smoke grenade
Noun: A smoke grenade is a type of pyrotechnic device designed to produce a large, dense cloud of colored or white smoke when activated. It is not typically an explosive bomb but a canister that generates smoke through a chemical reaction. Its primary purposes are to create a visual obscurant (smoke screen) for concealment, to signal or mark a specific location, or for training and simulation.
Smoke grenades are used in military, law enforcement, and recreational contexts. - Military/ Tactical Use: To conceal troop movements, mark landing zones, or signal positions. - Signaling & Marking: To indicate a target, a rendezvous point, or a safe zone. - Training & Simulation: To create realistic battlefield conditions for exercises. - Recreational Use: In paintball, airsoft, and certain filming or photographic applications.
- The soldiers deployed a smoke grenade to cover their advance across the open field.
- The helicopter pilot requested that the ground team throw a purple smoke grenade to mark the rescue point.
- During the training exercise, instructors used smoke grenades to simulate battlefield obscuration.
- "Pop smoke": A military and tactical slang term meaning to deploy a smoke grenade.
- Example: "We're pinned down! Pop smoke so we can retreat!"
- The type of smoke (color, density, duration) is specified based on the intended use (e.g., screening smoke vs. signaling smoke).
- Smoke bomb: A more general term that can refer to similar devices, often used in protests or pranks, though typically less robust than military-grade smoke grenades.
- Pyrotechnic smoke device: The formal technical category for smoke grenades and similar items.
- Visual obscurant: A technical term for a substance like smoke used to hinder observation.
- Obscuration grenade
- Screening smoke device
- Signal smoke canister
- Lay down smoke / Create a smoke screen: To use smoke grenades or other means to generate an obscuring cloud.
- Example: The unit laid down smoke to cross the river undetected.
- Mark with smoke: To identify a location using colored smoke.
- Example: The forward observer marked the target with red smoke.
- a bomb that gives off thick smoke when it explodes; used to make a smoke screen or to mark a position