Whatever the type, a special round had to be single-loaded for every grenade. The short range launching cartridge had 1.70 grams of (unspecified) propellent and the long-range round 3.30 grams. FN offered a short and long range launching blank consisting of a standard 7.62x51mm casing with a thin wad sealed with varnish. Some post-war Belgian rifle grenades used propulsive rounds that was not star-crimped. When the US Army landed in North Africa in 1942, every squad still had one bolt-action 1903 Springfield rifle to be used as a grenade launcher. Needless to say, trying to launch one with a live round was a fast way for the folks back home to collect some GI life insurance. They required a launcher be attached to the muzzle of the rifle, the grenade slipped over the launcher, and a special grenade-launching blank inserted into the chamber to fire it. Talk to veterans of the M1 Garand era and their only impression of the rifle grenade was how, “It kicked like an SOB!”Īnother reason was that earlier rifle grenades were pretty darned inconvenient to use. Soldiers were hazed with tales of how bad the recoil would be long before they fired it, so many were actually afraid to shoot the damn thing. “Weapons familiarization” involved firing a single inert grenade in basic training. Army was the lack of meaningful training.

I suspect a major portion of the reason the rifle grenade never caught on in the U.S. Simply put, the rifle grenade uses a grenade projectile fired from a rifle to a distance far beyond throwing range. Modern MECAR M200 HEDP(High Explosive Dual Purpose) bullet-trap rifle grenade.Īlthough in existence since the First World War, the concept and use of the rifle grenade never really caught on in American military circles.

Fn fal grenade launcher