Hollywood is infamous for screwing up just about every detail when it comes to the military, but one thing that especially grinds grunts’ gears is how they portray the use of grenades.
Grenades are extremely deadly tools of destruction that, honestly, are a lot of fun to throw — but they are too often misused in fiction. They’re easily one of the most tactically crucial weapons used in combat, but if you were operating exclusively on movie knowledge, you’d be in terrible shape (or shapes).
Here’s what Hollywood consistently gets wrong about grenades
Explosion radius
In general, movies would have you believe that grenades are just a step beneath MOABs. The reality of grenades is much like the reality of that online date you’re about to go on. When you first see it in real life, your first thought is probably going to be, “that’s it?”
It’s not some huge, f*ck-off fireball, it’s just a poof of smoke and shrapnel.
You should probably still stay away from it, though — both the date and the grenade.
Projectile grenades are NOT rockets or missiles
When you see some badass in a military movie shoot a grenade launcher, it looks a lot someone shooting a rocket or a missile, but that’s not the case. Grenade launchers are indirect fire weapons. They operate on the same principle as a mortar or artillery gun — there’s an arc.
Pulling the pin with your teeth
Pulling the pin on a grenade is easy, but it’s not that easy. If you plan to pull the pin with your teeth, set up a dental appointment because you’re going to rip at least three pearly whites from your mouth.
Just slow down and pull it with your hand, Rambo.
“Grenade!”
We’ve seen way too many characters in movies yell, “grenade!” when lobbing one out. That is not what you want to communicate down the line when you are the one throwing it. Yelling, “grenade” is reserved for alerting the rest of your unit that an explodey-boy has landed in your position — and anyone near you should get the f*ck out of the way.
The term you’re looking for is, “frag out!” Yelling anything else puts your boys at risk.
Kill/Casualty radius
One movie trope you may shake your head and cluck your tongue at is when a character jumps just outside of the explosion radius of a grenade and emerges unscathed. The fact is, even if you escape the explosion, your ass is going to be pumped full of metal. In real life, that bad boy has a casualty radius, which means you can still get wounded when you’re well beyond the explosion.
The kill radius of your typical fragmentation grenade is 5 meters, the casualty radius is 15 meters, but shrapnel can travel as far as 230 meters.