DA: Famous Last Words

Famous Last Words
1982 Darwin Award Nominee

(October 1982) In the New Zealand Army, the staff was having a discipline problem with four cadets posted at Waiouru Camp. One day, the group had been confined to barracks as punishment while the rest of the unit participated in a training activity.

The four cadets decided to abscond, and set out on a jaunt into the training area, heedless of the consequences. How bad could another day of rest be? After walking some distance, they found themselves on the range used as the training grounds of the M203 Grenade Launcher. As they sauntered around the range, they came across several unexploded rounds.

From Day One, Army recruits are told to never touch anything even remotely resembling unexploded ordnance. Indeed, there are signs surrounding every range the Army uses, stating the rule again. It is incessantly drummed into every brain in the Army. But not everyone learns...

The ringleader of this group picked up two grenades and held them at arm's length, while his mates egged him on. According to the survivors, he uttered the famous last words, "Hey fellas, look at this!" Those are words to make seasoned men duck and cover. He cracked the two grenades together, causing one or both to explode in his hands. The M203 grenade has a lethal blast area of five meters, and left little for the medics to recover. The other three miscreants were injured by shrapnel, but survived to be disciplined in far more lenient a fashion.

Question: I don't know much about arnaments, so are grenades launched from such a launcher impact or timed?

They're probably impact, since a failed timed grenade wouldn't have been set off by a collision. I think some launchers do fire timed rounds, but I'm not sure. I assume, since the M203 attaches to the M16 assault rifle, that it can fire either timed or impact rounds, as well as flares, tear gas, and other such ammunition. I guess we'll need to find out which kind of grenades those were.

The details of munitions were discussed in this thread.

It has information on the RPG-7 and some other devices.

I live in NZ and read the papers every day, I think I would have heard of this,
I have been searching all of the papers and cant find any reference to this.

I think it is a hoax, it sounds very much like the ordnance sergeant who picked up the LAW. But they have changed the venue and the weapon.

No darwin

I was in the NZ Army and as far as I am aware the first time that they had M203 grenade launchers was in1996, not 1982 like the story states.
The grenades are impact detonated but also have a safety set in them were if i remember correctly they will not go off within 16 metres of being launched.
If it was a grenade range in NZ it would have been an M72 range which fires the same 40mm grenade rounds and they would have been using HEDP rounds which are High Explosive Dual Purpose rounds used for taking out light skinned vehicles or soft targets like troops.
I dont remember being told any stories like this one whilst i was at Waiouru.
No Darwin

The story is almost completely incorrect. I was in the Regular Force Cadet School with the guy that died (can't remember his name) about the only thing the story got right was that he did kill himself by banging two 40mm blinds together.
The blinds came from an area known as zone 11 and had been fired from M79 grenade launchers and they required 30 metres flight time before arming and a good knock to set them off, which was supplied by hitting the target (mostly old WWII tanks) and about half of the time if you missed the round would not explode.

So - an almost totally incorrect version of events, but a definate Darwin.

Rev Loco:
If the story is true, the "bystanders" were sauntering around a firing range and egging on the DA nominee to play with grenades. Not innocent bystanders in my book.

The real problem is veracity. Perhaps Stu can dig something up to verify his alternate version of events (which is what, by the way? how did the guy wind up smacking together two grenades, and was anyone else hurt?)

Okay- it's been twenty years now but I can still remember enough to make everyone (hopefully) happy.
At the time he was a signaller doing an exercise of some type which involved driving to grid references and practicing their radio drills. They were in an area were everybody knew there were blinds and leaving the road was, in addition to being stupid, against standing orders. While the others were doing their drills he got bored and wandered off, returning with no fewer than nine unexploded 40mm grenades. When the others saw this they immediately began yelling at him to put the blinds down because they were dangerous (I'll leave you to imagine what the actual words were). He then said 'No they're not' and banged two together to demonstrate.
The Land Rover took a beating and IIRC everyone was on the other side from him so injuries were not as bad as they could have been, and I think one person was uninjured.

Stu if this is tru then there would have to be incident reports filed, (especially as they involved a death).

Judging by the stupidity of the signallers actions and the age, I doubt that it would be classified (I would even suspect that they would use the incident as a training aid to show the new recruits what not to do with live ammo)

Do you have any army buddies that may be able to pull these records and verify the story?








[Darwin adds... This thread closed, as the story was miscategorized as a
Darwin Award. It's now in the Personal Accounts section where it belongs!]

Edited by Darwin, 28 April 2003 - 11:48 PM.