During the Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiments (AEWE) 2017 Live Fire held in Fort Benning, the U.S. Army tested a 40mm grenade for breaching doors.  The 40mm grenades are made by Florida Company Chemring Ordnance and showed the test doors are not much of a problem for it.

At the Maneuver Center of Excellence, the grenade is launched from 40mm grenade launchers such as the Heckler & Koch M320 Grenade Launcher Module, ground units can do door breaching remotely, allowing them to safely make openings in buildings rather than getting close to entrance ways to plant explosives or use firearms to open them. Even metal doors can be breached using the 40mm grenades.

Whilst door breaching is always the easiest point of entry room clearing, the door is always the most watched part in the room and thus, there will always be someone with a gun pointed at it, or if not, will be booby-trapped. The other way around it was the technique adopted by the IDF in which they breach walls rather than doors. The use of a 40mm grenade for door breaching minimizes the risk for soldiers before entering a room as the blast of the grenade can trigger off the explosive used for the booby trap or disorient or even injure the enemy behind the door.

Chemring Ordnance makes ordnance, pryos and other munitions for military and first responder use. The company makes many types of 40mm low and high grenades that are used as actual ammunition, for tactical illumination, battlefield effects simulators, pyro marking, and signaling.

For this year AEWE event, they focused on five areas identified under the Army’s warfighting challenges such as prototype capabilities and experimental concepts; provide solutions that address enhanced small unit situational understanding; sustainment in austere environments; effective mission command; and soldier protection and mobility.

All photos taken by Photos by Angie DePuydt, U.S. Army (via AEWE Facebook Page).