For the U.S. Army, kicking down doors will become blowing them down now that the service has ordered $52 million worth of Simon door-breaching rifle grenades from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd of Israel.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Rafael says that the Simon, or GREM (grenade, rifle, entry munition) as it is known in the U.S., is a lightweight, rifle-launched grenade specially adapted to breaching steel or wooden doors from a stand-off distance. It may be fired from a variety of rifles using regular bullets.
Says Rafael: “The Simon (GREM) is designed to breach a door or to enable breaking an entry into a building or an enclosed area, while posing minimum collateral damage or risk to the gunner and to troops following him. The warhead has a special dome shape and its explosion generates a shock wave which blasts the door and causes it to yield.”
The Simon (GREM) is a member of Rafael’s family of shoulder-launched breaching munitions, together with the Matador family that has been developed and produced in conjunction with DND of Germany.
Read more about the GREM HERE…
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Is there a need for this when there is already a shotgun in the inventory called the “KeyMaster”? It sounds like redundancy and a waste of money.
I think there is a need as in the case of a bobby-trapped door. A keymaster round will only blow of the lock, you still need to push open the door. This round will allow standoff breaching and can be launch from any rifle with normal bullet.
I would say it is situation dependent weapon. For a capturing suspects operations, keymaster round would work better but for a full scale assualt in a urban settings, Simon and Matador will be useful.
The Israelis have been using this round for a while now during their conflicts with the palestinians and understand the limitations of the weapon, namely hostage rescue with this round might kill the said hostage too.
Ive seen these babies blow open a door, and dang they do a heck of a job. A 12ga is a great when you want to take the lock out, but this is for when you want the whole door down.
I recall seeing this thing in action on the idiot box. Pretty awesome. “Simon” and “GREM” are the usual pabulum names/acronyms that come out of committees but I can foresee some cool and bitingly sarcastic nicknames coming from our folks downrange. “Watchtower,” “Landshark,” “Candygram,” and “Amway” come to mind.
From what I understand of this thing it appears to be safer both for the shooter and the dumbass standing behind the door. The shooter now has the advantage of 15-30 meter standoff; a good thing to have when Johnny Jihadi has been nice enough to booby-trap the door. The warhead standoff and small charge appear to have just enough punch to knock down the door without taking everything with it — unless you’re the dumbass standing behind the door.
Cheers,
Chief B.
Chief,
Got me laughing at the “Landshark” ref, too cool.
Guys, ya gotta be REAL close like for the “keymaster” rounds to work (and it really takes shots to the hinges, AND the lock, to work most effectively, do ya really want to be standing there shucking 3 or 4 shells?).
Masterkey, not keymaster.
Looks like a modern-day version of the petard.