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Anyone ever seen these? Home made Viet Chong grenades?

T

tighe_n

Well-Known Member
Picked these up in a lot of items. I was told from the Viet Chong, home made grenades out of bamboo. Anyone ever see them or know anything about them? My question is if they could get the fuses why not whole grenades? Why make bamboo ones? Any info would be great. Just a need looking item.017.jpg016.jpg015.jpg014.jpg
 
I have never seen anything like this, so this is only a guess on my part. There are many different grenades that use this mouse trap type mechanism. The M213 fuze is used in the M-67 fragmentation grenade, the M228 fuze is used in the M-69 practice grenade. Similar fuzes were used in smoke grenades and CS grenades. These fuzes could be recovered from expended grenades and can be rebuilt using improvised components depending on what is readily available. The fuzes could be easily rebuilt as igniferous igniters or as disruptive detonators depending on resources available and the main filling being used. The igniferous igniter could be used to ignite a main filling of propellant or gun powder. The disruptive detonator could be used if high explosives were available. I once saw a video of the Viet Cong heating a general purpose bomb to liquefy the HE filling. They were then using the HE to make improvised landmines. As with many improvised munitions the reliability and target effect may be questionable.
 
I've heard of them but not seen one. The VC did apparently use lots of cast off stuff for mainly booby traps. LAWS tube being a favourite.

John
 
Thanks for the info. I didn't think about rebuilding the fuzes from smoke grenades and ones like that. But that does make sense. I know the VC did all kinds of booby traps and improvised things. I thought someone would have seen this type of set up before, maybe they are really obscure?
 
tighe_n said:
Thanks for the info. I didn't think about rebuilding the fuzes from smoke grenades and ones like that. But that does make sense. I know the VC did all kinds of booby traps and improvised things. I thought someone would have seen this type of set up before, maybe they are really obscure?
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I would say with the lack of levers that this one was made specifically as a booby trap. Easy to hide as it's bamboo, and only really needing a small blast area anyway.
 
Usually, when smoke (M-18's, AN-8's) burn they usually will partially destroy the fuse if not completely destroying it. They burn hot, especially the AN-8's. The M7A1-3 will do the same. Are you able to unscrew one from the top to see exactly what type of fuse it is?
 
From the pic's it is hard to tell which grenade fuzes these are. They can be from smoke or frag. If you remove the fuze you can tell what type fuze it was. I've never seen a grenade fuze melt from the heat, and most fuzes actually survive the detonation form a HE grenade. One note if you look at the top of the fuzes you can see the percussion primer has been hit by the striker at least once. Dud fuze?? Which makes me ask did someone put this together? In my time on VN and research on NVA/VC grenades I have found one similar, but they used a fully functioning fuze. One can take a fired grenade fuze punch out the functioned primer, press in a large rifle or shotgun primer then secure in place a piece of time fuze to the out put end of the primer. This was not seen in VN as the NVA/VC in the field did not have fresh primers to use. But has been seen here in the US, especially with practice grenades that the bad guys tried to load with black powder or other materials.
 
weberoed said:
From the pic's it is hard to tell which grenade fuzes these are. They can be from smoke or frag. If you remove the fuze you can tell what type fuze it was. I've never seen a grenade fuze melt from the heat, and most fuzes actually survive the detonation form a HE grenade. One note if you look at the top of the fuzes you can see the percussion primer has been hit by the striker at least once. Dud fuze?? Which makes me ask did someone put this together? In my time on VN and research on NVA/VC grenades I have found one similar, but they used a fully functioning fuze. One can take a fired grenade fuze punch out the functioned primer, press in a large rifle or shotgun primer then secure in place a piece of time fuze to the out put end of the primer. This was not seen in VN as the NVA/VC in the field did not have fresh primers to use. But has been seen here in the US, especially with practice grenades that the bad guys tried to load with black powder or other materials.
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They can and do melt. Especially, if they are AN-8's and the older style (Vietnam) M-18's. I have seen this happen many times before Mike.
 
On the grenade range I've seen many bits and pieces of the fuze assemblies of detonated M67's / C7's so I'm not sure how common it is that they survived as I never did find a complete one.
 
Hi. These fuze pieces date from around the Vietnam War. Personally, Im very suspicious about any IED (unless it has airtight provenance), but then thats just me. Cheers
 

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This is only my opinion, but two things stick out to me. First the cordage securing this device seems to new however it could have been replaced later on or what have you. The second is the green paint. Bamboo is usually green when fresh and slowly browns and cracks as it ages. I doesn't seem likely to me that the VC would bother painting these as I'm sure when these were made the bamboo would be uncracked and more than likely green already. Regardless if it was brown or green, I don't think it necessary to be painted as its natural color would have blended in anyway ? Would be nice to see the fuzes out to compare to those of that era. It is only an opinion.
Cheers, SHAKY
 
108.jpg109.jpg107.jpg110.jpg111.jpgI was able to get some more pics and pull one fuze out to photograph. They have age to them, but who knows they could have been made in a garage. Either way they are a neat item.
 
That appears to be yellow foam as a sealing plug. Is that correct?
 
No its not foam, its a hard yellow chalk like filler. Not really sure what it is? Almost like a hard putty or clay.
 
The fuze type is from the M67/M69 grenades, this type with the tail on the bottom first appeared in about 1971.
 
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