Krešimir: Croatia's Truly Insane Grenade Launcher
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ค. 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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Company rep: "This is a hand grenade launcher"
Customer: "I think you meant to say grenade launcher"
Company rep: "I know what I said."
When I heard him clarify that they are in fact live hand grenades I heard a voice calling out “No!”, only to realize it was my own.
Company rep, "here, hold these pins"
To be continued...
*Customer:* "Hey, $COMPANYREP, you know how you could turn this thing into an actually effective and useful weapon?"
*Company rep:* "How?"
*Customer:* "Sell it to the Serbs."
Company rep: DID I STUTTER?
There was no company, there was ppl in garage doing weapons, because we didnt have it, nobody was throwing rain of weapons on us. But I must admit it this is crazy one.
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!
yes, definitely Elbonian… reminds me of the Rube Goldberg cartoons of old.
"where is the safety"
Your instructor points to an area about 100 metres away 🏃♂
Failure to feed blank round, something blocking the second firing pin…
Heck just forgetting the lock on the magazine when done loading it would be... precarious - 5 live hand grenades (albeit not primed... yet) flying out seems like a pretty bad thing. 😅
What civil war does to a mfer...
Getting a dud round in a normal gun:
1) Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
2) Wait a short time to make sure it's not a hangfire
3) Ensure the magazine is seated
4) Cycle the action to eject the bad round and chamber a fresh one
5) Continue shooting
Getting a dud round in a Krešimir:
1) Yeet the gun as far as you can
2) Run like hell in the opposite direction
3) Hope that barrel ends up pointing away from you, in case it is just slow primer.
🤣🤣
Its like a Warhammer 40k Plasma gun.
I suspect the function of the blank cartridge striker being able to be cycled regardless of the grenade actually being launched is due to this particular quirk of the weapon system. In other words, if the grenade doesn't launch keep pulling that trigger and hopefully you just had a light strike.
@@1337penguinman u playing a numbers game here i wanna play with feelings my guy
This is by far the most elaborate pipe bomb I have ever seen
Could it be called a _semi-functional_ pipe bomb?
I rarely celebrate the deactivation of a firearm, but in this case I'm going to make an exception.
It's not so much de-activating a firearm as diffusing an IED
In this case deactivation is for the best.
@@thecommissaruk Now it is a REALLY big frag grenade. Pull the trigger and then throw the whole gun and duck.
@@thecommissaruk You actually have a really good point. If you load this thing correctly and fire it you have a handheld pipebomb that makes normal pipe bombs look like cherry bombs.
@@thecommissaruk if it had been crushed by bulldozer, it wouldn't be a warning to future generations.
Krešimir is a psychological weapon. When the enemy sees our weapon, he will know that we are truly fearless.
Our genius... It's almost frightening
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Or complete idiots.
Wouldn't the enemy be targeting the granade mag on top?
For when your actually a suicide bomber but larping as a grenadier lol
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.
well, when you get attacked by yesterdays friends and you have litteraly no weapons- you then proceed to curl up and cry.
we did what we had to do, to repel the rats and monsters.
It is incredibly clever. Insane, mad, bonkers, utterly *does the lip twiddling thing* but clever. It's like a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang version of a grenade lopper? I expect Dick van Dyke to burst into song and dance firing it.
@@yourmother9359 It's just that you usually don't see last ditch weapons of last resort made with so much attention to detail. The idea is something you'd only do if you were truly desperate, but the build quality doesn't speak to someone frantically banging these out with limited resources. It's complex, clearly pretty well developed, and surprisingly well made for something you'd only use if you were out of good options.
@@a.p.2356 You do realize that every single great weapon( or any great thing, in that matter) was made out of necessity, not monetary greed?
Just because it was made competently it does not mean it was not only resort for us.
If you do not know, in their infinite wisdom the eu and unprofor made huge sanctions toward attacked sides( Albania, Croatia and BIH) and not so much toward serbia.
They blabber a lot, not so good with actions.
So we needed to make it with what we had.
Also, if you want to see some trully over the top weapon systems, how about rolling anti-ship( yes, submersible bomb) weapon down the hill to kill some serbs? th-cam.com/video/ApJCfeipvIQ/w-d-xo.html
My thoughts exactly. It’s not an open bolt smg haphazardly welded together in a shed. Someone handed an engineer an insane set of coke-fueled specifications and he executed it to perfection.
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.
Approaching the enemy trench as a grenadier, only to chuck the whole thing in as one big cluster bomb, that doesn't immediately look like a cluster bomb
A small price to pay for kaboom
Ahh, but imagine how badass you'd feel every time you actually used it correctly! Assuming you survive the first attempt
@@alicebrown6215. Would the primers on the other grenades in the magazine be activated?
Like by the force of the other explosion?
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?
@@Paul_SergeyevMany hobos are wicked smart. They have just been dealt a bad hand, or drugs, or both. Shame really, how many smart and capable people are rotting away as we speak.
I take it you are now re-evaluating some of those stories.
@@Paul_Sergeyev there were a grand total of 400-600 special forces guys active in Vietnam. so far, I've met 3,000 of them. seems like every homeless man in the US over age 65 was some sort of operator. now, whether that means he operates a can in front of his cardboard mansion, or was actual SF, I leave that up to your discretion.
@@Paul_Sergeyev that doesn't matter. I was giving an anecdote.
He wasn't lying about that, they used everything they could to launch hand grandes as far as possible. My father used a k98 with a added on tuba like muzzle device to launch hand grandes
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.
Yea I see a guy carrying that into battle I’m deserting immediately, especially if we’re on the same side
The scariest bit is the mind of the creator who apparently put a lot of effort, engineering skill and ingenuity to design this... thing.
... including himself
@@rrolf71😮
His philosophy: there's a fine line between killer and the killed...that fine line being the crimped wall of the blank cartridge.
In wolf steel case he does not trust
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.
Just needs to be painted bright yellow
@@qdaniele97 Tonk-Truck pattern yellow
Pretty sure you'd want it in Blue for luck. You're gonna want all the luck you can have with this thing @@qdaniele97
The fact that this clusterfuck of safety violations got used in actual combat both scares and amuses me to no end.
well the homeland war was basically steal and make shit as much as you can so every engineer with a tool shed could get in on the action
It really is the type of weapon that is made after a war started and is discontinued as soon as the war is over, when you have the time and resources to design something who’s operating instructions does not include the line “ remove the safety pin from five hand grenade and load them into the magazine”.
An even worse case scenario is if it fails to launch the grenade, blows up the launcher but *doesn't* detonate the rest of the grenades in the magazine, but instead flings said remaining IMPACT ACTIVATED FUZED live grenades in multiple directions. Turning it into the worlds smallest cluster bomb.
Seems like there's a whole list of worse case scenarios.
Hear me out,we mount 3 of these together on a vehicle mount with pan or hopper magazines. It's like the worlds worst 40mm machine gun.
Turning YOU into the worlds smallest cluster bomb
New plan, we "accidentaly" airdrop them behind ennemy lines and let the ennemy try to use them...
I think the gun is just a disguise, for a timed charge you would throw into a room, after purposely malfunctioning it, if you manage to load it safely
The guy who first tried the first working prototype deserves a monument.
A tombstone is technically a monument.
@@alankertz5951 Yes! Lol!
That or a straitjacket.
I would test-fire the gun. Just tie it down to a stand and pull the trigger with a line when you are in a safe location. You would not use a life-hand grenade for initial testing., even testing it the grenade will detonate can be done with a dummy granite body and a live fuze, the explosion will not be that large if just the fuze goes off. Later you can rest it tied down with live grenades.
I would not hold it and fire it with real live grenades but that is not needed for gun development.
@@target844 You didn't get it, did you...?
I used to knew the dude that designed this. The prototype he mad was with an Ak47 like gun.
Rest in Peace Misel, known as Slovenac.
Great dude, great dad, great mechanic, motorcycle driver, and most of all, a great friend.
PS - When the Serb Army attacked Petrinja, Misel used this for scarring the enemy.
And on the military radio you could hear the Serbian screaming
"Run away, the crazy Ustase are throwing grenades 500 meters"
"Bezite bre, lude ustase bacaju bombe 500 metara"
😂😂😂😂
Thats a cool Radiocall 😂😂😂
Ustase. Literal Nazis
@Valnjes jel ima negdje na internetu taj snimak?
brate ja sam iz Petrinje, kako mu je bilo puno ime
They must have been extremely impressed by their enemies' athletic capabilities.
Just to add some more context. In Yugoslavian WWII mythology, there was a special place reserved for brave, skillful Partisans called bombaši (grenadiers) who were literally tossing grenades into bunkers, after sneaking and finding impossible angles. They were featured in pretty much every Partisan War movie, thus being able to throw a grenade was the most manly, the most bravely thing imaginable. Having this would turn you into an instant Giga Chad.
Until something goes wrong and it turns you into spaghetti sauce, anyway
Except these death traps were from the 90s..
@@drdelewdedthings remain in pop culture, thats not your pop culture but it is something that people who fought in Croatia and Bosnia know and remember
Wow, 194 Likes?! Ok, in that case I must give you the link to probably the most Chuck-Norris-Like Yugoslavian movie: The Grenadiers (Bombaši).
A typical mythological scene can be seen at 26 min
Have fun!
th-cam.com/video/pQhUfN9Bm64/w-d-xo.html
figures you'd need that level of convincing to get anywhere near, let alone fire that thing
"Oh i get it, they use the impact fuse grenades so that they wont be primed until they are fired and hit something, thats a clever safety mechanism"
Ian: "So as you can see theres a striker infront of the chamber
"Oh no"
hahahaha exact same thought processes. Why, oh why, did they think priming the grenade before it left the barrel was a good idea? They could've had a guy with a tennis racket by the muzzle who hit the grenade and primed it on it's way downrange.
They aren't even impact fuzed - it's a timed fuze with impact priming. 😅
@@PeTTs0n88Let the inpact be the landing even if it bounces around a bit after
@@DIEGhostfishnah... click..one one thousand, two one thousand, three one, second click.. grenade goes off right about the time it lands... or its a quick fuse and you never get to the second click.
@@bmxerkrantz Or the cartridge that is meant to throw the grenade away from you is a dud, and now you don't have any time to get away from the weapon before the whole thing blows up in your face.
This is definitely a "destructive device".
What does this device destroy? Yes.
But I need to have one...
Imagine the poor soul working at the ATF reading the forms as I try to register it as ANY OTHER WEAPON!
@@jonathanbaer9409 Its for launching water balloons nothing to see here!
As Seen on TV Salesman "What does it destroy? What DOESN'T it destroy? Cindy, bring out the targets for our audience! Let me show you."
Yes, operator included... No an operator doesn't come with it, I meant the destruction part.
Truly a weapon of terror: For the Operator, the Target, and everyone in the area.
Imagine giving directions on how to operate this weapon to a guy in about to be deployed.
"Ok, Jimmy. This is your new Grenade Launcher."
"Now to load it you pull the pins on 5 grenades and carefully load it into this spring loaded magazine."
"No, Jimmy your other grenades"
"Then you load up your AK magazine"
"No, Jimmy you use your blanks"
"And then you aim and shoot"
"No, Jimmy you have to make sure both firing pins go off"
"If you ever get a misfire... We will tell your family you went out like a man"
"Any questions?"
"No Jimmy you can't just throw them"
That's a good one, not letting the grenades jump out of the magazine prior to getting it on the launcher is missing though. I'm sure Jimmy needs instructions too on how to prevent accidents, maybe just have him reload away from the squad whenever possible.
guys half that stupid dont survive past elementary school in the Balkans.
I have never met a Croatian named Jimmy lol
@@tomislavb5760 lol, to be fair I have never met a Croatian before.
Ha ha@@birdmanoo0
The most effective way to use this to defeat enemy soldiers would probably be to issue it to enemy soldiers.
All Hail Elbonia! 🎉
It reads like snark but it's the literal truth.
Top magazine off with a snap cap demo round, pull trigger, throw weapon at enemy. Easy-peasy.
@@liberatumplox625the little red bugs that explode?
Without a manual.
As an expert grenadier veteran of the US Army, hearing "The magazine is loaded with five live grenades all with their pins removed" sends chills down my spine. That magazine is sheet metal. Sheet metal bends and contorts in ways milled steel does not. To think there are live grenades w/o their pins and nothing but a contact primer fuse within this sheet metal container makes the pucker-factor tighten up to the atomic level just hearing this.
Not with the pins removed. This is for impact activated hand grenades. They don't have pins or spoons.This is the kind no sane army would have in the first place. If you have those on your webbing and you take a hard tumble you convert your "stash" into a suicide vest. WWII taught us to not ever do that again...
Now that you put it that way....
In the begginng of war, we had only hunter rifles. Federal army was under serb control. So we tried to survive...
I think a system that arms the grenade as it is traveling down the barrel would be quite a bit better 😬 the whole [activate hand grenade fuse before attempting to fire blank] function is a lot to process.
@@ultratorrentiusung a tenis racket to throw grenades would have probably been safer....
Croats have a sweet spot for hand-grenade-thrower-ing-things since the Battle of Vukovar. According to an anecdote, Croats were able to somehow toss them about a hundred yards and some officer from the Yugoslav Army was complaining on walkie-talkie that "Drunken Ustasha on drugs are tossing grenades like mad!". In reality, they were using WWI improvised tech and the device entered the legend as "Drunken Ustasha" (Pijani Ustaša)
In reality it was tromblone mine
I am simply lost for words at this contraption. I thought the Vietnamese, then the Iraqi's had cornered the market on improvised weapons. But nope, everytime we delve into Croatian military we find this crazy thing or that crazy thing and now this the A4 intercontinental V2 Vengeance rocket of fabri-cobbling. And the scary thing is it probably worked like a swiss watch.
True story, my father who was in war saw the thumbnail for this video and immediately started laughing "oh look it's Pijani Ustaša". On the more serious side, this name for a gun gives you a nice insight into serbian way of thinking. When they saw grenades flying from a great distance, they didnt think "oh Croats must have engineered something", instead they thought that the only rational explanation was "Croats must be drunk or on drugs". Pure projection from what they saw at their own army and society. Speaks volumes about serbs. Very sad that we had to spend almost one whole miserable century with them in one state.
@aaabb4432 although being an ethnic Setb, I must say that you are right.
During the 90's, under the influence of his wife, Milosevic's propaganda was seriously flirting with - magic, and all the daily newspapers had pages devoted to dubious experts.
There was a parade of experts in bio-energy-something, stories about secret weapons made by Tesla, and even a legit military unit that was supposedly able to fight with their mind against aircrafts (in 1999).
In that context, explanation that involves superhuman powers was very logical
@@krumpirko8888gamingits not tromblon mine its hand granade lanch from semi automatic rifle called papovka that have divice on end of barell to fire hande granade
"We need a semi-auto grenade launcher, fast."
"Sure. What are we working with, 30mm? 40mm?"
"Hand."
"... Josip, pass the slivovitz and a big hammer, we've got work to do."
LOL
"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.
As a fomer 203 gunner, good god, that thing is terrifying. What happens if it short strokes? Its a 5 Grenade landmine.
"Hello, my name is Pvt. Perisic and I will be the designated squad wipe. Let's hope I checked my ammo and my weapon is in serviceable condition!"
you got that right ! I was thinking "What could possibly go wrong ?"
Allah Snackbar mode 😂
I wouldn't want to use this grenade launcher, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to share a foxhole with whoever does!
A HANDHELD land mine. 😊
Greetings from Croatia! 🇭🇷This is the first time we see this weapon. I participated in the Homeland War, but this is a big surprise! An interesting concept and something original. In war, people get great ideas and innovations in the absence of conventional weapons! Praise for presenting Croatian weapons.🇭🇷😉
Svaka čast svakomu tko se usudio ovo koristiti, izgleda opasnije za korisnika nego za protivnika
I worked for a couple years with a Croat dude.
He was the only guy I worked with that spooked me in paint ball.
Long live Croatia!
From a very sad Canadian guy that may have to die with his boots on.
@@owensthilaire8189the hell is happening in Canada if I may ask
@@markbonnell7922 The state media that has told us for two generations or more that, " Canada is the best place to live " has done a job on most people that Herr Goebbels would envy.
So we now find our selves divided and ripe for conquest by a puppet of Klaus and his WEF.
A few provinces are resisting but the natural tendency of people here to do as they are told is crushing us.
@@markbonnell7922 they passed a law that makes it illegal to take off your boots
Before today I was conflicted on which is more dangerous, the weapon that fires when you don't want it to, and the weapon that doesn't fire when you absolutely need it to. Now I know the truth. Kresimir is the most dangerous weapon, whether it works or not. Thank you, Ian, for clearing this up.
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.
Yeah, it's usually better to give a lunatic something to do...
but maybe not in this case😁
And now you know why Leonard of Quirm remains on the Patrician's payroll...
hahaha yeah 😂
bro this was the design with most safety systems in the balkan.
the guy before just handed them primed granate and slingshot.
Reminds of that time Archchancellor Ridcully investigated the "musical pipes" lever in his... ah lets say, in a bathroom made by bloody stupid Johnson. 🧙♂
So what is the procedure for a misfire?
- There is none, this launcher is so reliable, nobody has ever reported a misfire!
Throw the whole thing toward enemy lines and take cover waiting for the world smallest cluster bomb to go off 😅
Every day in the autumn of 1991 in the central news of the Croatian state TV you had some dr. Krieger working for Croatian Armed Forces showing something like this. Only God knows how we stopped Yugoslav tanks and APCs with these crazy things, but we actually did.
Ovo oružje je vrlo opasno, vojnici koji su ovo koristili stvarno se nisu ničega bojali.
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.
This needs more upvotes.
There are few forces stronger or more powerful than a man with a shed.
it didn't turn out because iron man isn't real
So like current Myanmar, & the Tatmadaw genocide-ing farmers, who are using 3d printed guns to fight back? PSR did a video on it.
Agree but croatia can produce the helion ar that thing requires hi tech as usa or germany
I am not surprised at all that a fellow Croatian made this. It is just crazy, I don't know how else to describe shoving 5 live hand grenades into a cornucopia of shrapnel if ANYTHING slightly goes wrong, wow.
Well you're not gonna make a grenade launcher that fires decommissioned or dud grenades are you Einstein..
I mean, technically, they are not live as the cap hasnt been hit, but yeah, no, thank you either way.
Nothing with this thing ever goes "slightly" wrong. LOL
Perhaps it was intended to be left in the open for Serb militias to capture?
@@Bosniarat24
Well, imagine what happens when you pull the trigger, 1st bolt primes the grenade, bit 2nd bolt missfires (for whatever reason, like failiure to feed, bad blanks or maybe just forgot to reload the blanks).
You now have a big bulk of explosive shrapnel in your hands, going off in about 5 seconds, not to mention the second or two you need to realise something is going down.
And as another bonus, you might have up to 4 more grenades in that mag, ready to go cluster munitions on anyone nearby.
When I was a kid I knew what hand grenades were and I assumed that a grenade launcher somehow fired them. This is the closest thing to my childhood mental image of a grenade launcher that I've yet heard of.
This is not the only grenade launcher to use hand grenades. Like the Japanese knee mortar could fire hand grenades, USA had an adapter to for hand grenades that was used from ww2 into Vietnam, Russian RGD-5 grenades could be used as rifle grenades...
Edit: wondering if the M50 was designed to be used as a rifle grenade like the RGD-5 was
Here I was thinking it would use the force of the blank firing to actually prime the grenade, because that makes sense from a safety standpoint, right?
Hearing "two distinct strikers" filled my soul with an indescribable dread.
As a proud citizen of Sisak I am overjoyed that you have taken the effort to visit my hometown and made a video. Hope you had a great time 😁
Not only would I not want to use it. I wouldn't want to be in a platoon with a guy that had one.
You'd swap it for the flame thrower, because you'd be safer.
@@tompiper9276I think a belt made of old school TNT sticks, and a box of hotel matches would be safer, and more effective than this crazy thing!!
That has to be the most dangerous weapon I've seen in a very long life, and I've fired a live PIAT!
I rather choose a PIAT then thise abomination.
True, they can just give the soldier 5 grenade to throw instead of this overcomplicated SAW trap
A PIAT is a paragon of user safety compared to this
Of course you have.
The cool thing if I understand it correctly is that you can cook the grenade inside the chamber by pushing the trigger past the 1st stage then waiting the desired amount of time then pushing past the 2nd stage. A talented and crazy shooter could get the grenade to airburst right where he wants them.
The image that evokes, of an operator having used this weapon for long enough to develop that combination of familiarity and hubris that would lead to him using that technique, is genuinely terrifying. Imagine yourself stuck next to "that guy" when you realize what he's doing.
no way, irl loose cannon tf2
Imagine the trial and error development of this gun. The creator was literally insane.
i imagine the creator was drunk as hell and giggling while making the prototype
There was no development, there was no testing and improvements, there was no time for that. Just an idea, and workshop, and soon as guys in the workshop figure it out how to put it together to work, weapon was ready to deploy on the battle with live hand grenades.
@@atropa6053 🤣🤣
Thats the thing, there wasnt
I think in this case it would only involve a trial, because any error would bring the development process to a rather spectacular halt. Kudos to its designer though, for having the skill to pull it off as well as the faith that it would be good enough to actually use.
I love that this weapon is _so bizarre_ that even Ian, whose whole purpose in this enterprise is to know and employ the technical terms for everything, can do no better to describe part of its function than "... engage that lock on top, so that you don't have all five grenades go _kawoing_ out of the... thing." :)
This looks so much like a Star Wars gun that I would totally believe Ian if he said it was a prop form the original trilogy.
Holy crap thats so true
Ah, you beat me to it! I totally thought the exact same thing!
Edit: also, I'd give your comment a like but it's at 66 right now so I don't want to cause order 66, lol
No gun looks like that in star wars
Even in the Star Wars universe the Stormtroopers saw it and said “oh hells no”.
A weapon that is so likely to harm the user doesn't belong in stormtrooper legions, it belongs in the Imperial Guard!
Something I learned a *long* time ago was that the KISS principle exists for a reason and *NOT* to tempt Murphy. This thing is giving Murphy the double bird then dropping its trousers and mooning him for good measure! That is absolutely *terrifying*.
"Safety lever".. safety seems like a strong word to use around this thing
That's just about the most terrifying weapon I've seen.. Not for the damage to enemies, but from the almost infinite ways it seems like it could kill the operator, and everyone around them!
You leave those for the enemy to find, you don't even need to booby trap them.
Yeah, it's like you would need to dig a grenade sump large enough to drop the whole gun into before you use it, so you can put a couple feet of earth between you and the earth-shattering kaboom when it goes wrong.
@@iododendron3416 yes, and load the ak mag with actual cartridges instead of blanks. Maybe some api rounds?
@@mrt2this607 but only load three or so
Misload the grenade mag? You're fucked. Load live rounds instead of blanks? You're fucked. Fail cocking the weapon? You're fucked. Blank doesn't fire? You're fucked. Weapon jams? You're fucked. Mag jams? You're fucked. Standing next to the soldier armed with this weapon and any of the above happens? You're fucked.
I have to admit, I'm impressed. Not only by the clever engineering, but by the sheer number of ways it could go horribly wrong.
@@Armored_Muskrat I bet they drew straws to decide who got stuck with the grenade gun.
Idk if it's that clever tbh. It's a glorified potato gun. Literal children build these
Just like the titan sub?
When your weapon has a real risk of accidentally cluster-bombing the room you're in, you got something truly special.
In the short bus sense of "special".
I have never heard Krešo failed and somebody died
Never let safety get in the way of a good design.
One interesting thing, in the beginning, the Croats made a part that was put on the Ak47 and so they would fire grenades, it later got the name(pijani ustaša) drunk Croat, because at the beginning the Serbs were so confused, how the Croats could throw hand grenades so far that they reached the only realistic conclusion: Croats get so drunk that this is the reason for such strength
P.S. if you google - pijani ustaša- you will get those technical drawings on how to make them
Ustaša doesn't mean Croat it means the Croatian fascist Soldier from the second world war ..
Its genius when you think about it.
Chance of activating the fuse of the grenade: 100%
Chance that the blank will fire correctly and launch the grenade: Not 100%
I think I would rather practise my throwing skills tbh
It *could* be a dud grenade too, to be fair! 😅 The chance having a dud grenade in the case of a misfire of the blank/barrel obstruction/stoppage though... I don't like those odds.
This is what happens if football, not baseball, is your national sport.
@@jimmiller5600 Which football?
Answer wisely.
@@jimmiller5600 Should have designed a drop kick grenade.
@@theblobconsumes4859 both.
So let me get this straight: this stores five live hand grenades inside a stamped metal box next to your face, then uses a crank to move one even closer to your face, then one half trigger pull to prime and start cooking the grenade, then a full trigger pull to use the gas from a blank AK round to propel a body not really made for aerodynamics into the air to what one hopes is a safe distance from the shooter. And if for some reason the AK round jams the grenade explodes in your face.
That's about the long and short of it, yeah.
You have five seconds after the click to chuck the gun at the enemy and take cover, though. Seems safe enough to me!
Personally, I'd rather use this gun then be anywhere near someone else using it. One guy here in the comments said you should drop it and run if it doesn't fire.
MAD MAX level batshit insane...I WANT ONE...if only to chuck smoke grenades during peacetime
Croatians are just built different.
And if you drop the magazine or gun in the right way you can set off the impact fuse
I especially like the hand welding on this. Its designer was cognizant of the need to produce it with compact tools, really great sort of engineering to see up close. Thanks for a really great video!
yeah
This is something that Croteam should put in the next Serious Sam game, you need to have some serious balls/problems to run this in the field.
This is a tool to motivate soldiers in PT. If you can throw a grenade as far as the launcher, you don't have to use the launcher.
Most cursed weapons are just aesthetically unpleasing, or mechanically stupid, but this, this one is outright terrifying. Engineers at IM Metal surely didn't make a war-worthy grenade launcher, but they created a prime example of how to build suspension and terror: a foreseeable terrible fate plus a healthy dose of uncertainty, sprinkle powerlessness all over it, then the formula is complete.
trained recruits forced to shoulder that thing and do a mag dump would create the worlds MOST BADASS FEARLESS WARRIORS going into combat for the first time would seem like just another day!
@@jonathanbaer9409 imagine almost being blown to bits in fucking training because your grenade launcher was made by satan
Add to that the knowledge that you're going up against an actual military, with an entire arsenal of normal-people weapons, all of which are designed to efficiently and reliably kill the target instead of the user. Unlike yours.
Can't believe you came to my town, insane to think that a TH-camr I watch came to a small Croatian town like mine
Pozdrav Sisku i pozdrav iz moje HRVATSKE 🇭🇷✌️🇭🇷
Oh, great. If the blank misfires, you basically have two options: either you try to re-strike it so that it launches the (already primed) grenade away from you, wasting precious seconds if it doesn't, OR, you drop the launcher and run as far away as you can before this contraption detonates up to 5 hand grenades.
That’s Elbonian guns for you.
I bet that the double-action mechanism that potentially could fire a hard primer was considered a safety feature.
Or you throw the Launcher, and potentially take out your enemy with the force of five hand grenades.
In a maneuver that the Elbonian Grenadiers have labeled the Krešimir toss.
Does it always kill the enemy, no. Does it always kill some one, yes. It is the only hand held weapon within the Elbonian military with a 100% lethality rate.
Throw it like a huge WW2 German stick grenade. Enemy will scatter.
Nah, grab it by the barrel and yeet the whole mass of congealed derrangement at the enemy.
Maybe it's interesting to note that the name Krešimir translated to english means approximately "he who sparkles peace". Eternal peace in the case of this contraption.
"If I was a bad peacemaker, I wouldn't be standing here discussing it with you now would I?"
Certainly known for sparkling pieces over a 30 yard area.
Greetings from Croatia, your channel rules
These trips to Eastern Europe that Ian has embarked on have been a gold mine of "forgotten wepons"!
'Most bonkers'
Ian always knows the correct technical terms.
This gun is actually terrifying.
yes kamikaze weapons
For everyone.
The even more terrifying part: it's a production weapon, not a prototype.
I get the feeling that most normal infantry would take one look at that and tell the private carrying it that he would have the luxury of a one-man foxhole.
Ian we need way more information about this thing. It's completely insane. Track down someone from HS Produkt and ask them how it even made it past the daydream phase of the development process.
Pretty sure I can guess the answer: "There was a war on and we didn't have anti-personnel rockets or proper grenade launchers. This was the next best thing we could bang out in our literal garage industry at the time."
@@TimperialBroadcastingAgency Yeah that's the daydream phase. The actual implementation is insane.
500 years of war with the turks will do that to a people. :)
as a warhammer 40k fan, I feel like this is sort of an irl version of the plasma weapons. Every time you fire, theres a notably significant chance a weapon malfunction could just outright kill you
I see your point, but clearly, that is some ork level shenanigans.
Well then. it's the best if we all believe it's gonna work as intended.
@@robertmudry4242 Well, it's the balkans, not much difference. Source: live there.
Actually, that is only if you overcharge :)
But your death for the Emperor shall not be in vain.
Dear God, I remember all the safety precautions drilled into us on how to handle hand grenades when I was in the army and then I see this...😬
Now add to that the number number of Italian Red Devils that have been floating around that part of Europe since the end of the Second World War…
Eastern Europe has a very different view on safety than the west.
Holding a live hand grenade really gets my heart rate up.
@@mikeo8890 Totally
During my hand grenade training we were practicing air bursts with inert grenades but live fuses. I let the spoon fly and the fuse went off immediately. Some clown had placed a quick fuse, not a 5 second delay fuse, in the grenade.
I just realised the grenade magazine on this would make a really good improvised trap
If you get close enough, you can drop the blanks, pull the trigger and transform this thing in a deadly bundle grenade.
It's the safest way to use it that comes to my mind after learning how it functions.
That moment when the M79 seems like a fantastic thing to carry instead.
Dear Ian. Should the opportunity of a shooting video for this firearm ever arise, I would earnestly recommend that you remember what you did with the long piece of string used in the video where you test-fired a wrongly-assembled Ross rifle.
In WW2, some British merchant ships and steam trawlers were equipped with an anti-aircraft grenade launcher that used the de-icing _steam hose_ to propel cocoa tins with standard Mills Bombs in them. For some reason, the grenade exploding inside the tin made a puff of black smoke which looked with a real anti-aircraft shell bursting and some German aircraft were seen to break off their attacks!
PS: Perhaps find the man who deactivated the weapon and buy him a nice lunch?
This is Warhammer 40K Ork levels of scary-funny. Anybody who carried one of these for a long period of time was obviously insane, or had a name similar to "Chad Thundercock"
This gun is what everyone thought a "grenade launcher" was when they were 11 years old.
I remember early 90s in Croatia (i was 14 in 1990), every machine shop did all it could for war effort.
Many new things where produced and many conversions and repairs where done. At the time Croatia had enormous machining, casting and stamping potential, it was third in shippbuilding (right behind Japan and Korea by tonnage) and it produced combines, turbines, trains and large diesel engines, but never had weapons production excerpt tank building/assembly.
If Ian could get his hands on RT-20, that would be a nice episode. Interesting weapon.
interesting thing
The Yugoslav Army left American M115 203 mm howitzer in Varaždin, they only removed the sights, because without them it is unusable
The Ruđer Bošković Institute created new sights and a program for a laptop for targeting almost overnight
so you entered the coordinates of where you are in the program and then the coordinates of the targets
the first 203 mm shell fell within 10 meters of the target
@@tihomirrasperic If you fire to the north you miss to the left, if you fire to the south, you miss to the right beacouse of earth rotation. 203mm spents lots of time traveling and earth rotating must be taken in equation.
120mm mortar targeting software was also developed with full line of light and heavy mortars.
@@sinisatrlin840 as far as I heard, the program made corrections for humidity and wind in the air
so the first grenade was on the "target"
and then in Action "Storm" they sent a drone that sent a live broadcast of the target
And when the first shells fell, the battalion commander was watching the shells falling on TV
THIS thing, right here, does an amazing job of conveying just how desperate Croatian and her people were at the start of the Homeland War.
You'd need to be 100% nuts or **REALLY** desperate to even go near that thing while it was loaded!
@@DrBunnyMedicinal APCs where build on 3 axle tipper chassis, armoured trains where build and used. I am raised in familly of engeneers and machinists. I saw AK bolts being made from large allen (inbus) wrenches in several operations in 3 eight hour shifts. Using allen spanners to make production fast and to avoid heat treatment. Reverse engeneering 120mm mortars was turned into serial production in 5 days, large scale production.
This thing is just a little detail in our war effort. Ian could dedicate whole series on just this subject.
Imagine you forget to load the blank magazine all the way during combat, and on your last grenade the striker hits the grenade but there is no blank to send it away from you before it explodes 😅
He didn’t mention a magazine safety 💀
Make sure you're in a position to dump your weapon into a safe-ish place in case of blank failure.
@@Matt-xc6sp5:40 , listen again greenhorn ... you failed this test
tossing a weapon is a lot harder than tossing a grenade
Let's not forget the fact that Cro army defended the city of Sisak and Tenja with things as likely insane like that or even more👍🇭🇷♥️
Without the grenade magazine it looks like some sort of Star Wars heavy blaster
Cro Homeland War trivia. Cro forces used several ingenious ways to increase the throwing distance of hand granates. First reason is lack of any weapons heavier than rifle-grenades. And second reason is pure psy ops. Opposing forces would regularly report presence of "fiersome doped up Croats" throwing ordinary hand granates several 100 m.
I just left the comment about that (although I'm a Serb, but the story is still too good not to be told).
During the Battle of Vukovar, Yugoslavian officer was screaming in walkie-talkie that "God damn Drunken Ustashe are tossing grenades with superhuman strength". So the name stuck "Drunken Ustasha" / Pijani Ustaša
Ima blizu Pariza jedna dobra kafana-muzej, selo se zove Poitiers (kafana Little Tommy). Iskopavao čovek sve živo, decenijama, od flašica za sokove preko leka za prevenciju polnih bolesti (nije radio) do delova prvih tenkova. Medju svim tim stvarima ima da se vide i originalne Pijane Ustaše i neki potpuno suludi minobacači za rovove. Ako te put nanese u Pariz - znaš gde da ideš. Pored je i najveći krater na svetu. Jedno 3-4 autobusa u prečniku. Nadrealan.
@@unlearningcommunism4742 Hvala na informaciji. Čudni su putevi - nije isključeno da ću i popit koju u Little Tommyu...😄
@@hrvojehajdic2729 Živeo sam u Francuskoj i Americi, volim istoriju, i uvek sam gledao ko ima "od naših" (ne gledam mikro-geografiju), ili na spomeniku ili medju odlikovanima.
Iznenadio bi se koliko je naših dobilo Medalju Časti, Američku, ili koliko ih se borilo i poginulo u francuskoj uniformi.
This has to be the most dangerous infantry weapon design I've ever seen, wow. The existence of this design alone is incredibly entertaining, great video as always.
I want to say it's a step up from just using a slingshot to lob a grenade, but to be honest, I'd trust the slingshot more than I trust this thing.
@@aznmarty256 The grenade throwing slingshots used in WW1 were probability more dangerous the Leach trench catapult was very easy to fumble and the West Spring Gun liked eating fingers (including those of Captain West himself)
To win the war you need to have balls kids 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I don't know - the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle with it's "Projectile, Atomic, Supercaliber 279mm XM388" ammo has to right up there as as crazy dangerous small arm.
This is one weapon where I needed to watch it twice just to get a full picture of how truly insane it is.
When an experienced Potato Gun Engineer goes to war, he builds THIS!
Aside from the various explosive scenarios some of the other comments describe, the various powerful springs in that contraption offer a choice of ways to lose fingers. Notice how cautious Ian was when demonstrating the internals.
Clearly the only modicum of safety precautions would be to fire from behind a substantial wall, over which the thing could be dropped if the sequence of operating noises wasn't exactly right.
Was thinking that or a double trench or something, you just dropping the thing in the forward trench and taking cover in the rear one. 😅
@@PeTTs0n88 Or a small catapult to toss the whole thing towards the enemy.
It's less a gun, more a booby trap
I thought it was just another submachine gun, then I was surprised to learn it was a grenade launcher, THEN I learned that is was a hand-grenade launcher and was terrified.
It's genius. I love it.
From the Springfield Hellions to this the 🇭🇷 are bloody Sci fi geniuses.
A lot of people when they first hear about or see granade launchers assume they fire hand granades (including myself when i was little), and indeed in some games they work like that, but until now i could not have imagined that that falacy had been brought to life long ago
So they were using M50 hand grenades with the old fuses and 7,62x39 rifle grenade cartridges? That's so gloriously insane.
Semi auto grenade rifle certainly wasn't something I expected to see this morning. Also love the fact the cartridge has an "oh shit" safety and can be rehit, hopefully actually launching the grenade.
If that AK magazine jams... well, you've got a few seconds to move very quickly as far away from the thing as possible. 😅
*Click...sssssssssss...click......click......CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK....rapidly receding steps.....BOOOOM
If you take the time to actually work the malfuncfion (as opposed to "immediately chuck the heavy thing behind heavy cover and wait for debris to stop falling"), you're almost certainly gonna die. 😂
@@geodkyt I hope the first step in the operations manual for it is:
Step 1: Dig a Kresimir shaped hole a least one meter deep in front of the firing point.
Semi auto HAND grenade rifle.
This is absolutely bonkers. The amount of ways you and your buddies could be turned into a fine red mist is astounding. War makes people do what they must to survive, but Jesus christ the aforementioned survival element feels considerably dimished when your near one of these. 10/10 content.
Just saying Hi from Sisak Croatia, a town where this was filmed. Glad to see you were around :)
It's a shame that this has been deactivated, because I'm sure firing this would be quite the experience.
It's not deactivated, Ian just couldn't get permission to fire Hulk Hogan's personal defense weapon.
I may be wrong, but I don't think Ian would fire this even if he could due to the fact that it FIRES LIVE GRANEDES!
@@Whatsup8858 eh there are training grenades for thst purpose, shape and weight but no boom
It would be a blast.
@@Neon-Puritan It is deactivated, the bolt for the blanks is not in the gun
"cram 5 live hand grenades into it..." this can only end well
This gives me an idea for an interesting game mechanic. A grenade launcher where the first click (or first half of trigger pull) cooks the grenade and the second click (or second half) actually fires it, and failure to fire before the fuse runs out will just instantly kill/down the user
New from Springfield Armory, the Pure Hell! *Hand grenades sold separately*
PIAT: “good luck using me mate”
This thing: “hold my beer”
They could shoot that whole contraption out of a PIAT for maximum terror!😂
Pretty much everything you said about this gun is terrifying. If I was handed one, I'd probably reload the magazines in a sump with a trench nearby, and I'd make an escape plan before shooting it in case a blank misfires. What a fantastic device.
In case of misfire, huck launcher in direction of enemy....
Wouldn't expect anything less, from a nation that used a naval mine in land-based combat. Offensively, should I add.
We, Slavs, really are built differently.
What's the story on that? even a hint as to what to google?
@@inncubus666 th-cam.com/video/ApJCfeipvIQ/w-d-xo.html
You can also google "release unintelligible sphere" and do some digging
@@inncubus666th-cam.com/video/ApJCfeipvIQ/w-d-xo.html
I think he's referring to this. Croats but in BiH not Croatia
@@jacplac97"fuck everything in that general direction" kind of weapon, I like it! How come swiss didn't think of something like that in their country full of mountains and all the bridges rigged to explode? They could preplant them in millions and kick them downhill at anyone who didn't hear about their neutrality!
Never saw them in 5 yrs of fighting there... We used the singleshot extention for riflegranades on the K-98/M48, M-59/66 or on the AK-47`s... So called "Pijana Ustasa".
Honestly I think this gun belongs in a videogame like Bioshock or something as cause it's got that dieselpunk industrial sort of look to it.
It belongs in Borderlands. The bandits in Borderlands are the only video game enemies that have an adequately low self-preservation instinct to allow them to feasibly use this weapon.
@@44R0Ndin Or in the hands of Orks from Warhammer 40k, who due to their sheer willpower and belief in its working ability, don't suffer from any misfires with the gun.
I immediately thought about Fallout universe, specifically Fallout 4 pipe guns. This would perfectly fit in the world where a weapon such as Fat Man exists.
Love the idea to put it in a game.
I'd love if it was made truly OP but with a roughly 1% chance of something going wrong with it every time you fire it.
Also the reload animation would be epic with the removing of the safety pins etc. 🤤
For a video game, this sounds amazing.
Sometimes “bonkers” just isn’t adequate. There seems to be no way to unload the magazine that doesn’t cost you all your friends. And when you mentioned a dud AK round I think a little pee came out of me …
Yeah, I thought it was going to have a mechanism to pull the pin at launch, but instead you have to load the thing with 5 live grenades after pulling the pins. Terrifying.
Just a little😮😮😮. Are you mad?
Considering the nades are impact fuzed, wouldn't you be able to put in that feed stopper, take the mag out, remove the grenades (about as carefully as you inserted them...), and reinsert the pins?
@@jubuttibThe pin only works to prevent the internal striker from striking. Once the external striker nub is hit, the internal striker will have been fired and inserting the pin back in would do nothing.
@@andrewsuryali8540 Yeah, but this was talking about removing unfired grenades from the magazine. It wouldn't be hit while in the magazine.
Any other grenade launcher in service: Shoots 40mm grenade out of barrel
Krešimir: Shoots whole hand grenade out of barrel
This thing scares me as much as it fascinates me.