Before we get started, please take a moment to observe this violent (though slightly funny) explosion munition being used against unhappy hockey fans in Vancouver: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LBtDrcIntk.
Now both in the title of the video and during its commentary, the weapon is referred to as a ‘flash-bang’. But when I imagine that type of grenade, my mind conjures up an notion more-akin to what The West Wing character President Jed Bartlett describes as “a grenade and make a deafening sound while releasing a flash seven times brighter than the sun”.
I also think of limited experiences playing FPS games where the detonation of a flash bang results in one’s screen view becoming totally white for 10 seconds while a nauseating ringing sound is looped through the speakers.
Ok so granted my two points of reference are from works of fiction, is there anyone who can explain the disparity between my conception of a flashbang generating a"flash seven times brighter than the sun" and the little bottle-rocket propelled at the man in the video?
Could the military just have access/willingness to use to much stronger versions? Lastly, why would the police wish to use such a device on that man? The only situation I can think of is if they were about to try and arrest him while he was stunned by that doesn’t really look to be the case.
Pure uneducated conjecture here, but my guess is that the object colliding with the man’s scrotum wasn’t a flash-bang but a tear gas canister that just happened to also make a small explosion when detonating.
A flashbang is a stun grenade, generally launched by a grenade launcher although stun hand grenades have been developed. The blinding flash of light is produced by rapidly burning magnesium powder, and will overwhelm the optical receptors in the eye for several seconds.
The explosion is loud enough to not only interfere with hearing for minutes to hours after the blast, but also to impede balance for a short time as the fluid in the inner ear is disrupted.
The general idea is to take someone out of the fight for a critical few seconds in which they cannot see or hear the LEO or soldier that launched the grenade, allowing them to regain control of the immediate situation.
I don’t know whether the projectile in the video was a flashbang or not.
I suppose one helpful piece of information would be: would the extreme brightness generated by an average flash bang be readily apparent through a TV camera?
Also I maintain that I do not see a tactical reason to deploy a flash-bang in that particular Vancouver crowd. Does anyone know of flash-bangs being used to quell other western riots?
The ones that make a noise but don’t release much smoke are flash-bangs. In Tintin - The Calculus Affair, IIRC they were referred to as “thunder-flashes”; the commentator last night also called them “stun grenades”. They are designed to stun, as mentioned above. Sensory overload…
The ones that keep spewing a thick cloud of white smoke are tear gas shots. A also saw someone spraying people directly with clouds from a fairly large bottle, about the size of a fire extinguisher. I believe that was pepper spray, as made famous in the episode by “Sargent Pepper” of the Mounties during the infamous Pacific Summit where Prime Minister Chretien felt it necessary to remove any hint of legal protestors so as not to embarass the Indonesian dictator. (And then blame the mess on overzealous mounties…)
The commenator also mentioned the police were firing pepper grenades, and he mentioned the smell. But I don’t know if there is such a thing and the guy was just getting wafts of the bottle spray.
Why did they do it? Because they are idiots. The world is full of idiots. They did the same thing 14 years ago, when there were nowhere near as many cameras; and the police used the media and awonderful new tool called the internet to publicize the photos and asked the public to identify the culprits.Watch for more of the same in the next feew months.
Most don’t, but a few people will take advantage of large crowds and perceived anonymity to cause mayhem and destruction. Some people who may never have thought about a riot end up joining in, because of mob mentality and emotion (either happiness or sadness from the sporting result) and a feeling of invincibility.
IMHO it almost seems inevitable when you take thousands of people, subject them to intense emotions for several days/weeks and cram them into an overcrowded street and culminate with either extreme happiness or extreme disappointment. I predicted a riot the second I saw the size of the crowd watching on the outdoor screens; I think it would have happened regardless of the game’s outcome.
From personal experience on both ends, I suspect it was a CS burster. NOT a flashbang grenade, aka stun grenade.
Stun grenades have a brilliant flash, little sparks and a massive concussion.
In really simple terms, you’re briefly dazzled by the light and puking dizzy (literally, in many cases) from the massive blast that is JUST sublethal. But, known to cause fires.
They are NOT exclusively military, but police AND military use globally.
They tend to utilize explosives commonly found in commercial fireworks, in a specific combination designed to dazzle and immobilize (are YOU mobile and able to resist when overcome with nausea and vomiting?).
I’ve watched one go off in a police officer’s back pocket, when he forgot he pulled the pin…
HE was fine, save for some minor burns to his butt and his shredded pants in that area.
So, no, they’re not military ONLY. Yes, they’re in moderately common use. No, THAT wasn’t one. Indeed, it looked to be a CS grenade. BUT, there was also a rather strange wood object someone wandering around the footage placed close to the ballbusted man. It COULD have also been an improvised mortar with some commercial fireworks of low significance, which WOULD match the spark pattern.
And far more likely, as bursting CS grenades are NOT a common use item globally.