A few questions to any explosives specialists or people that otherwise have any experience with hand grenades.
- we have had a few incidents where low level gang members have been paid to throw hand grenades into people’s homes, supposedly through closed glass windows. How hard or easy is this? Is a hand grenade heavy enough - or has an appropriately sharp shape or the likes - to break the glass?
- if one was hit by one of these attacks and one miraculously notices the grenade landing on one’s floor, is there anything that could be done to minimize physical damage to one’s body? Would, say, a piece of furniture shield one from the shards?
- are the shards or the blast wave/pressure the more dangerous, or both?
easily will break glass, they’re heavy, dense, and hard
hit the deck, the explosion will be up and out
shrapnel is how fragmentation grenades kill, not the overpressure wave
You are little bit misguided on point 2.
This link has a ton of information and photos.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5514183/
Fragmentation grenades are designed to throw shrapnel in “all” directions. A majority of them will be up from the point of the floor however there are plenty of fragments that will still be thrown laterally across the floor.
That being said you would have a higher chance of survivability laying on the floor behind something.
Hitting the deck is still useful. Standing, your entire height and width is exposed to the source of shrapnel. Laying down, especially feet towards the grenade, reduces this surface greatly.
Obviously some goes out laterally, but next to the ground is where the lowest flux of shrapnel will be.
Sic! Thanks! :)
Although I did think/image that the explosion would go all directions along the floor in 180 degrees.
This link has a ton of information and photos.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5514183/