For almost six many years, the M67 fragmentation grenade has been the first hand grenade American troopers have carried into fight. That modifications now.
The Army cleared the M111 Offensive Hand Grenade for full materials launch Tuesday, marking the primary new deadly hand grenade to enter service since 1968. Developed at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., the weapon offers troopers a purpose-built device for city fight, the place the fragmentation grenade that has carried the drive for the reason that Vietnam Warfare can turn out to be as harmful to pleasant troops as to the enemy.
The Army’s New Hand Grenade
The M111 doesn’t depend on shrapnel to kill. As a substitute, it harnesses blast overpressure, a wave of drive generated by detonation that behaves very otherwise inside a closed room than fragmentation does. Partitions, doorframes and furnishings supply no refuge from it.
The M67 fragmentation grenade, the spherical baseball-shaped weapon troopers have carried since Vietnam, sends metal fragments outward in all instructions at detonation. Within the open, that makes it deadly at vary. Inside a constructing, the identical fragments could be stopped, deflected or scattered unpredictably. Something on the opposite aspect of a skinny wall is as a lot in danger because the meant goal.
For city fight within the trendy battlespace, the M111 goals to negate enemy cowl whereas defending the assault troops.
“One of many key classes realized from the door-to-door city combating in Iraq was that the M67 grenade wasn’t at all times the suitable device for the job,” mentioned Col. Vince Morris, challenge supervisor for Shut Fight Programs on the Capabilities Program Government Ammunition and Energetics. “The chance of fratricide on the opposite aspect of the wall was too excessive.”
The M111 addresses that drawback head-on. Blast overpressure radiates by enclosed house and can’t be stopped by inside partitions the best way fragmentation can, creating deadly results that attain each nook of a room. The M67 isn’t going away, Morris mentioned. In open terrain, troopers will proceed to make use of it to maximise deadly fragment results. The 2 grenades are designed to enrich one another.
“We have given our Troopers and joint warfighters the flexibleness to find out within the subject which sort of grenade will finest swimsuit the present scenario they’re going through, be it open house or confined space,” mentioned Tiffany Cheng, a DEVCOM Armaments Middle engineer who helped develop the M111 at Picatinny Arsenal.
The M67 Hand Grenade
The M111 formally replaces the Mk3A2 offensive hand grenade, a concussion-type weapon that entered service alongside the M67 in 1968. In contrast to the M67, which stays within the energetic stock, the Mk3A2 was way back restricted from use as a result of its physique comprises asbestos. The M111 makes use of a plastic physique that’s absolutely consumed throughout detonation, eliminating the well being hazard.
The M67’s longevity displays each its reliability and the issue of enhancing on a easy, confirmed design. The spherical grenade changed the M33-series that American troopers carried in Vietnam, itself a successor to the M26 grenades troopers threw in Korea. The M67 entered service in 1968 as U.S. forces have been deep in fight operations in Southeast Asia.
Its metal physique comprises 6.5 ounces of Composition B explosive, a combination of RDX and TNT. It has a deadly radius of 5 meters, a casualty-producing radius of 15 meters and fragments able to reaching 230 meters. In additional than 55 years of steady service it has been utilized in each main American battle from Southeast Asia by Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Army designed the transition to trigger minimal disruption to present coaching operations. Each the M111 and M67 use the identical five-step arming course of. The M111 shares fuze parts with the M67 and its coaching counterpart, the M69. A soldier alternating between the 2 weapons will discover that the process for arming and utilizing them stays the identical.
“By standardizing the arming course of and the fuzing, the Army saves taxpayer cash with out sacrificing lethality on the battlefield,” Morris mentioned. “That is the type of acquisition reform that’s at the moment underway all through the Army acquisition enterprise.”
Grenades for Two Completely different Functions
The idea of twin grenades isn’t new. The Soviet navy constructed the offensive-defensive grenade cut up into its doctrine many years earlier than the US did and even named the weapons accordingly. The F-1 defensive grenade was designed to be used from troopers behind cowl. Its thick metal physique produced deadly fragmentation that reached effectively past a soldier’s throwing vary, good for troops holding a bunker or constructing towards enemy assaults.
The RGD-5 offensive grenade, which entered Soviet service in 1954, was engineered with a tighter fragmentation radius. This allowed a soldier to throw it whereas transferring towards enemy troops within the open with out catching the blast.
Afghanistan uncovered the boundaries of each. Lengthy fuze delays gave Mujahideen fighters time to react or throw grenades again. Steep mountain terrain additionally despatched them rolling again towards Soviet traces. The Soviets responded with a brand new matched pair within the mid-Nineteen Eighties.
The RGN offensive grenade saved the fragmentation radius restricted, defending the assaulting soldier. The RGO defensive grenade was constructed to saturate open floor with fragments from a coated place. Each used the identical dual-function fuze that might detonate on contact or set off mechanically at 4 seconds, eliminating the delay drawback totally.
The pair of Soviet-era hand grenades continues to be in service with Russian and Ukrainian forces in fight right this moment. Fight troops have put each to make use of, whether or not assaulting fortifications and buildings or defending a trench from an enemy assault. The U.S. Army is now adopting the identical capabilities, recognizing that no single grenade can reply each scenario a soldier faces downrange.
