WW2 Japanese Type 98 A & B Grenades

Some simple models and renders based on the rather rare and obscure WW2 era Imperial Japanese stick hand grenades the type 98 A and B which were effectively Japan's take on the famous German Stielhandgranate 24 stick grenades but significantly simplified in construction and materials.

The A models had an effective casualty radius of the grenades was about 7 meters, any fragmentation the grenades produced would have been negligible as the grenades weren’t meant for fragmentation but to work as what we would now define as “offensive” HE or high explosive grenades so their main killing factor came from their concussive blasts.

The B model was similar to the A model but used modified Taisho 7 grenade bodies that already were rather small and ineffective grenades which meant that the type 98 B grenade’s effective casualty radius would be just about 3 meters due to limited concussive blast and barely any effective fragmentation to speak off. Due to their ineffectiveness the grenades therefore were never meant for front-line combat so instead, they were mainly used as training grenades or in mainland Japan’s security in so-called “security warfare”

The fuze delay on both was about 4 seconds give and take.

The obscurity of these grenades led me into a big rabbit hole of research which drastically slowed down the project. For example, looking at the few period photographs that included the grenades, it could be seen that they originally would have had paper safety and used manual labels wrapped around the grenade's heads similar to some other Japanese grenades such as the Type 99s. Still, it looks like none of these labels have survived but at least thanks to a friend in possession of some Japanese books found what the labels probably would have said.

+ Just cause why not include in a little traditional Japanese folding pocket knife a Higonokami or just a Higo knife.