FAI hand grenade

The FAI hand grenade is a fragmentation grenade produced and used by the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist militias of the CNT-FAI of Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War.

The pomegranate was self-designed prefagmented, with an impact fuse. A cloth tape was added around it, which acted as distance safe. This insurance had a lead counterweight in which occasionally the FAI acronym appeared.

It was made of iron, with several models of different sizes, according to the producer and the time of its manufacture. The explosive used was gunpowder and its range of about 25 meters.

It was known by the name of "The impartial", as it killed both the thrower and the one that reached.

Writer George Orwell mentions this type of pomegranate in his 1938 book Tribute to Catalonia, where he describes it as:

The grenade used at the time was a terrifying object known as the FAI grenade, invented by the anarchists in the early days of the war. It was similar to the Mills Pump, but its lever was not held by a safe, but by a piece of tape. When the strip was started, it was necessary to get rid of it as fast as possible. These grenades were said to be 'impartial': they killed both the enemy and the one who threw them.

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