Several new types of grenades, including one that can be stacked to create a larger explosion, have garnered interest from the U.S. Department of the Navy.
The Crane, Indiana-based Naval Surface Warfare Center issued a request for information about the modular grenades last month, along with several other early-stage procurement notices about several flash-bang grenade variants. The Marine Corps also has expressed interest in the stacking grenades.
The notices come as the military looks to expand its nonlethal-weapons capabilities for a complex, modern battlefield, where troops might encounter more low-intensity conflict scenarios or situations in which civilians and enemy combatants are intermixed.
“Lethality is absolutely critical in the modern combat environment that we find ourselves in, but the world’s most lethal, incredible force must also be able to compete in all the other phases of combat,” Marine Col. Wendell B. Leimbach, Jr., said earlier this year at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Armament Systems Forum in Fredericksburg, VA, the association’s magazine reported.