What would happen if you put a grenade down a tank barrel?

Have there ever been any real life historical accounts of what would happen if you put a hand grenade down a tank barrel?

Or at least has anybody done a Mythbuster style recreation?

I'm asking as I've seen this a lot in fiction, but I've never heard of anybody doing it in real life. Sometimes in fiction you just get a puff of smoke, and other times the grenade seems to set of the ammunition in the turret and the entire tank blows up. I guess that this is largely dependant on A) Budget and B) Imagination.

What does everybody think?

I get that there are all kinds of different tanks, and all kinds of different grenades. So, for the sake of argument, what would happen if you put a standard American infantry grenade that would have been used on D-Day down the barrel of the most common German tank used on D-Day?

Would it barely effect the tank, would it destroy the tank, would the grenade even fit into the barrel or would it be too big?

a reply to: AaarghZombies

A grenade down a tank barrel would do nothing at all. The ballistic pressures involved in firing a tank round are thousands of times higher than any grenade could ever muster, so a grenade blast would have zero effect. If the breech of the tank cannon was open at the time of the grenade being put in the barrel, well, that might be a different story for the crew inside, but as long as the breech wasn't open then there would likely be no damage.

However, the debris from the grenade could possibly foul the tank barrel, and a subsequent firing of the tank cannon could be a problem, if not a serious problem. But, the thing with a grenade is, most likely all of the shrapnel would be blown out of the tank barrel by the pressures from the detonating grenade.

So, it seems to me if a person wanted to do some real damage to a tank, rather than throwing a grenade down the barrel if someone were to throw a handful of hardened steel bolts down the barrel, that could be pretty catastrophic. I don't think I'd be standing in the same county to see what happens in that case!

a reply to: AaarghZombies

One effect is that it freaks out the crew. Tank crews are sensitive to the presence of enemy infantry because they don't want to get killed, or mobility-killed, by an antitank rocket. There is also the danger of a fire starting which often results in the crew exiting the tank quickly.

There have been recorded instances of tank crews being very tough psychologically and pushing through those kind of events, but most of them prefer to have their own infantry close by so that no one can get close to the tank with any kind of weapon.

Cheers

a reply to: AaarghZombies

My Dad was in WWII. His troop was helping liberate a village in Germany. He came around the corner of a building & there was a German tank with a Nazi soldier halfway out of it. His back was to my Dad. Dad shouted to him in German to stop & raise his arms. After repeating it several times with no reaction, he slowly approached him & poked the guy in the back with his rifle barrel. The Nazi tipped over & fell off of the tank. There was nothing left of him from the waist down!!!

Dad said a grenade had apparently been lobbed inside the tank! I don’t know if it went inside through the open hatch or down the barrel? I guess you would have to know a few facts to answer that question. Dad had a dead grenade that he brought back for a souvenir. It was about the size of my fist. So if you knew the caliber of tank ammo, maybe that would give you a general idea of the size of the barrel opening? It seems like if it was big enough for a grenade to fit into it & be able to slide down the length of the barrel, that would be a major design flaw! 🤣 Plus it would have to be tilted at just the right angle to keep sliding down inside the full length it. Then there is the small problem of being able to reach the opening from the ground! If it’s level I don’t see it happening. If it’s raised, someone would have to climb the tank & the turret to reach the opening! And get back down & safely away before it explodes!

I don’t see being able to whip a live grenade into a small opening from anywhere on the ground either. Especially into a raised barrel. Presumably while you were on the run & under fire! It would be hard enough to get one inside of an open hatch under those conditions!

Just my zwei pfenning!
WOQ

So if you knew the caliber of tank ammo, maybe that would give you a general idea of the size of the barrel opening? It seems like if it was big enough for a grenade to fit into it & be able to slide down the length of the barrel, that would be a major design flaw!

The diameter of an example grenade from 1945, the U.S. Mk II, was 58mm. German armored vehicles, by that point in the war, were often armed with 75mm or 88mm cannon, so, yeah, a grenade could have entered the muzzle and slid down the barrel. Not likely, but possible.

But not a design flaw. The trend for antitank cannon has been larger (diameter) projectiles, because they had the punch required to penetrate armored targets as they became more heavily armored during the course of the war.

Tanks can be surprisingly vulnerable if they are struck at particular points, and the view of the crew is very restricted if they are forced to "button up" because of small arms fire. All that said, it is of course not easy to defeat tanks with infantry weapons.

Cheers

originally posted by: wasobservingquietly
a reply to: AaarghZombies


I don’t see being able to whip a live grenade into a small opening from anywhere on the ground either. Especially into a raised barrel. Presumably while you were on the run & under fire! It would be hard enough to get one inside of an open hatch under those conditions!

Just my zwei pfenning!
WOQ

There was a scene in the Walking Dead, where one of the characters snuck up on a tank and physically pushed the grenade down the barrel. He was close enough that he could have climbed up on the tank if he wanted.

I presume that's how you'd do it in real life. Though I definitely wouldn't want to do that myself.

A common antitank weapon early in World War II was a bundle of grenades tied together and tossed upon a tank. I'm sure serious losses were taken with those kind of tactics.

Cheers

I'm quite amazed that no one has posted this yet, it's a video purportedly showing Syrian opposition lobbing a grenade down a tank barrel, resulting in a flameout (if you listen carefully, you can hear what does sound like a grenade rolling down the inside of the tank barrel after the second attempt),



I guess it just relies on good timing (breach being open)

The video's been floating around the net for some years now, couldn't say when it was filmed,

a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

Q: Why are you leaving the breech open?

A: More air comes in that way.

roll - roll - CLUNK

Oops.

Cheers

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

Q: Why are you leaving the breech open?

To reload, lol

Not much would happen to the tank, barrel or personnel if a grenade went down the barrel of a tank. Like others mentioned, the only real issue would be if the breech was open.

If I recall correctly, such an explosion in the barrel would require the tank to be taken out of service, brought to a depot and to have the barrel x-rayed for cracks. In reality, in a war time situation, it would probably go unreported and the tank kept in the fight.

There is a procedure to explosively remove stuck rounds in tank and artillery barrels. This procedure uses more explosives than are in a typical grenade (but no shrapnel, since there is no metal case around the explosives used in the render safe procedure.)

When I was active in EOD, this procedure was listed as "untried, untested". I can state for a fact that it did get tried and tested....because I did it for a M109 Paladin self propelled 155mm artillery piece! It worked like a champ and the stuck round shot out the back end of the barrel with no issues. I won't get into the details, but it was a very exciting day!

a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

The first one blows outwards a lot like what flyingclaydisk describes could even have been struck by a shell, the second grenade seems to explode a lot quicker too.

The little poof of smoke at the end that comes out the barrel is delayed slightly, at a guess I'd say they used some kind of shaped charge because all the pressure is released on the top hatch. It looks like a T-62 to me so at a guess I'd say whatever shells were in the turret got ignited.

They have smoothbore gun too so things would slide down easy. Modified russian anti tank grenade? Thanks for posting that's some craaazy ass footage.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

Probably this



but thinking of fireworks

originally posted by: MerkabaTribeEntity
I'm quite amazed that no one has posted this yet, it's a video purportedly showing Syrian opposition lobbing a grenade down a tank barrel, resulting in a flameout (if you listen carefully, you can hear what does sound like a grenade rolling down the inside of the tank barrel after the second attempt),

I guess it just relies on good timing (breach being open)

The video's been floating around the net for some years now, couldn't say when it was filmed,

You mean ISIS, right?

a reply to: AaarghZombies

A thermite grenade would seriously cripple the tank, only issue would be it a takes a minute or so for it to ignite

originally posted by: AaarghZombies

originally posted by: MerkabaTribeEntity
I'm quite amazed that no one has posted this yet, it's a video purportedly showing Syrian opposition lobbing a grenade down a tank barrel, resulting in a flameout (if you listen carefully, you can hear what does sound like a grenade rolling down the inside of the tank barrel after the second attempt),

I guess it just relies on good timing (breach being open)

The video's been floating around the net for some years now, couldn't say when it was filmed,

You mean ISIS, right?

I have no idea, just relaying the published description, 🤝

a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

If I recall correctly, it was FSA fighters. A friend of mine who is pretty knowledgeable with war explained it to me. The tank fires a round at :12 secs and Soviet tanks usually use autoloaders, so the breach was open on the second attempt like you said. The grenade cooked off the ammo rack inside. I forgot all about this video. Insane all the crazy stuff you can find now that war is filmed with go pros and such.

Reddit of all places has a good place to see all kinds of good combat vids. r/combatfootage

a reply to: that1lurker

Makes sense.

I was thinking about this the other night before sleep, I've seen a few videos with the ammunition getting cooked off on a T-62. I'm not that knowledgeable on the topic and it dawned on me that they must use auto-loaders hence ammo often being in the turret compartment.

Reddit of all places has a good place to see all kinds of good combat vids. r/combatfootage

Excellent tip! I wasn't aware of this.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

There's one other factor when it comes to American and other nato tanks like leclerc and the leo2 series running anything resembling modern ammunition.

Nato militaries have focused very heavily on insensitive munitions and propellant development in the last decade plus. What this means is that you're extremely unlikely to get sympathetic deflagration much less detonation of any round currently in the gun which was what produced the true oomph when people used to use this tactic!

Now in the initial post the OP was asking about a standard frag grenade, in truth this isn't and wasn't the type of grenade you would have used for this tactic.

In the old days you'd use something like the old Soviet rkg anti vehicle grenade which was nowhere near the same as a frag grenade.

These days you'd probably use a thermite grenade like tank crews keep on hand to disable their own tanks if they have to bail out or even a thermobaric munition like the socom ASM thermobaric hand grenade which could quite possibly pop even partially insensitive rounds or actively kill the crew if they had an open breech with no round loaded.

In general though, this tactic has been thoroughly replaced by various options like the switchblade 600 kamikaze drones, iai harops, and or other numerous top attack kamikaze drones options/improvised EFP dropping or EFP kamikaze drones.

a reply to: roguetechie

And just because you mentioned Harop, here is a screen grab from i believe october of an Israeli Harop successfullly deployed against an S300 anti air system in the nagorno karaback region during the recent war between armenia and Turkey/Azerbaijan.

These loitering munitions were horrificly effective at taking lives based on scores of video available from September through December 2020.