Hand Grenades
Common terminology differs in definition for hand grenades; here, cooking off refers to the act of removing both the safety pin as well as allowing the safety lever (spoon) to separate, thus priming the hand grenade, and holding on to it while momentarily allowing its fuze to partially burn down. The grenade thus detonates sooner after being thrown, limiting the time for the target(s) to take cover, escape the blast radius, or throw it back. This method is greatly discouraged among armed forces as the fuze length is unpredictable to a degree, posing a significant threat to the user and any nearby friendly personnel, should detonation occur earlier than expected.
Read more about this topic: Cooking Off
Famous quotes containing the word hand:
“As I sat before the fire on my fir-twig seat, without walls above or around me, I remembered how far on every hand that wilderness stretched, before you came to cleared or cultivated fields, and wondered if any bear or moose was watching the light of my fire; for Nature looked sternly upon me on account of the murder of the moose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)