A few years ago, I saw a black and white video from (I believe it was the Spanish Civil War) of men slinging a grenade underhanded from a roof.  But I can't find it anywhere.  Is there an archive of that somewhere?

https://youtu.be/QCW5Mqw5RPo?t=34
what would you call it underhand or sidearm?

Sarosh wrote on Oct 19^th, 2021 at 3:36am:

https://youtu.be/QCW5Mqw5RPo?t=34 what would you call it underhand or sidearm?

That wasn't the one that I saw, but it was equally cool.  Thanks!

Lol yeah, sort of an under-side-scoop throw.

Guess when you've got a short countdown  to detonation, you don't hang around :-)

Curious Aardvark wrote on Oct 20^th, 2021 at 10:15am:

Guess when you've got a short countdown  to detonation, you don't hang around

I know I wouldn't be doing any Fig 8 style sweeping around my head with a grenade :D

Curious Aardvark wrote on Oct 20^th, 2021 at 10:15am:

Lol yeah, sort of an under-side-scoop throw. Guess when you've got a short countdown  to detonation, you don't hang around :-)

Grenades always scared me.  Even with training grenades people get nervous and mess up throwing bare handed.  I always wondered how many people got killed when a either they or a buddy threw a grenade and it bounced off a tree.

In the fog of war, I can only imagine what could go wrong with a literal ticking timebomb in the hands of a very nervous person.  Even more so, a nervous person with a ticking timebomb in a sling  :o

which is why I have been mentally designing a more user friendly, modern grenade and sling system :-)

The sling has a little rfid tag bult in and the grenade has a rfid reader.
Powered by a simple cr2032 battery with one of those plastic tags, so the battery stays fresh till used.
It should power the reader and detonator setup for a couple days at least.

So you load the grenade, set the time and leave it in the sling.
You have one button and a double digit readout, that allows you to set the timer for 1-99 seconds.

The countdown only begins when the grenade can no longer 'see' the rfid coil.

ie: after you've thrown it !

Kit also comes with a sling clip, so the grenade won't fall out till you remove the clip and throw.

That way you can set up a whole bunch of them, armed and ready to go at a moments notice.

And we'll keep them tennis ball sized. That's plenty of volume for whatever you want to pack inside the ceramic casing:
phosphorus, hi-ex, frag(hi-ex core surrounded by ballbearings), smoke, 'just' flash bang  etc

Given how much money modern ordnance costs, these things would be cheap as chips.
And silent in operation with a potential range of 100m plus !

“Silent in operation”

…well, silent on one end of the operation perhaps 🤷‍♂️