“A grenade using BOP can quickly clear a room of enemy combatants”
The US military last month introduced its first new lethal hand grenade since the Vietnam War, a plastic weapon that uses shock waves instead of shrapnel to kill enemies.
The U.S. Army has approved the plastic-bodied M111 offensive hand grenade, the first new lethal hand grenade to enter service since 1968.
The new grenade, called M111, becomes the army’s choice for urban combat, when troops have to clear interior areas to take and hold territory, as there is less risk of collateral damage.
It is the first new grenade introduced to US forces since 1968, when the MK3A2 entered combat during the Vietnam War. This ammunition was recalled in the 1970s because it contains asbestos, whose tiny fibers can lodge in the lungs, leading to fatal diseases including cancer.
Its withdrawal left soldiers with the current main grenade, the M67, which sends shrapnel in all directions when it explodes, and can kill or injure civilians or friendly forces when they ricochet off solid metal or concrete objects, or penetrate light walls, for example.
The use of shock waves, or blast overpressure (BOP), kills or incapacitates enemies with the force of the explosion, vaporizing the weapon’s plastic outer casing.
Troops outside an enclosed area can throw the new grenade into that zone, and enemies cannot take cover behind interior walls, furniture or appliances that the shrapnel might not be able to pierce, the army said.
“A BOP grenade can quickly clear a room of enemy combatants, leaving no place to hide, while ensuring the safety of friendly forces,” said Col. Vince Morris, project manager for the program at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, in a U.S. Army press release.
“When the high pressure wave hits someone, it violently compresses and decompresses the tissues,” explains a fact sheet from the armed forces.
“The eardrums, lungs, eyes and gastrointestinal tract are most at risk of rupture and serious damage in smaller explosions.”
Larger blast waves can damage the brain or even amputate limbs, he adds.
The grenade is powered by RDX, an explosive material used by the US military for decades.
The military developed the new cylindrical, palm-sized munition following experience in previous wars in the Middle East, Morris said in the same statement.
“One of the main lessons learned in the door-to-door urban fighting in 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,” he said.
The M67 fragmentation grenade will not disappear. Troops will continue to transport it for use in open terrain “to maximize the lethal effects of the fragments,” the US Army statement said. They will only have the M111 for indoor use.
The baseball-sized M67 was introduced alongside the MK3A2 in 1968. It followed the M26, introduced in the early 1950s, and the iconic Mk 2 – called the “pineapple” grenade due to its appearance – which was introduced in the first world war and used during the second world war.
Meanwhile, the US Marine Corps is also acquiring another BOP grenade, the M21, from Norwegian manufacturer Nammo, according to US government contracting data.
The US and other armies have a similar weapon, the thermobaric grenade, also known as fuel-air munition. This releases a mist of fuel into the air and then ignites it, releasing a shock wave and fireball that create a vacuum effect, sucking oxygen from the explosion area.
