Episode 3122 –  The Vietnam War Secret Grenade Launcher

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China Lake in Ho Chi Mhn City, Vietnam. [By Lynndon Schooler.]

Episode 3122 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about the the Vietnam War secret grenade launcher. The featured story is titled: China Lake: The Secret Grenade Launcher of the Vietnam War.  It comes from the Fire Arm Blog and was submitted by Lynndon Schooler.

Schooler reported that the China Lake grenade launcher, a rare pump-action 40mm multi-shot weapon built for Navy SEALs in Vietnam, was hand‑made at the Naval Air Weapons Station in China Lake, California. Conceived in the late 1960s by Alfred Kermode to overcome the single-shot limitation of the ubiquitous M79, it used a tubular magazine holding three rounds plus one in the chamber for four shots. Constructed from aluminum, steel and wood, it weighed about 8.5 lb unloaded and adopted a shotgun‑style pump action that allowed successive grenades to be fired in under a second per cycle.

Issued in very small numbers—roughly two dozen built and mainly distributed to SEALs, MACV‑SOG and Marine Force Recon—the launcher earned praise for reliability, ruggedness and devastating close‑quarters firepower in jungles, swamps and covert cross‑border operations. For small, mobile teams operating behind enemy lines the China Lake’s rapid multi‑shot capability could overwhelm ambushers, neutralize bunkers or stop counterattacks before defenders recovered, offering four times the immediate firepower of an M79.

Despite combat success, the China Lake never entered mass production. Shrinking Vietnam budgets, the winding down of U.S. operations, and development of lighter systems like the under‑barrel M203 limited its prospects. After the war surviving examples were retired or stored; today only a handful exist in museums, making them among the rarest U.S. firearms from that era.

The China Lake remains an example of special‑operations driven innovation: a purpose‑built, compact solution that briefly changed how small units delivered explosive firepower, leaving a lasting, cultlike reputation among those who used it. Collectors and historians continue to study its design, and surviving examples are prized artifacts that illuminate unconventional warfare and improvisational engineering worldwide today.

Listen to Episode 3122 and discover more about the Vietnam War secret grenade launcher.