Chemical grenades are chemical-filled munitions designed to be thrown by the individual or projected from the service rifle by means of an adapter. Chemical grenades are used for incendiary, screening, signaling, training, and riot control purposes as well as booby traps.

Perhaps the most commonly used chemical grenade is the ABC-M25A2, CS riot control hand grenade (fig. 12-3). This is a special-purpose bursting type of munition used for control of riots and for training purposes. The grenades are filled with chloracetophenone, a type of tear gas that causes irritation and watering of the eyes, resulting in temporary, partial, or total blindness. The body of the grenade is spherical and is made of plastic. It contains about 3.5 ounces of a mixture of CS and weighs about 7.5 ounces.

This grenade does not have a safety lever as other grenades do. To prevent the grenade from activating after the safety pin is removed, you must keep pressure on the top of the arming sleeve with the thumb of your throwing hand.

Figure 12-4.-Incendiary hand grenade.

The radius of the burst is approximately 6 meters, but fragments of the plastic body occasionally fly as far as 27 meters. Effective portions of the agent may be carried as far as 75 to 100 meters downwind. Personnel using these grenades should wear protective gas masks.

Incendiary Grenades

The AN-M14 incendiary (thermite) hand grenade is cylindrical in shape and has a sheet metal body with emission holes in the top (fig. 12-4). It weighs 32 ounces and contains a filler of 26.5 ounces of TH3 thermite mixture. It uses an igniting fuze that sets fire to the thermite filler after the normal delay. The thermite filler bums for approximately 40 seconds at a temperature of about 4300F. A portion of the thermite filler changes into molten iron that flows out of the grenade and produces intense heat over a small area. This molten iron ignites or fuzes whatever it touches. It is used to ignite combustible materials and to destroy all types of equipment. It burns through about one-fourth inch of steel and welds together steel or iron machinery parts when molten iron flows between them.

Smoke Grenades

The M34 white-phosphorous smoke hand grenade is designed to replace the M15 white-phosphorous hand grenade. The body of the grenade is cylindrical with a tapered bottom. It contains a filler of about 12 ounces of white phosphorous and is serrated to break up easily when detonated. The grenade weighs 27.2 ounces and the average Seabee can throw it 35 meters. The effective casualty radius is 25 meters; however, particles of phosphorous may be thrown as far as 30 meters.

Figure 12-5.-Typical smoke grenade.

Figure 12-6.-Practice hand grenade.

M8 colored-smoke hand grenades are the same size and shape as the HC smoke grenades. The M8 will produce red, green, or yellow smoke for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes when ignited. The color of the filler is indicated in writing on the body of the grenade, and both ends are colored the same as the smoke the grenade will produce. The M8 is used for ground-to-air or ground-to-ground signaling (fig. 12-5).

NOTE

Under the new standard marking system, these grenades have a light green body with black lettering.

Practice and Training Grenades

Practice and training grenades (fig. 12-6) are used for training personnel in the care, handling, and use of hand grenades before using service grenades. Practice grenades simulate functioning of service grenades to provide realism in training. Training grenades are completely inert and do not function in any way.

Figure 12-7.-Three main parts of the grenade.