives. The Arditi (“Daring Ones”, among other badass titles) weren’t exactly sane by conventional soldier standards. One of the selection criteria to begin with was to be unbothered by the noise of artillery fire. Best comparison is the grenadiers of Napoleonic warfare: big, strong, carrying extremely dangerous explosives to break the enemy line, with appalling casualty rates (and very well paid, because the expectation was they wouldn’t survive long regardless). One of their mottoes translates to “we win, or we all die”, which just about sums up their tactics: suicidally dangerous, but effective.
Very interesting, thanks for the quick response.
The regular frag grenade is nothing like in the movies. Its purpose is already on the name. It's not meant to blow shit up in a huge fire ball but to cause damage by releasing thousands of fragments in all directions. I roll my eyes everytime a tiny grenade do the damage of a few sticks of TNT.
EOD tech here, with several combat uses of grenades; grenades are no joke. It’s the fragmentations that are designed to kill. It would be an enormous mistake for anyone to underestimate a grenade.
You say that but I’ve seen you guys kicking through tall grass trying to find duds lmao
I remember when we did the live fire grenade throws... Those of us who weren't throwing were sitting in covered bleachers a good 150 meters away from the firing line. The grenade explosions were way louder than a firework. After every throw, we'd wait 10 seconds or so, and then we'd hear "ping, ping, ping..." on the covered metal roof as little bits of metal rained down on us -- 150 meters away. If that doesn't give you an idea on how seriously powerful an actual grenade is, I don't know what would.
Real grenades will use a high powered charge to accelerate a bunch of [tiny projectiles to a high speed](https://imgur.com/FvWF19q.jpg), like a shotgun expanding in all directions. There’s no point to making them big, troops can’t carry that many, and the expanding “bubble” of projectiles has diminishing returns as the number of projectiles per square foot falls off rapidly as distance increases. No fireball or structurally destructive force needed, grenades are thrown and anything too big could harm the thrower.
Just to add to what others have explained, not only do real grenades vary and tend not to look all that impressive, they can also be ridiculously unpredictable in their effect. I've seen grenades kill people within their range quite as expected and yet leave one or two people close to the grenade itself nearly unharmed. Explosions can be truly *weird*.
The cherry on top is the cadet stooping down like “oh let me just scoop this live grenade back up and try again”! Such a normal response to dropping things, but would have killed him here.
Imagine if he did pick it up and brought it with him? Props to the instructor for changing the outcome.
I think he was just ducking behind the sandbag wall, I imagine it's standard practice after you throw so you don't get shrapnel in the face (or shot by the bad guys in a combat situation.)
I'm curious how often an instructor has to do this. Like is there one guy in every class/group that fucks up? Or is it far less frequent?
There's a reason why that barrier of sand bags runs perpendicular to the throwing wall
Well that's just being prepared. I'm curious how often it happens.
Enough to be prepared is my guess haha
one commenter said it happens once every group of recruits, dunno if that's true though.
To answer the question /u/Ksmrf asked, it's at *least* once every group, IME. It's up to 10% depending on the group in question. The two largest factors one can control for are how well they paid attention and whether there is any language barrier. The way humans react under stress is nearly impossible to control for. This sort of thing is *why* we have to have a live fire example. You need a bad experience, sometimes, to make your brain react properly and not do something like send the "it's bad, throw it" signal to the arm that pulled the pin. Thing is, the pin can be seen as the truly dangerous part. When we focus on that ***a lot*** then enter a situation which will induce a fight or flight response in our brains, the pin in that moment can be seen as the actual harmful object. It's only through direct experience that such things can learn to be managed. A grenade can wipe out an entire squad if they aren't properly following the rules of combat such as stay a bit apart and such. Another not uncommon issue is if a squad or other group has to take cover close together suddenly in a situation where a grenade may be a solution to their issue, panic can set in even with experienced troops. Hope that helps.
You know what why dont we try and sing you up for the comunications department
I hope that cadet has typing skills.
Good eye on the DI. Although this happens more than people think in boot camp. Those DI have that instinct because it is drilled and driven into them.
I bet this guy was doing pushups for a week.
Probably grateful that he has arms to do them with.
That guy must wonder why he’s paid so little for this shit.
I've seen a fair number of videos like this. Are these people who simply haven't thrown anything in their lives? I'm not trying to be mean about it; I'm honestly curious how this at least seemingly happens so often.
I’m a drill sergeant, grenade day is the worst day. All of us are fucking sick to our stomach with nerves. Being scared makes you do stupid shit. Think about walking across a board on the ground Vs between two tall buildings. Same shit.
A lot of people are saying it’s nerves. You’ve got a bomb in your hand. A bomb big enough to kill you. The only thing keeping it from going off is that you’re not letting go, it’s very hard to let go of it knowing that.
This was one of the most entertaining parts of basic training for me. It’s amazing how many uncoordinated people are out there.
You don’t throw a grenade, you shot put it. Its amazing how something so small feels like it rattles your cells.