The average American could be expected to already know how to throw a baseball, so it was easier to change the equipment to fit the user than to train every fucking soldier how to throw a lopsided stick.
That and all the other reasons. The only stick grenades still around in appreciable numbers are anti-armor grenades where the handle has a parachute inside. For normal fragmentation grenades, essentially everyone has moved to non-stick grenades (except the USMC who want to make stick grenades).
Even in WW2, the Germans produced more of the boring looking Model 39 grenades than they did of the iconic and eye catching stick grenades. People notice what they want to notice.
It's actually that they're more expensive when you add the frag jacket to them. There cheaper to produce but logistically more expensive being larger and multi part.
Knife juggler here, so I have a lot of experience throwing off-CG objects...
It's not really that different from throwing a baseball. It's a little more difficult to catch, but with very little practice ( like 5 or 10 minutes) you'll be able to do it. That being said, I think the "baseball" style grenades where adopted because they can fit through smaller openings, you can roll or tumble them towards your target, they're harder to see, and harder to scoop up and throw back.
I thought it was American football as the design is more shaped to be more closely resembling a hand held size 🏈
American football was simply more popular back then too, but a little less now in terms of ratio, but the crowd has still grown instead of shrinking/stagnantion
A football is WAY bigger than a grenade, and football was way less popular in the 40s because 1. Baseball came first and 2. Baseball is better in person and TVs sucked. Even if more people play football now, it's still better to design grenades around baseballs because you spend more time practicing with a ball in baseball, and only one person per team knows how to throw a football.
The Germans did have hand grenades without a stick. Their doctrine was the stick type was for offensive operations, and the little one was favored for defense.
I assume this has something to do with the distance you can throw them.
Yeah, the basic premise for these things is that they have a smaller radius, but you can throw them further, so the enemy has to deal with it exactly the same, but since the radius is smaller and you threw it further, it gives you a much larger space in which you can advance and not worry about shrapnel. Basically lob a couple and while you don't have to deal with so much suppressive fire, advance and find cover and do it all over again.
For defensive scenarios, you generally aren't advancing, you're just wanting the enemy to not advance, so a pineapple works just as well, if not better. It gives you a big boom, and psychologically that gives you an edge. You might also get flushed out and wind up in close quarters kinds of environments where the grenade on a stick just doesn't work, but the pineapple is easy enough to lob out of a window or bunker or around a corner. In any sort of urban or close quarters environment you'd want the flexibility of a baseball as opposed to throwing a bat.
Kind of a trench war novelty, but they've evolved to be more of an antiarmor thing - throw a parachute on it so it's aligned vertically, make it detonate when it lands, make it blow straight down as opposed to all over the place, and try to get that thing to land on a tank
throw a parachute on it so it's aligned vertically, make it detonate when it lands, make it blow straight down as opposed to all over the place, and try to get that thing to land on a tank
You've basically just described a HEAT round without the melted copper penetrator.
Their doctrine was the stick type was for offensive operations
A minor addendum, the M24 and M43 stick grenades both had fragmentation sleeves produced for them. These could be quickly fitted over the grenades to change them from offensive to defensive grenades. Similar to the RGD-33 stick grenades used by the Soviets.
I assume this has something to do with the distance you can throw them.
The difference between offensive and defensive grenades is defined by how much fragmentation they produce. Without a fragmentation sleeve, a German stick grenade produces blast and concussion but very minimal fragmentation, making it's practical danger area smaller. This is good for an offensive grenade where the person throwing it likely has less cover than the person receiving it. A defensive grenade produces fragmentation, and is desired when the person throwing it has cover to hide behind safely.
The non-stick grenade commonly used by the Germans in WW2, was the Model 39 ("egg grenade"), and it actually came in both offensive and defensive flavors. So really, either a stick or egg grenade could be used for either role.
Their doctrine was the stick type was for offensive operations, and the little one was favored for defense.
Hmm...defensive hand grenades. There's something crazy I've wondered before; is there anywhere it's legal to use hand-grenades as a form of home defense?
Let's say you live on a big property in the middle of nowhere, like a ranch out in West Texas. So you know that if you detonate a hand grenade on your property, you can be absolutely sure that the fragments won't fly through your walls and hit a neighbor. Let's say you live alone, and you're so stupid wealthy that you don't give a damn about grenade damage in your own home.
Imagine this is true. Is there anywhere in the US you could legally keep a crate of hand grenades in a gun safe, and just start chucking them at a home invader?
I’ve seen the videos of boot instructors being rightfully paranoid that the boots are gonna drop the live grenades during training, I feel like adding these into the mix would straight up give them heart attacks.
The fun part is they used to be shipped without the ignitor installed so a lot of the duds were simply because people didn't follow instructions and didn't grab the little tin filled with ignitors.