NonCredibleDefense

want longer range? hear me out:

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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.

That's a reason for then not now.

Better question is then why didn't Germany stick with the old design instead of switching to more "modern" looking grenades?

And the answer is NOT "baseball". The answer is that they're too heavy and cumbersome. And the cons outweighs the pros.

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.

Is this why soldiers in the rest of the world kick their grenades like a soccer ball?

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.

Anything can be a dildo if you are brave enought

This destroys the butthole.

count to ten

Ooh, bonus shrapnel!

SPIKES

Barbed for my pleasure uwu

We should use those ball throwers for dogs. Imagine the distance you could get! Then you could have 8 normal grenades and throw them stupid distances.

Also they're way bigger, taking more space in storage and when in transport

We have grenade launchers now.

Someone needs to make one that fires the stick grenades. At 3500 RPM.

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.

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

Wisest wizard gets weird in the marines

This only works if you are black and Scottish

TNT filler is very stable. It's fine. I mean, the grenades would not be great as hammers, but they won't explode at a touch.

Pineapples are ribbed for pleasure

Yes.