These photographs, taken at a Jabhat al-Nusra base in Aleppo, and shows a type of grenade which was described to the journalist as smoke grenades. What's very interesting about these grenades is they appear to have exactly the same fuze as the gas grenades recovered from the attacks in Saraqeb and Sheikh Maqsoud, as well as appearing to be made from the same type of material. The following image shows the fuze for both types side by side
I'll be talking to the journalist who sent me these photographs in the coming days, who has been on the trail of these grenades in Syria over the past weeks, and has come up with some interesting information on them.
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Its probably a frag grenade. although the plastic "fragmentation pattern" in no way improves the grenade's fragmentation, its often used on plastic grenades (which tend to be prefragmented) as a form of tactile identification. This is especially true if offensive and defensive hand grenades are used side by side. Although the white color is confusing, i don't think any modern military contractor would manufacture a smoke grenade with no way to differentiate it from fragmentation other than color.
ReplyDeleteFor what its worth, the closest match I can find to this grenade is a Chinese type 86. Although they say close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, I think this is a special case of grenades.