See the deadly beauty of a grenade cut in half

As weapons of war have become more dangerous, they’ve become more complex as well. This leads to a bizarre duality where the intricate nature of these deadly things can actually be beautiful in an unexpected way. Such is the case with a standard issue M26A1 fragmentation grenade, which we see here cut in half.

The pin is visible at the top, holding the safety clip in place. When it is removed, the clip will pop off the instant the grenade is thrown. The hammer (small diagonal line near the pin) is then free to swing up and strike the primer, which is the tiny orange spot at the top of the tube in the center. The primer sets off the light blue delay charge, which burns for three seconds. When that’s done, the rest of the process proceeds very quickly.

When the delay charge has burned out, it releases the blue and gold clips holding the gold striker in place. The striker is that long, thin piece in the middle. The spring is then free to push the striker down into the bright red primer charge, which then sets off the initiator charge (the green-gray block at the end of the tube).

The actual explosive is missing from this grenade, which is probably for the best. The central tube would be wrapped in a very fast tetryl explosive, which would set off the main Composition B explosive filling the rest of the body of the grenade. The gold-colored squares are actually a single coil of wire bound up into cubes. When the explosive goes off, these cubes are launched outward as shrapnel. This ensures anyone standing within 15 meters is badly injured or killed.

The M26A1 grenade image was made by Sreek Menon, and then given an excellent explanation by Yonatan Zunger on Google Plus who rightly pointed out the “the dissonance between the beauty of the item and its nature.”

A lot of thought went into making this weapon so deadly, but that’s probably why it’s so fascinating in a morbid sort of way.

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