The F1 grenade (formally Grenade, Hand, Fragmentation, F1) is manufactured by Thales Australia exclusively for the Australian Defence Force as a primary defensive anti-personnel hand grenade.
History
The F1 hand grenade was tested and manufactured by Australian Defence Industries (now Thales Australia) in the mid-1990s and eventually entered into service with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in the late 1990s. The grenade is the first Australian manufactured grenade utilised by the ADF, as previous grenades include the British-made Mills bomb, used in World War II and the Korean War, and the American-made M26 grenade, which was utilised by Australian forces in the Vietnam War and was replaced by the F1 grenade. The F1 hand grenade has been deployed with the Australian Defence Force to a range of conflicts, including East Timor (UNTAET, UNMISET and UNMIT), Afghanistan (War in Afghanistan), Iraq (Iraq War) and the Solomon Islands (RAMSI).
Safety incidents
The F1 hand grenade has been involved in numerous safety incidents during both manufacturing and deployment within the Australian Defence Force. These incidents not only posed safety risks to the civilian employees involved in the grenades manufacturing, but also to the safety of members of the Australian Defence Force deployed overseas.
1995 St Marys incident
The first significant safety incident involving the F1 occurred on 14 November 1995, at an Australian Defence Industries shell filling factory in St Marys, New South Wales. The detonation occurred within a grenade testing facility at 8:36 a.m., while 4 employees were dismantling a defective F1 grenade. During the dismantling process, the grenade accidentally detonated on a workbench surrounded by the 4 employees, all of whom were injured as a result, two of them critically. Despite criticisms regarding employee safety, as no employees were behind a blast shield or wearing body armour, a coroner's inquest into the matter was never held.
2007 Defence Proof and Experimental Establishment incident
On 12 September 2007, a defence contractor was seriously injured by the accidental detonation of an F1 grenade at the Defence Proof and Experimental Establishment in Graytown, Victoria. The contractor lost his right hand and suffered leg injuries. In response, the chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, ordered an immediate pause in the training use of the F1 grenade to allow the force to "determine that the right measures are in place to ensure the safety of our people and the reliability of the grenade." During this time, the defence force procured sufficient stocks from the United States of M67 grenades for training use and overseas deployments. The F1 was released back into service shortly thereafter on 17 October 2007.
Reported detonation failures
Prior to the ADF's decision to suspend the training and combat use of the F1 grenade, a "small number" of failures to detonate were reported in 2006. These reports came from Australian soldiers deployed in the Middle East and saw the ADF take "rapid steps to confirm the reliability of grenades in service." Following the temporary suspension of the F1 grenade from use within the ADF, stocks of M67 grenades were procured for use by Australian forces deployed in the Middle East, as mentioned above. Following the re-introduction of the F1 back into service in October 2007, no subsequent failures to detonate have been reported.
Future grenade development
In 2013 it was announced that Thales-owned Australian Munitions and German company Diehl Defence would work together to develop an insensitive munitions variant of the F1 grenade.
In September 2018, it was announced that Thales Australia and Chemring Group signed a joint memorandum of understanding covering cooperation in the "design, development and manufacture of a future range of grenades." This includes fragmentation, offensive, smoke and training grenades, to be designed and manufactured at Thales Australia's Australian Government-owned facilities in Benalla, Victoria and Mulwala, New South Wales, and Chemring Group's production facility in Lara, Victoria. This agreement on a future range of grenades will focus on the design and manufacture of a "modular hand grenade product range," allowing a user-selectable detonation mechanism depending on the desired battlefield effect.