SRCM Mod. 35

The '''SRCM Mod. 35''' is a hand grenade that was first issued to the Royal Italian Army in 1935, serving through World War II and into the 1980s. Nicknamed "Red Devils" by the British in 1941-1942 during the North African Campaign after the red color of the most common type.

Description
Entered into service in 1935, the SRCM Mod. 35, together with the OTO Mod. 35 and the Breda Mod. 35 represented the new generation of hand grenades with which the Royal Italian Army faced World War II. After the Armistice of Cassibile it was adopted as Handgranate 328 by the German forces in Italy. It was used by the Italian Army until the late 1980s, and the armed forces of Malta (supplied by MIATM).

The SRCM Mod. 35 is a offensive type hand grenade meaning that it scatters light shrapnel, lethal within a radius of less than the maximum distance of the throw, their purpose being to cover the advance of the thrower without the thrower having to seek cover. Typical throwing range is 20–25 meters and the effective range of the shrapnel 10-15 meters. The outer shell of the grenade is aluminum, containing 43 grams of TNT and dinitronaphthalene with an internal wire wrapped around it that turns into shrapnel at the time of the explosion. It has two safeties, a manual one consisting of a crossbar with brass handle and an automatic one, consisting by a cross bar of aluminum connected to an external handle.

Versions

 * "War": red colored shell.
 * "War - version RM": white with red stripe; loaded with TNT.
 * "Smoke grenade for training": Yellow during the war, then red; recognizable by many the big holes on the outer shell.
 * "smoke" and "smoke incendiary" for operational use, without holes, red upper half, lower half black with lettering on the bottom F and F1, respectively.
 * "charge reduced for training": red with brown and blue stripes, charge is a mixture of 5 grams of smoke, handle without the internal shrapnel wire.
 * "HE": red with yellow line, high-potential TNT charge.
 * Post-war produced grenades were painted a khaki color and using colored lines for the various versions.