M1 Frangible Grenade
The M1 Frangible Grenade was a crude weapon created by the United States in 1942 as it entered World War II (1939–1945). It was designed to provide lightly armed personnel (self-defense militias, soldiers, commandos, and Allied partisans) with simple, uncomplicated weapons that were easy to mass-produce. It provided a cheap stopgap means of knocking out enemy vehicles, clearing out strongpoints, and harassing or killing enemy personnel until more effective weapons could be produced and distributed. It was dubbed "frangible" because it was made from glass, which is brittle and easily broken. History. In late December  1941 the United States entered into World War II with an unprepared military, low stocks of arms and munitions, and fears of attack or invasion by the Axis Powers. To counter this looming threat, a series of Molotov cocktail-style devices, nominally designated as "grenades", were developed in early 1942. It consisted of a pint-sized brown or clear glass bottle that was sealed with a crimped metal cap (like a beer or soda bottle). It had a number of fillers it could contain, each with their own properties, but they were compounds selected because they were activated by exposure  to the air. In September 1942 the United States standardized them as the M1 Frangible Grenade series. The grenades were designated by the Chemical Corps code letters for the chemical payload. Incendiary. The most common were the incendiary models (in order of production): The later models (for safety and reliability reasons) needed to have a detonator fuze assembly attached. Chemical. The chemical grenades were extremely brutal. Even the smoke and tear-gas grenades had deliberate side-effects that would maim enemy personnel exposed to them. (Listed in alphabetical order). Storage and shipping. The grenades were packed in cheap cardboard boxes  filled with sawdust that were marked with the proper chemical warning stickers to alert personnel handling, loading, and transporting them. Field Manual FM 23-30-1944 lists the available types in 1944 as (AC), (FS), (IM), and (NP).