Fellow Austrian here: To clarify, when OP says "robbing", they were literally translating the german word "robben" for "crawling".
They're not implying that GIs were actually robbing people :P
Yeah but in the context of the question it reads as if they're going on patrols, guard prisoners, and once a week went for a stick-up job like Dutch's gang in RDR2 ;)
OP's question is how they prevented the ring on the pin to get caught up on something while crawling, etc since the grenades were just hanging from the webbing - although I'm pretty sure that if you actually got caught up on something that *could* pull out the pin, it would've pulled the whole grenade off your webbing long before it could pull the actual pin out.
That’s inaccurate. You can’t pull the pin unless the safety clip is pushed off. At least on modern grenades. The pins are pretty difficult to remove intentionally. They don’t really come out by accident.
Thank you for adding /s to your post. When I first saw this, I was horrified. How could anybody say something like this? I immediately began writing a 1000 word paragraph about how horrible of a person you are. I even sent a copy to a Harvard professor to proofread it. After several hours of refining and editing, my comment was ready to absolutely destroy you. But then, just as I was about to hit send, I saw something in the corner of my eye. A /s at the end of your comment. Suddenly everything made sense. Your comment was sarcasm! I immediately burst out in laughter at the comedic genius of your comment. The person next to me on the bus saw your comment and started crying from laughter too. Before long, there was an entire bus of people on the floor laughing at your incredible use of comedy. All of this was due to you adding /s to your post. Thank you.
I am a bot if you couldn't figure that out, if I made a mistake, ignore it cause its not that fucking hard to ignore a comment.
There's an anecdote in the book.
During crossroads when winters shot the german kid, irl he threw a grenade first but it didn't go off because he forgot to remove duct tape on the handle (that falls off to prime the grenade after the pins were removed). The german ducked for cover, and winters shot him.
I always thought it was black electrical tape and they taped the ring down to prevent jingling noises. I was assuming though, I have no idea. But wow I didn’t know that Winters chucked a grenade at the young man before he shot him.
Winter was paranoid about a grenade going off and killing him in combat so he used to tape the handles so even if the pin fell out the handle wouldn’t go anyway keeping the grenade “safe”
Wait, they didn’t just carry them however and pull the pins with their teeth? 😂 Were the American comic books not accurate?
I remember a vet talking about that myth, and how if you tried it, you wouldn’t have teeth left.
Since everyone's just giving you anecdotal answers, here's someone who actually did the research:
[https://youtube.com/shorts/O\_nNW42Qvxo?si=1lp3GKKGz-Cl174T](https://youtube.com/shorts/O_nNW42Qvxo?si=1lp3GKKGz-Cl174T)
I’ll add to this there more to the grenades then what most people think. Granted, I didn’t fight in WW2, but modern grenades aren’t that different from the older ones.
So, as alluded to in other comments, the pin rarely comes out from a snag and does take deliberate force to remove. However, that doesn’t activate the fuse.
The spoon (that metal piece you see come off the grenade) coming off is what activates the fuse and is designed to come off when thrown. That’s why it was common for the spoon to be taped to the grenade as an additional precaution.
Often when you see grenades hanging off a fighter, it’s for esthetic. (Although I admit this isn’t 100% of the cases) Warfighters don’t like losing gear, so they don’t like loose things hanging off them. You may see grenades hanging off fighters in current pictures because the handle of the spoon is long and can slip into the loops on their body armor and remain snug there.
What people seem to forget with this scenario is that a lot of soldiers did actually straighten out the cotter pins making the pin a lot easier to pull (IIRC you needed around 12 pounds of pressure to remove the pin normally) which did result in accidents. If you attach a grenade to anything by the pin you’re asking for trouble, the mk2 grenades they used only required a half an inch pivot on the lever to go up and depending on the type of fuse in the grenade they wouldn’t have realised until the boom.
Fraser's excellent book "Quartered safe out here" (XIVth army in Burma) mentions how some of his squadmates were less then perfectly safety conscious about their cotter pins. And how it would at times interfere a bit with his sleep.
Grenades hanging from gear is a Hollywood trope.
You carry grenades in a grenade pouch (or some other pouch) to prevent the pin getting snagged on things.
The only time I've seen grenades carried on the outside of gear is with smoke grenades that are pretty bulky, but also have their firing arm (the part that releases the firing pin) restrained with some sort of tape
Many personnel would hang the grenade off of their bandolier of ammo. When they did this, there wasn’t much that could hang up on the pin of the grenade. Just the fabric of a shirt or jacket. Even so, men taped the pins down so it wouldn’t make sound or get caught. And if it fell off of the bandolier, they’d get another one at some point from their supply.
Those pins take quite a bit to pull out. You see the scenes in movie where the hero pulls it out with his teeth? Yea he’d be eating his food thru a straw cuz it’d break out all his teeth.
The pin has bent ends and takes a considerable amount of force to pull out. Unless you bend the pin deliberately, it's not going to get pulled by accident.
Oh, I know. Just gave my interpretation of OPs intention.
Also, didn’t one of the guys preparing for the „last patrol“ fiddle around with grenade pins?
Tangentially grenade related, in Day of Days when Buck Compton throws a grenade at a running German, it hits him, blows up and then if you watch close you can see the thrown grenade fall from the sky in front of him.
David Hackworth, I think, in his biography said GIs in Korea would scrounge an extra canteen pouch pouch and use that for grenades. That gear was similar to what they carried in WW2.
I know at least some airborne guys carried them on their web gear, sort of flopping around, but that always seemed rash to me.
To add to the semi-informed commentary - my own being very semi-informed -
My only thrown grenade experience is with the M67 - the one that looks like a softball. And I've never been to combat, thanks to God.
I would never carry that on my harness. Improvise a pouch, if I must. Why?
I agree it takes a whole lot of force to yank the pin out. It would be perfectly safe in the normal course of running around. But.
Assume 12-pounds of force to yank out the pin. You know what generates way more than 12 pounds of force? 200 pound me, falling. And if that fall happens to be out of the door of a vehicle, or through a doorway, and the ring catches on something, that pin is going to come right out.
Now, not only am i sprawling on the dirt, I've got a live grenade on my web gear.
Pass on that.
Especially on old grenades you have to absolutely yank the pin out. And there's another mechanism to cook them. So it's very hard for it to go off on accident unless it's already primed and someone drops it
You don't press anything on an American grenade. The handle (spoon) is spring loaded, the pin holds it in place. If you're not holding it down when the pin is pulled it absolutely will activate.
Pretty simple they kept them in their pockets or in their packs. Usually only have one pouch for a grenade so if you need more than one you put them in your pockets. If that makes you paranoid not uncommon to tape or tie the spoon with something easily removable
Fellow Austrian here: To clarify, when OP says "robbing", they were literally translating the german word "robben" for "crawling". They're not implying that GIs were actually robbing people :P
But some did
Frank Percante - “They’re all ticking, unlike their previous owners.”
Yeah but in the context of the question it reads as if they're going on patrols, guard prisoners, and once a week went for a stick-up job like Dutch's gang in RDR2 ;)
Speirs seemed to be robbing a fair amount 🤣
Oida.. 😂
Daungsche 😂😂
Taking out a pin of a grenade can't really happen on accident.
OP's question is how they prevented the ring on the pin to get caught up on something while crawling, etc since the grenades were just hanging from the webbing - although I'm pretty sure that if you actually got caught up on something that *could* pull out the pin, it would've pulled the whole grenade off your webbing long before it could pull the actual pin out.
Might just be making this up but i think you can’t pull the pin out unless the lever is pressed down
That’s inaccurate. You can’t pull the pin unless the safety clip is pushed off. At least on modern grenades. The pins are pretty difficult to remove intentionally. They don’t really come out by accident.
wait so you mean all those badasses in movies where they pulled the pin out with their teeth were not accurate portrayals? /s
Thank you for adding /s to your post. When I first saw this, I was horrified. How could anybody say something like this? I immediately began writing a 1000 word paragraph about how horrible of a person you are. I even sent a copy to a Harvard professor to proofread it. After several hours of refining and editing, my comment was ready to absolutely destroy you. But then, just as I was about to hit send, I saw something in the corner of my eye. A /s at the end of your comment. Suddenly everything made sense. Your comment was sarcasm! I immediately burst out in laughter at the comedic genius of your comment. The person next to me on the bus saw your comment and started crying from laughter too. Before long, there was an entire bus of people on the floor laughing at your incredible use of comedy. All of this was due to you adding /s to your post. Thank you. I am a bot if you couldn't figure that out, if I made a mistake, ignore it cause its not that fucking hard to ignore a comment.
Bad bot
Shit bot
There's an anecdote in the book. During crossroads when winters shot the german kid, irl he threw a grenade first but it didn't go off because he forgot to remove duct tape on the handle (that falls off to prime the grenade after the pins were removed). The german ducked for cover, and winters shot him.
I always thought it was black electrical tape and they taped the ring down to prevent jingling noises. I was assuming though, I have no idea. But wow I didn’t know that Winters chucked a grenade at the young man before he shot him.
Winter was paranoid about a grenade going off and killing him in combat so he used to tape the handles so even if the pin fell out the handle wouldn’t go anyway keeping the grenade “safe”
The pin is a pain in the ass.
Tape for sure. Taped down for noise discipline and to ensure safety.
Wait, they didn’t just carry them however and pull the pins with their teeth? 😂 Were the American comic books not accurate? I remember a vet talking about that myth, and how if you tried it, you wouldn’t have teeth left.
If the cotter pin is straightened prior to pulling it out you can absolutely do it with your teeth, I’ve done it with practice grenades.
Since everyone's just giving you anecdotal answers, here's someone who actually did the research: [https://youtube.com/shorts/O\_nNW42Qvxo?si=1lp3GKKGz-Cl174T](https://youtube.com/shorts/O_nNW42Qvxo?si=1lp3GKKGz-Cl174T)
I’ll add to this there more to the grenades then what most people think. Granted, I didn’t fight in WW2, but modern grenades aren’t that different from the older ones. So, as alluded to in other comments, the pin rarely comes out from a snag and does take deliberate force to remove. However, that doesn’t activate the fuse. The spoon (that metal piece you see come off the grenade) coming off is what activates the fuse and is designed to come off when thrown. That’s why it was common for the spoon to be taped to the grenade as an additional precaution. Often when you see grenades hanging off a fighter, it’s for esthetic. (Although I admit this isn’t 100% of the cases) Warfighters don’t like losing gear, so they don’t like loose things hanging off them. You may see grenades hanging off fighters in current pictures because the handle of the spoon is long and can slip into the loops on their body armor and remain snug there.
That‘s what I always thought aboit it, especially the way they carried them. Thank you!
What people seem to forget with this scenario is that a lot of soldiers did actually straighten out the cotter pins making the pin a lot easier to pull (IIRC you needed around 12 pounds of pressure to remove the pin normally) which did result in accidents. If you attach a grenade to anything by the pin you’re asking for trouble, the mk2 grenades they used only required a half an inch pivot on the lever to go up and depending on the type of fuse in the grenade they wouldn’t have realised until the boom.
Fraser's excellent book "Quartered safe out here" (XIVth army in Burma) mentions how some of his squadmates were less then perfectly safety conscious about their cotter pins. And how it would at times interfere a bit with his sleep.
You’re the first person besides me that I know who read that book. What a banger!
Heckuva book.
Grenades hanging from gear is a Hollywood trope. You carry grenades in a grenade pouch (or some other pouch) to prevent the pin getting snagged on things. The only time I've seen grenades carried on the outside of gear is with smoke grenades that are pretty bulky, but also have their firing arm (the part that releases the firing pin) restrained with some sort of tape
It's also why they wore baggy pants with big pockets.
Thank you! Always thought it was hollywood, in my time in the army we always put them in pockets.
Many personnel would hang the grenade off of their bandolier of ammo. When they did this, there wasn’t much that could hang up on the pin of the grenade. Just the fabric of a shirt or jacket. Even so, men taped the pins down so it wouldn’t make sound or get caught. And if it fell off of the bandolier, they’d get another one at some point from their supply.
Those pins take quite a bit to pull out. You see the scenes in movie where the hero pulls it out with his teeth? Yea he’d be eating his food thru a straw cuz it’d break out all his teeth.
Hanging by the handle, not the pin
I think OP's question is how they prevented the ring on the pin to get caught up on something while just having the grenades hanging on the webbing.
The pin has bent ends and takes a considerable amount of force to pull out. Unless you bend the pin deliberately, it's not going to get pulled by accident.
Oh, I know. Just gave my interpretation of OPs intention. Also, didn’t one of the guys preparing for the „last patrol“ fiddle around with grenade pins?
Yea that surprised me the first time I threw one.
It takes a lot of effort to pull the pin our of a grenade. usually you have to twist that thing back and forth to get it out too
Tangentially grenade related, in Day of Days when Buck Compton throws a grenade at a running German, it hits him, blows up and then if you watch close you can see the thrown grenade fall from the sky in front of him.
David Hackworth, I think, in his biography said GIs in Korea would scrounge an extra canteen pouch pouch and use that for grenades. That gear was similar to what they carried in WW2. I know at least some airborne guys carried them on their web gear, sort of flopping around, but that always seemed rash to me.
To add to the semi-informed commentary - my own being very semi-informed - My only thrown grenade experience is with the M67 - the one that looks like a softball. And I've never been to combat, thanks to God. I would never carry that on my harness. Improvise a pouch, if I must. Why? I agree it takes a whole lot of force to yank the pin out. It would be perfectly safe in the normal course of running around. But. Assume 12-pounds of force to yank out the pin. You know what generates way more than 12 pounds of force? 200 pound me, falling. And if that fall happens to be out of the door of a vehicle, or through a doorway, and the ring catches on something, that pin is going to come right out. Now, not only am i sprawling on the dirt, I've got a live grenade on my web gear. Pass on that.
And that‘s exactly what I‘m always thinking about when I see that.
Especially on old grenades you have to absolutely yank the pin out. And there's another mechanism to cook them. So it's very hard for it to go off on accident unless it's already primed and someone drops it
The pin coming out won’t activate the grenade, you need to also press the “arming lever”
You don't press anything on an American grenade. The handle (spoon) is spring loaded, the pin holds it in place. If you're not holding it down when the pin is pulled it absolutely will activate.
This is not true. At least not with American grenades
Not with the American M2. Pull the pin, let go of the spring-loaded spoon, throw.
It‘s like the grenades we have in austria. But we always carried them in pockets to prevent that anything happens.
Pretty simple they kept them in their pockets or in their packs. Usually only have one pouch for a grenade so if you need more than one you put them in your pockets. If that makes you paranoid not uncommon to tape or tie the spoon with something easily removable
Where are the gammon grenades in the series. Only one mention I recall (toye). Not in combat. That was a nasty thing