Japanese Grenades WW2 - And why do they bash them?? 

I can see why many would choose dying while fighting instead of outright suicide. The peer pressure is just too immense.

Years ago I did an undergraduate assignment in which I had to cover kamikaze. They were often conflicted about what they were about to do. Particularly the ones that were conscripted. 🙂

@@blastermaster5039 it's more than that dum dum they made their soldiers into doing that for many reasons not by pressure

me on the losing team of a football game watching the japanese exchange student bash a rock on his head and hug it 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳

They couldn't each had a grenade to use to unalive themselves, but likely shared it among a couple soldiers. They would kill their heavily wounded with poison as well.

Would not recommend cooking the nade, smash and throw.

According to the same law, the enemy will have two precious seconds to send back the grenade to you! 😀💣

Here’s an old saying “When the pin is pulled Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend”.

Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. *Five is right out.*

@@duartesimoes508 take into consideration the time in air as well.

Its much easier and cheaper to cast the grenade body when the serrations are on the outside. They do produce adequate fragmentation compared the earlier smooth iron black powder grenades. One of the main reasons why they went with the pre-fragmented coil or pellets was to make them LESS lethal outside of a certain radius because more, smaller fragments slow down faster and have less chance of causing friendly casualties.

You're both partly right. During WW2 they knew the M1 grenade didn't fragment as intended, but kept the 'pineapple' body partly because they didn't feel grenades were important enough to be experimenting with different designs in the middle of a major war, and partly because they felt the improved grip of the design was more important than better fragmentation, since soldiers were unlikely to accidentally drop the grenade. The modern design with its smaller, but more numerous fragments has a shorter lethal range since the smaller pieces lose energy faster than a big chunk of metal, thereby reducing the possibility of friendly casualties by flinging shrapnel an immense distance, it also increased lethality at close range. With a grenade that explodes in five or six big pieces, even at close range you may not get hit by one, or only get a glancing hit from one. With a grenade that explodes in dozens of pieces, spread out in a uniform pattern, you're more likely to get hit with multiple pieces, like a shotgun blast.

I guess the US grenade designer’s ideas… turns out not to be the case.

The serrations on the exterior of the US pineapple grenade have nothing to do with promoting fragmentation along those lines, it's strictly for easier and more sure handling in wet or muddy climates. You don't want a wet/muddy grenade slipping out of your hand before you're ready to toss it! The serrations promoting fracture along those lines is a myth-in point of fact, they had little to do with the size or shape of grenade fragments.

@@pimpompoom93726 The serrations were originally for fragmentation, but were kept after they found it didn't work because it was easy to grip.

The Italians had some real gems in their equipment. Their helmets are really underrated.

I don't think i have ever seen them in a movie or game.

@@killzoneisa not sure about movies but they are in a game called enlisted. But hopefully it's not the only source where they are featured.

​@@ZeonicZaku1-Zeon_Grunt_SuitThey had great SMG's. That's about the only gem. The grenades were quite good....when the impact fuse worked.

@@sharonrigs7999 Nah, not just the SMGs. Most of the major powers had good ones, it was more impressive if they could field them in large numbers (which only the big four were able to achieve). Their helmets are really good. Look into them, they really meet a nice middle ground mixing a lot of the things that make the Stahlhelm and M1 Steel pot great.

And now total Zionist subversion has made our country irrecognizable, but "at least we aren't speaking German," right?

Thank him for his service

One of my mother's cousins was a Marine on Iwo Jima. He was lucky to make it home in one piece. He went on to live another 60 years peacefully after the war.

My Dad, John Henry Burns, 129th Infantry, 2nd Battalion, carried a Jap Hand Grenade fragment stuck in the bone of his right index finger until he died in 2008. He was a disabled veteran all his life as he had been hit by an artillery shell that took out his left elbow. He had 5 surgeries on it, but never was fully able to use his arm and it hung down on his left side most of the time. Nonetheless, after 3 years of Combat in the Pacific against the JAPS in Bougainville, Fiji, and the Solomons and Luzon, he felt lucky to be alive.

@@jamesburns2232 Jap is not a good term

It was.... weird (according to my grandfather) Keep in mind that their weapons were designed to kill Chinese people.

The Japanese have alot of stuff that I was shocked much of it pretty good quality! The way alot of their guns were designed with strip mags in mind is amazing.

I would like to introduce you to a balloon bomb.

​@tuscanyjc no, I don't think I will...

Like most factions in world war 2, japan actually made some pretty good weapons...the arisaka from earlier in the war is actually quite an excellent mauser type rifle. The type 89 "knee mortar" was also very handy. Of course then they had things like the type 94 shiki kenju which due to an exposed firing sear was capable of being fired if something struck it, which was very dangerous.

But the name still stuck lol

Ah that's gotta hurt

That’ll mess up your leg. That poor grunt would probably be out of action for a while but I can understand their reasoning.

Allegedly there was some other translation errors involved too. The tale goes that theJapanese manuals mentioned "kneeling against the launcher" (even this translation is not 100% correct), just like the video showed, but the american soldiers misread the kanji as something like "placing the launcher against the knee".

@@carloshenriquezimmer7543 Perhaps not realising "placing the launcher against the knee" meant "next to", not actually on top of their knee. Just like "leaning against a tree" doesn't mean hanging out on top in the branches, but sitting or standing on the ground up against the tree.

Yeah, apparently that started to happen a lot and killed many many Japanese troops. Kind of horrible to think about but that's war I guess.

@@NateTheScot That had to really suck. A Japanese soldier puts a lot of effort to spring a sneak attack just to be killed by shoddy QC in the factory. Good for US troops being targeted, however. War sucks all around.

Its a translation error, it wasn't supposed to be mounted on the one knee

its fired from 'kneeling position'

Much appreciated words 🙏 my videos can be a bit hit and miss, but I liked how this one turned out.

Name of anime ?

@@overdrivelzma.9219 「この世界の片隅に」("In This Corner of the World")

Great movie

Every year various explosive devices from WW1 are found in France, it's estimated that it will take several hundred years to get rid of all of it (up to 700 years), wars last some years but leave behind destruction for a long time after their end

@@blitzhill9533 Yeah and WWII added a bunch too in the Normandy area and Carentan.

The occasional unexploded bomb is still found now and then in Tokyo. People still find unexploded shells from the American Civil War now and then. France still has restricted and off limits areas dating back to WWI due to high concentrations of UXO in the ground, including poison gas shells. Whenever explosive munitions are used, there's a risk of leaving behind unexploded ordinance. Rather than becoming less dangerous over time, explosives often become more sensitive.

Yikes

Seeing how it works thats not surprising at all

Sounds like propaganda tbh

I also remember reading how the Manchurian-manufactured grenades were sometimes sabotaged by the workers to go off early like that.

Sounds like one freak case turned into propaganda fuel

@@KB8Killa Not really hard to believe. WW2 quality controls of the Japanese to the end of the war were extremely sloppy, as one would expect from a bombed-up nation drained economically. Low quality manufacturing and parts could easily make this grenade go off prematurely once the safety pin is removed. The primer could have been struck in the process by a terrible/ineffective safety spring, the fuse already going on by the time it reaches a soldier's head to throw. Boom. Not to mention that the Japanese were using forced labor to craft weapons like the Germans did. Those workers purposely would sabotage items as protest, knowing it would either kill the user or be ineffective/dud to the target. Many factors can easily make this happen. No manufacturing process is perfect even in our standards today and duds/prematures still happen.

Too dangerous for the EOD to remove? You mean the caves were too dangerous, I don’t think the grenades were. EOD here.

@@WCSPriest That's what the guide said, maybe hype to get us more aware and hyped about the history. I know you EOD guys love the boom booms, lol

@@WCSPriest it was on a narrow path outside, they may have disarmed it and put it back for mystique

It was very intentionally designed for that purpose and for use as a rifle grenade.

My father-in-law is a former Marine. He has a decommissioned grenade, as well as 9 children lol. But even though the grenade was safe, he didn't let his kids go near it because he didn't want them learning that weapons are fun or cool. It sits instead in his office as a neat decoration that he uses as a conversation starter with new clients when they notice it.

Yeahh.. the advantage is the grenade can be use as a booby trap on multiple ways

A grenade is a bad idea once you remove the safety.

@@zahfa7608 it's a different case for the japanese grenade because of its softer pin.. it's designed thar way

Indeed, there is record about premature detonation during battle. This often happen because the Japanese Army use locally made fuse like in Dutch East Indies, Malaysia and Phillipines.

@@yudhiadhyatmikosiswono9082 that's the later part of the war where everything is rushed

It could be deployed in a matter of seconds while the US troops had no equivalent to shoot back with.

How long did it take to deploy the 60mm they carried? It was rather small.

It was a clever weapon. I suppose shoulder fired or under-barrel grenade launchers are the modern equivalent.

I recently watched a couple of videos about japanese WWII weapons. On the Type 11 light machine gun I thought "a fine and smart weapon for the time it was designed but soon outdated. On the Type 92 heavy machine gun I thought "it seemed a little dumb at first, but all in all an underrated weapon." On the Type 89 knee mortar: "Wow, now that is a great design! Perfect for the type of war it was designed for!" On the Type 97 hand grenade: "Eww, you really could have done better!"

Part of the reason why was due to its mobility, prominence, and fitting a niche the US didn’t really have an equivalent to. When a Japanese unit usually had three or four of these issued to each platoon, made it a frequently encountered weapon that could lay down indirect fire beyond the range of hand grenades or rifle grenades, while being far more mobile and easy to deploy than a conventional 60mm of 81mm mortar.

I like how Italian Impact bombs would've been perfect, in a setting such as europe, like in ww1, but then oopsie it seems all our army stuff that we made specifically for Italian region isn't that good in the desert

@@ALE199-ita very rarely does an army get to choose were it will fight its future wars, happened in the middle east , massive equipment changes were needed to deal with unforseen factors and such, wont be the last time for sure.

Thanks Dan! I try to use a mix of movies. They're not all great but but most of the ones used in this video are well worth checking out.

Yeah but the theTNT wich are filled in the pineapple are more explosive and powerful than the shimose

@@Navarro_Jr Not true, Shimose powder was picric acid based like other quite a few other nations explosive filler at the time, but they didn't mix it with other things to keep it stable, instead opting to simply separate it from potential reaction sources. This made it the most potent explosive filler used in WW2. (as far as I know atleast)

@@windex527 the pricric acid are more inflammable than the amatol, composite B and torpex wich are more powerful on energy liberated make it more destructrive than shimose and Type 91 explosive use for Japan in ww2,still are powerful but allies normally use more destructive compounds in terms of energy liberated

Our fillings were better

My wife's people are Filipino. That being said, most of us understand that it wasn't every Japanese soldier who did those horrible things. There were many who didn't. Is your grandfather still alive? I pray that he finds peace.

Today the UK ,Japan and Italy are working closely on the new Tempest jet ,things can and do change. 😊

@@kmorris180 he died 4 years ago but he was instrumental in me becoming a pediatrician. He cried at my wedding when i married my husband he African Zulu and Japanese/Filipino and an ex-soldier.

Never mind. The Chinese will be far much worse.

Sounds like Saburo Sakai, Japan's highest scoring ace. He became a Buddhist acolyte after the war, refusing to kill even mosquitoes. Almost all of my parents generation served in Europe. I have one cousin I never met - he died when an American submarine torpedoed the Arisun Maru. We can best honor those who are gone by looking at the world today, and trying to stop the next wave of horror.

I did put that very medic scene in the first draft for this. The issue was age restriction. Sticky business war videos. 🥸

Yes, a ceramic shard is razor-sharp (think about ceramic knives), and if they don't kill you, they'll sure as hell leave you a bloody mess.

At point blank range it would be for the same reason being next to a shattering glass pane could be lethal. Though it obviously wouldn't have a lot of range unlike metallic shrapnel grenades. However the most potent part of the grenade would be in extremely tight-close quarters Japanese urban fighting, which was the ceramic grenade's purpose. The original grenades ever made where ceramic, and used in sieges and fortresses which where naturally tight both to bottleneck invaders and to keep costs on heating during winters low.

Yes, ceramic shrapnel still clould be lethal, tho probably in smaller radius than metalic one.

Probably so but not nearly as lethal as fragmented steel.

Remember that in the time of the Fighting Sail the bulk of the casualties was caused by flying wood splinters, not by the cannon ball itself.

Just back from deepest Yorkshire...

I think just for the Type 99 grenade. The 97 used TNT which is weaker than picric acid but doesn't require a special coating to prevent the acid from eating away at the grenade.

Unbelievable that they thought this was a good idea.

Thanks man! Welcome to the channel 🙏

Seconded

I mostly went off footage material I could find. Primarily the GI training videos used at the time for the most common Japanese grenades to encounter. Maybe I can still work those into a future video. The Type 3 could make for a cool video.

Thanks!