Frag Grenades VS Blooper Rounds

This is for folks far more in the know than I.....

Is there a huge difference in blast radius between a typical US frag grenade, and the 40x46mm blooper rounds? I'm curious for gaming use.

You say "typical US frag"... at one point we had to pull out the old Pineapple grenades from Korean and WW2 stock!

But, to answer your question... sort of. The 40mm HE round was less lethal than the M26 grenade (the one with the notched wire for shrapnel) and had a smaller blast radius but was more reliable (the M26 had issues with full detonation). It was on par with the M33 "baseball" grenade. IIRC the M67 came late in the game, basically an M33 with an extra safety clip and was used form '70 until pretty recently.

I read the other day that there was a "silent" blooper round developed that used piston to fire the round!

I knew you'd be able to answer that one for me! That's interesting about the silent blooper too.

While I understand the question was to do with blast radius, and I totally agree with Darby, the big plus for the M79 was the distance it could throw that grenade even if the blast area was a bit smaller.

In our games the blast radius is the same but the frag grenade can damage 1 notch easier.

Using WP or AP rounds from bloopers is fun!

TailEndCharles wrote:In our games the blast radius is the same.....

That's what I was thinking originally, just wanted to make sure I was on the right track.

I spent a couple of days digging into this a little, and found it curious that the M26 "lemon" grenade and M67 "baseball" had 5.5 and 6.5 ounces of filler, the M406 frag round for the M79 only had 1.15 ounces, suggesting that there was really a lot more "boom" from the hand grenades.

In talking to my my Vietnam vet coworker, 101 Airborne, 326 Eng btln, cmpy D, '70-'71 (West Point, MIT, engineer (Phd, mechanical), paratrooper, ranger), he offered that the hand grenades seemed to have a little more blast effect, but as shared above, the range of the M79 was an advantage.

He also offered that the M67 was a great improvement over the earlier M26, as the M67 had a series of grooves cast into it, that caused the casing the fragment into what looked like pieces of wire. These wire like fragments seemed to offer more lethal effect than the fragmentation of the M28 and earlier grenades.

Another thing that he shared was the the M68 impact fuse grenade (M67 with different fuse) was not well liked, as guys would not infrequently fumble grenades while in combat, and they had instances of guys blowing themselves up after dropping live M68 grenades under duress. They wouldn't let their guys have them after the initial experiences. I mentioned that there was a built in mechanism to protect against a dropped grenadegoing off, but he said that it simply didn't stop a much higher frequency of accidents with the impact fused grenades from happening.

Also he shared that while he liked the M79, that the safety on it was badly designed, that it was too easy to accidentally switch the safety off, and had a couple of near disasters with that during his time in country. Guys would accidentally switch off the safety off and accidentlly discharge grenades into the ground. In his case they all skittered to a stop before travelling far enough to arm and detonate. One bounced accross a newly grated road on a mine sweep, coming to rest a couple of feet from him. The squad leader gave the new guy an M79, a practice that was generally frowned at, as they had had mre than one such accident.

Nothing earth shaking, but I find the details interesting and figured I'd share them.

Those details ARE interesting! Thanks for sharing that Brian!

Never heard about dicky safeties and we were still using M79s in the 1980s. I always thought of it as a much more robust bit of kit than its successor.

The main point has been well covered, there's definitely less bang in the M79 round than the M26 but hardly surprising they have a different function, the M79 being more of a point weapon. The Australian Army training pam gives a 15m effective casualty radius for the M26, with a note that fragments may fly up to 180 metres. The M79 rounds effective casualty radius is about half that.

Worth pointing out that the M79's round requires around 15 to20 metres to arm itself

Thanks for weighing in Corsico! And welcome aboard! Don't forget to post a "hello" in the Check Your Gear! thread here: https://fieldsoffire.forumotion.com/t1034-check-your-gear-2023

irishserb wrote:
Also he shared that while he liked the M79, that the safety on it was badly designed, that it was too easy to accidentally switch the safety off, and had a couple of near disasters with that during his time in country.  Guys would accidentally switch off the safety off and accidentlly discharge grenades into the ground.  In his case they all skittered to a stop before travelling  far enough to arm and detonate.  One bounced accross a newly grated road on a mine sweep, coming to rest a couple of feet from him.  The squad leader gave the new guy an M79, a practice that was generally frowned at, as they had had mre than one such accident.

Nothing earth shaking, but I find the details interesting and figured I'd share them.

This would explain the various accounts I have read in memoirs concerning accidental discharges. One book I read recently mentioned a guy who was hit in the chest by an M79 round. The round did not go off, but the impact was such that he went into cardiac arrest and died on the spot.