[DoughtyOne]

Maybe others know, but it would be interesting to know where that canister came from. If from our side, you’d think there would have been tens of them used.

[VietVet]

Those smoke grenades (I used to carry two of them on each 3 day mission) are/were intended to be thrown by hand; range about 5 to 30 yards, for the average GI. Later, as a National Guardsman, our units were issued tear gas (CN or CS) grenades which looked similar; same shape, same size. The tear gas grenades were usually issued to officers or NCOs. They could be thrown by hand, but the usual way was to launch them from a special launcher on a shotgun. Tossed by hand, they could ‘gas’ your own personnel (and that has happened to me, too). CN burn grenades produced a thick white cloud of smoke/irritant agent; CS produced a small cloud of smoke, but the active agent was almost invisible.