Smoke grenades
Smoke grenades for airsoft are readily available in our store and of course online at Krale.shop. To help you with your choice, it’s important to take three things in consideration when choosing a smoke grenade:
- COLOUR: The first thing you will want to choose is the colour. White smoke is during daytime best for giving cover as white reflects the most light. But take in consideration white smoke can cause unknowing bystanders to think there’s fire, while coloured smoke will be significantly less alarming. However, smoke grenades doesn’t always have to be used for cover, they can also be used to pinpoint a location as safe or unsafe, indicate where the opposition is, give a signal to indicate the end of a skirm et cetera.
- DURATION: Sometimes a smoke grenade is needed to give cover, sometimes as a signal. In the first case, you might need a smoke grenade with a short duration to prevent eventually being blinded by your own smoke, while in the second case a longer duration will give you more time to communicate a signal. Besides that there’s also a coherence between duration and density.
- DENSITY: It can be important to give a signal without blinding yourself. For this you’ll need a smoke grenade that produces a low-density smoke. When talking about taking cover, you’ll want the highest density you can get to completely take sight away. Most often the common rule can be applied that smoke grenades with a short duration will provide a high density and vice versa. The longer the duration, the less dense the smoke will be.
The smoke grenades we supply are called ‘cold’. This means they don’t burn with a flame, but that doesn’t say they don’t get hot. While in the process of smoking, the temperature on the outside will often be around 40 degrees Celcius, but after that there will be a short period of time the heat radiates through, reaching temperatures up to 90 degrees Celcius.
Wind
A very important factor when using smoke grenades is wind. Most important factor is naturally wind direction. Nothing can be more frustrating than a smoke curtain going the wrong way or one that doesn’t flare out wide enough as the wind is coming in at an angle. But equally important is wind force. When there’s no wind, the smoke will be dense but will have difficulty to spread if all. With lots of wind, the smoke will spread rapidly, taking away density which can be countered by using multiple smoke grenades.
Photography
While talking all tactical, it’s easy to miss other uses for smoke grenades. Photography, for instance, is one of the many things where smoke grenades are often used. They can provide a certain atmosphere, enhance colours or completely block out a background. But whatever field of use you can think of, take into account the three considerations mentioned above, while also accounting for wind.