One and only time I threw grenades with the TA, when we were over at Vogelsang camp in 78 or so.
Step one - shout of "CHANGE" - next 2 canditates go to bunker 1 along the trench system that is the grenade range. In bunker 1, pick up 2 grenade bodies, no worries.
Several bangs from the range itself later, CHANGE is called again. Go along the trench to bunker 2.
Bunker 2 is where things start to get "interesting".
Sgt in charge of bunker #2 Tells us that we will be inserting the fuses into our grenades here. Before he instructs us in the technique, he stresses the safety rules.
First he shows us the safety pit up the far side of the bunker. This concrete trap is several metres deep, and has an angled bit to help guide any grenade into it if it becomes necessary to dispose of the thing.
Then he shows us the roof of the bunker, immediately above the catch pit. The roof is pitted with little square holes where grenade fragments have embedded themselves...
He shows us how to screw the fuse in.
"If the grenade starts to issue smoke or hisses when you are in the middle of inserting the fuse, immediately chuck it in the trap and then we all dive against the far wall!".
Apparently, fuses starting themselves off either by themselves or through user fumbling during this insertion process was
not an unheard of event!
Mr grenade is no longer my friend - and I haven't even taken the pin out yet!. Me, I had handled 81mm mortar bombs, 25 pounder HE rounds and so on before, but holding these two orbs I was rather nervous. Your artillery ammo has a proper set-back fuse safety system so until it gets the kickback from firing you can bang it off a concrete wall if you were daft enough to want to do so. Grenades have rather less safety built into them.
So before I had even put the fuse in, I had decided that I didn't like these nasty things one little bit.
Several bangs later, CHANGE is called again and we two candidates are out in the throwing range, in an open waiting bay beside the throwing bay. My turn comes up, and I throw my 2 grenades in succession as instructed by the Sgt. in charge (overarm throw, left arm forwards). You were then to stand upright and see where the grenade fell, before ducking behind the parapet when the Sgt. did - really nice!.
The grenade range was in a clearing in a wood, with the trees about 50 yards away from the cleared area. But after each grenade went off, there was a clattering of something through these trees. There was a bit of gravel on the impact area, but as likely as that it was bits of the notched ring shrapnel from the grenade..
The whole process was ... interesting ... in the "Chinese Curse" sense!
One of the later pairs was a platoon mate, and he was paired with a Belgian medic. Vogelsang was run by the Belgians at that time, and there had to be a medic present on grenade drills, and for some reason someone decided that he was to be included in the drills along with us Black Watch since he was there.
Anyway according to him the medic was in a total funk throughout the entire procedure, and his first grenade he launched in a crazy wild flailing throw as he ducks straight behind the parapet and curled up in a ball.
Wait 2 3 4 5.
No bang - oops!. Range safety officer calls HOLD for the regulation 5 minutes or whatever. Then the Dutch EOD guy pops over the parapet with a square of C4 and some det cord to blow it in place - it was only a metre in front of the throwing parapet. Why the Dutch were doing EOD in a Belgian run camp hosting a Scottish battalion - the joys of NATO I suppose
.
Anyway apparently the Dutch EOD guy ambles up to the grenade, bends over to plant the charge beside it and then just picks up the grenade and unscrews the fuse instead, and brings back the bits. The medic had thrown the bomb down so hard and fast that he had bent the metal flange of the fuse over the undeployed spoon before it had had enough time to fly off!. (He later got a ticking off since that wasn't proper procedure I believe - lines of "Blow the little trucker in place next time!").
Grenades need careful handling.
The Hollywood nonsense of hanging "pineapples" off your webbing by the spoons or worse yet, the rings, is a certain ticket to becoming a suicide bomber. Grenades were to be carried in your ammo pouches, or in a buttoned up pocket or a satchel/gas mask container.
We were advised to widen the split pin a little bit with pliers if we could. It made withdrawing the pin a bit more difficult, but not by much. But it was safer. (BTW even on standard setting the pin requires a pretty decent yank. So the Hollywood "pull the pin out with your teeth" trope is also pure nonsense - that would jut get you an appointment with your dentist).
General consensus was that with hand grenades you should wrap some "Black Nasty" (army issue black gaffer tape) around the body holding down the handle so as to add to the safety factor.
The good thing I got from that drill was two used grenade pins to use as a zippier pull on my issue combat jacket (miles better than the cloth tape loop they came with!).