- The US Army introduced the new M111 hand grenade, the first since Vietnam.
- The M111 kills with a shock pressure wave without shrapnel, it has a plastic body.
- The M111 grenade is designed for urban combat and cleaning indoor spaces.
The US military last month unveiled its first new hand grenade since the Vietnam War. His plastic body is filled with explosives, and enemy soldiers are killed by a shock wave instead of shrapnel. TASR writes about it according to the CNN website.
The M111 grenade is designed for urban combat and cleaning the interior of buildings with a reduced risk of collateral damage. Enemies are killed and incapacitated by the use of shock waves or blast overpressure (BOP). It won’t even help them to hide behind internal walls, furniture or appliances that could protect them in the case of shrapnel grenades, the military said.
The army has developed a new palm-sized cylindrical munition based on experience from previous wars in the Middle East. “One of the key lessons from door-to-door combat in the cities of Iraq was that the M67 grenade was not 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, program project manager at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey.
“A BOP grenade can quickly clear a room of enemy combatants, leaving no room for cover while ensuring the safety of allied forces,” stated. “When a high-pressure wave hits someone, it compresses (him) violently and loosens the tissue,” the military explained the principle. In smaller explosions, the eardrums, lungs, eyes and digestive tract are most at risk of rupture or damage. Stronger pressure waves can damage the brain or even amputate limbs.
Until now, the US Army’s last new grenade was the MK3A2, introduced in 1968 during the Vietnam War. In the following decade, it was withdrawn because it contained cancer-causing asbestos, the tiny fibers of which damaged the lungs when inhaled.
The American soldier was thus left with an M67 fragmentation grenade. Its disadvantage is the scattering of shrapnel in all directions, which can kill or injure passers-by or other soldiers from one’s own unit. Its predecessors were the M26, which was introduced in the early 1950s, and the iconic Mk2, nicknamed for its pineapple appearance.
