If you’re like me, you don’t enjoy spending too much time around hand grenades. So when I see a photo like this, I am both amazed and curious at the wide variety. I guess grenades are kind of like doughnuts, where there used to be just one flavor, but now there are dozens. This has got to complicate life more than you’d like.
Our great journalists who cover that part of the world tell me this guy appears to have fragmentation, offensive and sound grenades, which is a lot to remember when stuff starts happening and you really don’t want to hurl the wrong kind. I hope they have an easy-to-follow Grenade Guide you can carry in your pocket, or maybe some helpful memory aids or something.
“Let’s see, if it’s brown, it’s for sound, if it’s bumpy, best be jumpy… Green! What rhymes with green!”
A policeman stands guard at the entrance of Imam Abbas in Kerbala, 70 miles south of Baghdad January 15, 2008. REUTERS/ Ceerwan Aziz


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3 comments so far
Dear Mythbusters,
If an armed grenade is coming at me and I swing a baseball bat, will the grenade go off when I hit it? If it doesn’t, could it damage the timer enough to keep it from going off?
Your pyrotechnically curious chum,
- Posted by Shawn HendricksShawn
Um, I’d rather he was a horseshoes opponent.
- Posted by Shawn HendricksThis is my safety.
- Posted by Shawn Hendricks