A grenade is seen as ammunition for a weapon, but can sometimes also be fired by hand. The purpose of a grenade is to cause as much damage as possible to the target through an explosion.
Points of shooting
There are various methods to shoot a grenade. You can divide the methods into 2 categories. One is by hand and the other is by weapon. The category by hand only has one way, that’s logical. The idea is to pull out the pin and throw the grenade at the target, after which it will explode within a certain time. The second category has a wider range of methods, but they all boil down to the same thing: firing a weapon, causing an explosion.
Examples of weapons that can shoot grenades:
- howitzers;
- guns;
- mortars;
- custom guns;
- grenade launchers.
Technique and impetus of the explosion
Each type of grenade explodes differently and therefore causes a different amount of damage. For example, there are grenades that use a time mechanism so that they explode within 10 seconds, for example. There are also grenades that have a built-in sensor that causes them to explode on impact. The impact or impulse of the grenade also differs. So you have a model of grenade that releases quite sharp shards, which, as it were, pierces the target. You also have a model that produces and explodes some smaller grenades afterwards.
Grenades and chemical weapons
Especially during the First World War, it was common for chemicals to be put into grenades. For example, this caused the release of poison gas. This caused a large number of blindness cases during the First World War. In 1997, a worldwide ban on chemical weapons was introduced, but this is not always followed. There is also an agency in The Hague that checks whether the rules are being followed.