Most modern grenades send tiny pieces of metal outward about 50 feet but the kill radius is about 15 feet. Various factors can play into survival of a grenade blast like barriers, distance, and grenade quality.
Based on the video the poor quality of the grenades saved lives. Only six people received severe wounds, including the bomber. The grenades were dropped at the feet of those in the room and lower limbs were at risk.
Grenades aren’t intended to be kill or breach devices like you see in movies. While they do explode, they do so in such a way as to shred the outer casing making it such that it creates lots of tiny, sharp fragments (hence the name, “fragmentation grenade”) which then injure and disable people.
The explosive power of a grenade is rather minimal in the grand scheme of things and unless you are right on top of it or just take an unlucky hit from a piece of shrapnel, you will survive but be injured. The intent, then, is that other people will now have to help you, so injuring one person disables two to three people from the fight.
Logistic cost, soldier hit probability, and sustained suppression during firefights drove that decision more than wounding instead of killing. More bullets = more suppression = more time to flank/flee/hold for backup/etc
It’s easier for a soldier to take a shot and actively observe the puff of dust, disturbed bushes, etc and correct their aim with lower recoil guns. Old school ‘full power’ cartridges recoiled too hard; you see the target, shoot, recoil rises the gun, sights rise way off target, and you need to completely require the target to shoot again. A 5.56 or the like is very flat in recoil, but has decent terminal effect
There’s a new theory being trialed leveraging modern optics to focus on precision rifle fire to psychologically suppress (I.e. “Dave popped his head out for a look and got sniped, I’m not doing the same”) versus the OG storm of metal in the air. The former encourages suppression regardless of sustained gunfire. The latter mo’ dakka method only work DURING gunfire.
Not exactly where you go for unbiased sources, but my guess would be that these grenades were 20-30 years old so the powder was weak. Even when stored properly grenades dont last forever.
Maybe even homemade bombs and not actual grenades.
In a room that small and dropping three in the middle of a lot of people, if they were modern grenades there’d be a lot of fatalities.
If the grenades dropped on the floor when most people were sitting at a table the table may have obstructed shrapnel and prevented it from reaching any organs whose breach would result in immediate death (heart, brain, etc.). It would have to hit a major artery to kill near quickly on the lower body which isn’t a huge target.
Instead, it probably hit the legs and possibly some lower body organs, which can still be deadly but less immediate.
It’s insane that the guy who dropped them at his own feet survived though. Dude must be half shrapnel at that range.
26 injuries and no deaths from 3 grenades going off in a enclosed room…
I don’t think I understand grenades
Most modern grenades send tiny pieces of metal outward about 50 feet but the kill radius is about 15 feet. Various factors can play into survival of a grenade blast like barriers, distance, and grenade quality.
Based on the video the poor quality of the grenades saved lives. Only six people received severe wounds, including the bomber. The grenades were dropped at the feet of those in the room and lower limbs were at risk.
Grenades aren’t intended to be kill or breach devices like you see in movies. While they do explode, they do so in such a way as to shred the outer casing making it such that it creates lots of tiny, sharp fragments (hence the name, “fragmentation grenade”) which then injure and disable people.
The explosive power of a grenade is rather minimal in the grand scheme of things and unless you are right on top of it or just take an unlucky hit from a piece of shrapnel, you will survive but be injured. The intent, then, is that other people will now have to help you, so injuring one person disables two to three people from the fight.
Interesting thins this is why our armies are using smaller calibers offen.
Especially more then in passed large wars. The point isn’t to kill its to injure
Logistic cost, soldier hit probability, and sustained suppression during firefights drove that decision more than wounding instead of killing. More bullets = more suppression = more time to flank/flee/hold for backup/etc
It’s easier for a soldier to take a shot and actively observe the puff of dust, disturbed bushes, etc and correct their aim with lower recoil guns. Old school ‘full power’ cartridges recoiled too hard; you see the target, shoot, recoil rises the gun, sights rise way off target, and you need to completely require the target to shoot again. A 5.56 or the like is very flat in recoil, but has decent terminal effect
There’s a new theory being trialed leveraging modern optics to focus on precision rifle fire to psychologically suppress (I.e. “Dave popped his head out for a look and got sniped, I’m not doing the same”) versus the OG storm of metal in the air. The former encourages suppression regardless of sustained gunfire. The latter mo’ dakka method only work DURING gunfire.
It’s NY Post with a negative story about Ukraine…
Not exactly where you go for unbiased sources, but my guess would be that these grenades were 20-30 years old so the powder was weak. Even when stored properly grenades dont last forever.
Maybe even homemade bombs and not actual grenades.
In a room that small and dropping three in the middle of a lot of people, if they were modern grenades there’d be a lot of fatalities.
Maybe Ukrainians are just tough motherfuckers. Russia has been trying to invade them and hasn’t made much progress.
If the grenades dropped on the floor when most people were sitting at a table the table may have obstructed shrapnel and prevented it from reaching any organs whose breach would result in immediate death (heart, brain, etc.). It would have to hit a major artery to kill near quickly on the lower body which isn’t a huge target.
Instead, it probably hit the legs and possibly some lower body organs, which can still be deadly but less immediate.
It’s insane that the guy who dropped them at his own feet survived though. Dude must be half shrapnel at that range.