Krešimir: Croatia's Truly Insane Grenade Launcher
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- čas přidán 16. 07. 2023
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The Kresimir is honestly the most bonkers weapon I have come across in a long while. Made by IM Metall in Croatia at the beginning of the Croatian Homeland War circa 1991, this is a semiautomatic grenade launcher. Most grenade launchers fire a big cartridge with an explosive warhead, but not this thing. Instead, it uses a 5-round magazine of M50 hand grenades with percussion fuses. A second magazine holds 7.62x39mm grenade-launching blank cartridges. Pulling the trigger drops two strikers in succession; first one to ignite the hand grenade fuse, and then one to fire the launching cartridge. What could possibly go wrong?
When you do fire, the recoil cycles the whole barrel and bolt backwards like a long recoil action, although it appears to be blowback and not locked. This loaded a fresh grenade in the barrel and leaves it ready to fire again with the next trigger pull. We don't know how many of these insane creations were actually made, but I have multiple reports of their actual wartime use from veterans of the conflict.
Thanks to the Sisak Municipal Museum for giving me access to film this!
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A dud AK round, forgetting the blank rounds, forgetting the tiny magazine, dropping/smacking the big magazine, short-stroking the action, pulling just the first "stage" of the trigger... The sheer number of ways this thing blows the operator up is comical, Elbonian Grenadiers need these immediately!
I rarely celebrate the deactivation of a firearm, but in this case I'm going to make an exception.
As a fomer 203 gunner, good god, that thing is terrifying. What happens if it short strokes? Its a 5 Grenade landmine.
"Put live hand grenades into the magazine" is a phrase I never expected to hear. "Insane" indeed. Thanks for sharing this terrifying weapon with us Ian.
I love that this weapon is
About 15 years ago I worked at a restaurant and there was a Croatian dude there working as a line cook. He used to tell war stories. Some of them we chosed to believe, some less so. One of the ones I presonally thought was bogus was his story about a, as he put it, "pistol that shot handgranades". I think there might have been something lost in translation in his story but...damn...who knew?
Let me give you some context here. Imagine that your city or a town is under attack by a far superior equipped enemy. I'm talking tanks, heavy artillery, well armed infantry. As for defenders, they have a few hunting riffles and hearts big as houses. Some guys at a local hinge factory or a car mechanical shop decide to take their part. One has basic mechanical engineering knowledge, the other is a decent welder, third one is a machinist. They try to create something that will help the boys on the front line. It might be an old van converted into an army vehicle by welding a steel plates on it or Krešimir or something third. They don't have resources, they don't have time, just will and human ingenuity. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a mark 1 iron man suit built in a cave. We all know how that turned out.
When you see a man carrying that, you know he's serious. He got dressed that morning knowing somebody was going to die, and he doesn't care who it's going to be.
An even worse case scenario is if it fails to launch the grenade, blows up the launcher but
I'm sure when the guy who designed this thing showed up to the military they just let him build this because they were worried he'd go back to the drawing board and come up with something even more insane.
Krešimir is a psychological weapon. When the enemy sees our weapon, he will know that we are truly fearless.
Finally, a weapon has been invented in which there is no need to clear a jam/misfire! Weapon self-clears in only 5 seconds. Also takes only 5 seconds to clear a trench of all troops within a 10 meter radius. Only downside is the troops cleared from the trench are your own, including yourself as the operator of the weapon.
Getting a dud round in a normal gun:
This is by far the most elaborate pipe bomb I have ever seen
It feels like if Games Workshop ever decide that Orks need a grenade launcher in their usual style of "technically works but by insane means and will probably kill you", this is their reference point.
Company rep: "This is a hand grenade launcher"
The most effective way to use this to defeat enemy soldiers would probably be to issue it to enemy soldiers.
The weirdest part of this to me is how well made it seems to be. The concept and design is utterly bugfuck insane, but the execution is genuinely impressive.
The fact that this clusterfuck of safety violations got used in actual combat both scares and amuses me to no end.
This is definitely a "destructive device".