History Main / InsertGrenadeHere

* This was the only way most Japanese soldiers could defeat Allied tanks late in war. The Sherman, although considered relatively mundane and underprotected in the European theater, was much stronger in the Pacific theater due to the Japanese military's shortage of anti-tank weapons. Extrapolating from the more successful Kamikaze program, Japanese soldiers employed ''nikudan'' (literally "meat bullet", HeroicSacrifice with a bundle of grenades or other explosives) attacks. One famous example featured a Japanese soldier charge an American tank, which promptly drove away faster than he could run. The tank traversed its turret...

->''"My comrades tied a rope around my waist and lowered me on top of Nazi tanks. I'd stuff [[MolotovCocktail Molotovs]] under turret and cannon, and they pulled me up again. [[ChildSoldier Eight years old!]] They called me Tank Boy. I took a lot of Nazi tanks. A lot."''

This is where a tank is on the battlefield and the main protagonists have either used up all their anti-tank weapons or never had any to begin with.

** Averted in ''Hell's Highway'', where German tanks can only be destroyed by anti-tank weapons, allied tanks, or planting TNT on the rear of the tank.

* Subverted in ''Anime/GhostInTheShell''. At the climax, the Major faces off against a SpiderTank using only an assault rifle. She manages to jump up on top of it, but [[spoiler:fails to open the hatch despite pulling so hard that she rips one of her own arms off (and given that Motoko is a full-conversion {{Cyborg}} with more strength than the average human can muster, this is ''really'' not good). The tank then grabs her and is about to crush her skull when Batou shows up with actual anti-tank ordnance to save the day at the last second.]]

** Much more recently, during a NATO field exercise in Denmark: a particularly pissed-off British Para managed to lob a thunderflash (pyrotechnic designed to simulate a grenade) right into the open hatch of a German Army APC with a full complement of uncharacteristically dozy Panzergrenadiers inside. In the confined space, it ruptured the eardrums of thirteen German soldiers. The Bundeswehr was not amused and compensation was paid. The errant Para was officially bollocked, but privately congratulated by his Colonel for the accuaracy of his aim and for teaching the Jerries a good lesson -- never drive in a combat zone with the lid open.

** One they did have was the ''Geballte Ladung'', which was basically a standard stick grenade taken UpToEleven by the attachment of 6 additional grenade charges wired to the center one. It could destroy or disable light tanks through the force of its blast alone.

** Jar-Jar does a variation in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' with one of the {{energy ball}}s the Gungans use. As a result of LethalKlutz antics of his, no so much out of battle awareness.

** Jar-Jar does a variation in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' with one of those [[BuffySpeak weird electronics-killing water balloon things]] the Gungans have.

* ''Series/TheMandalorian''
** In the episode "Sanctuary" the Mandalorian throws a thermal detonator through the viewport of a former Imperial AT-ST. However given that these are nine meters off the ground, the problem lies in knocking the bipedal walker off its feet first -- their plan to do so takes up a major part of the plot.
** In "The Siege", a Scout Trooper gets on top of a troop transport stolen by our heroes and prepares to drop a grenade inside, but fails to see the [[NoKillLikeOverkill gun turret turning towards him before he's blasted]].

Fact of the matter is that second-generation (produced in the 1970-80s) 'main battle tanks' can't be damaged from the outside by anything other than dedicated anti-tank weaponry, and earlier medium- and heavy-tanks could only be disabled or damaged by improvised weapons. Less heavily-armoured vehicles such as light tanks and armoured transports are, however, still vulnerable. For blowing up organic enemies in a similar fashion, see FeedItABomb.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Played fairly straight in the beginning of ''Manga/{{Appleseed}}'', where Hitomi takes down Bluebeard and his crew while they're busy trying to kill Deunan and Briareos.

* This was a favorite tactic of {{Comicbook/SgtRock}}.

-->'''''SCPO. Athezra Darrod:''' Showoff!

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''{{Film/Avatar}}'', Jake does this with Quaritch's gunship, throwing grenades onto its outer vents. It's not a straight tank example, since it's a flying vehicle, and Jake gets on top of it by means of his GiantFlyer.

* In ''Film/RedDawn1984'' when the group is pinned down by a tank (which doesn't see them) one of the main characters attempts this but gets hurt pretty badly and is unable to complete the task, instead he sets off a smoke grenade so that friendly fire can spot the tank and blow it (and him) up. The same scene also ''inverts'' this trope, as said character's injuries resulted from one of the tank's crew briefly opening the hatch and tossing a grenade onto the tank's exterior.

--->'''Bulwar''' How many men has it cost you?\\
'''Soric''' [[HeroicSacrifice Twenty-four, of course]].

** In the episode "Sanctuary" the Mandalorian throws a thermal detonator through the viewport of a former Imperial AT-ST. However given that these are nine meters off the ground, the problem lies in knocking the bipedal walker off its feet first--their plan to do so takes up a major part of the plot.
** In "The Seige", a Scout Trooper gets on top of a troop transport stolen by our heroes and prepares to drop a grenade inside, but fails to see the [[NoKillLikeOverkill gun turret turning towards him before he's blasted]].

* Used in the mid-season finale of ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' as Daryl casually rolls a grenade down the barrel of a tank to blow it up. The driver just manages to get out in time too, not that it increases his life-span much...
** TruthInTelevision in that unless his head is sticking up out of the hatch, the driver of an M-60 tank cannot see the ground for at least fifteen feet in front of his tank; Daryl's simply walking up around the corner and in front of the tank without drawing any notice was entirely possible. Also, given the timing of the tank's last shot, its very likely that he caught the tank with the breech open for the next shell to be loaded, meaning that the grenade explosion actually ''would'' reach the tank's interior.

* Happens all the time in ''[[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}} Warhammer 40,000]]''. Any close-combat hits on a vehicle (with the exception of walkers) automatically succeed, and are always resolved as being against the vehicle's rear armor to reflect infantry scrambling around it to find its [[AttackItsWeakPoint weak points]]. While a standard close-combat attack by a typical infantryman will rarely do any damage to even a light vehicle, many can be issued anti-armor grenades specifically for this purpose, such as krak grenades, melta-bombs, and EMP grenades.

* ''VideoGame/BrothersInArms'' used this as the third method of destroying tanks. The first being the far more intelligent "with other tanks", with the second being to find an anti-tank rocket launcher like a Panzerfaust or Bazooka.
** Semi-subverted in ''Earned in Blood.'' You can no longer run up to the tank and 'nade it right off the bat, as apparently the Germans decided to start locking their hatches shut. But if you have a Panzerfaust ready and hit it in the rear, the commander's hatch will open, allowing a grenade to be dropped in.

* It happens frequently to tanks in ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'', when the theater's in WWII. In the first game they precede the grenade with a few bursts from a tommy gun for good measure.

* Snake's first battle against Vulcan Raven in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' was man against tank, so this trope was used to beat it, but without the jumping on the tank part. (One could soften the tank up first by careful Claymore and C4 placement, but that's not nearly as ''badass'').
** If you call your support team (other than Campbell that is), they will [[LampshadeHanging comment]] on how ridiculous that was.
---> '''Mei Ling''': Snake, you just ''blew up a tank!'' On ''foot!''\\
'''Snake''': ...and?

[[folder:Webcomics]]

[[folder:Web Originals]]

* The first of the ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken Star Wars'' specials parodied the instance from ''The Empire Strikes Back''. It starts off depicting Luke grappling up to the AT-AT, cutting a hole in it, and tossing a grenade in... then cut to inside the AT-AT, where the grenade lands [[TheCanKickedHim in the bathroom while one of the pilots is busy on the can]]. He wonders aloud "what in the fuck is-" before it explodes and takes out the entire AT-AT.
* One of the ARC Troopers uses this tactic to take out a droid tank in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars''. However, he didn't have any grenades. So he blasted his way into the tank, then shot it up from the inside with his gun that fired explosions, and jumped out. It worked.

* Even before the age of precision munitions, savvy warship designers were concerned about the possibility of a bomb or artillery shell going down a ship's smokestack [[ImprobableAimingSkills through blind luck]]. What's at the bottom of the smokestack? [[AttackItsWeakPoint The boilers which power the ship]], and which are necessarily located very near the ship's [[ShootTheFuelTank coal or oil stores.]] The solution was simple enough: Install armored grates inside the funnels to block admission. [[StarWars A trick the Galactic Empire could have made good use of.]]

* In Literature/TheDreamsideRoad, Orson destroys a [[spoiler:Liberty Corps drop ship]] with some well-placed grenades after disabling it with his IF Maker.

** This tactic was also reportedly used (story was never verified) by an American soldier who had been pinned down by one of the fearsome German Tiger tanks. Out of grenades and out of ammo, he fished around in his pocket to find only one thing left: an apple given to him the previous day by a grateful villager. Thinking fast, he waited until the enemy tank was distracted, ran up to it, threw open the hatch, and chucked the apple in. The Germans, thinking it was a grenade, understandably freaked out, and the American soldier used the momentary panic to retreat back to his comrades before the German crew realized what had just happened.

->''"My comrades tied a rope around my waist and lowered me on top of Nazi tanks. I'd stuff [[MolotovCocktail Molotovs]] under turret and cannon, and they pulled me up again. Eight years old! They called me Tank Boy. I took a lot of Nazi tanks. A lot."''

* ''Literature/TheExecutioner''. In "Cambodia Clash", Mack Bolan does this with a tank, but the [[RealityEnsues hatch is locked]] so he has to clamber up the main gun and drop the grenade down the barrel. The scene is [[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3383105-cambodia-clash depicted on the cover]].

** This tactic was also used by an American soldier who had been pinned down by one of the fearsome German Tiger tanks. Out of grenades and out of ammo, he fished around in his pocket to find only one thing left: an apple given to him the previous day by a grateful villager. Thinking fast, he waited until the enemy tank was distracted, ran up to it, threw open the hatch, and chucked the apple in. The Germans, thinking it was a grenade, understandably freaked out, and the American soldier used the momentary panic to retreat back to his comrades before the German crew realized what had just happenned.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1397023937024730000
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

** Followed up in the {{Prequel}} ''Manga/AppleseedAlpha'' where Iris jumps off a building onto of a tank that has Deunan pinned down; silently rolling in the only grenade they have and causing a big explosion in the process.

* This was a favorite tactic of [[{{Comicbook/SgtRock}} Sgt. Rock]].
* In ''ComicBook/NthManTheUltimateNinja'', John Doe manages to throw a grenade down the gun barrel of a tank at the exact moment the tank's gunner is opening the breach. He manages this feat by a combination of good hearing, good timing, and channeling his memories of zen concentration from playing baseball with his adopted father.

* Sgt. ComicBook/NickFury did it, of course. [[http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3116/2887278820_98ae7e9c4f_b.jpg See here.]]

* In ''ComicBook/CombatKellyAndHisDeadlyDozen'' #2, Jay Little Bear vaults over the top of a German armoured car, and drops a grenade inside it as he does so, with predictable results.

* ''Series/TheMandalorian''
** In the episode "Sanctuary" the Mandalorian throws a thermal detonator through the viewport of a former Imperial AT-ST. However given that these are nine meters off the ground, the problem lies in knocking the bipedal walker off its feet first--their plan to do so takes up a major part of the plot.
** In "The Seige", a Scout Trooper gets on top of a troop transport stolen by our heroes and prepares to drop a grenade inside, but fails to see the [[NoKillLikeOverkill gun turret turning towards him before he's blasted]].

* In the first ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'' game, the enemy Mooks would climb onto your Metal Slug, and if not shaken off in time, they would drop a grenade in. Fortunately, it only damaged your slug and not the player. Sometimes they would also block the barrel of your 'Slug with their body, preventing you from firing your cannon properly with their lives.

* In the opening video of the original ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' an Ork soldier sneaks behind a Dreadnought and manages to attach a limpet mine, blowing it up ''and'' turning the tide of battle in the Ork favor.
* ''VideoGame/FurFighters'' has a level set in WW 2 with tanks, the only way to destroy them was to blow up the bridges to get them stuck and then lob in Grenades to blow them up. With the respawning enemies that level was hell, literally.
* It happens frequently to tanks in ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'', when the theater's in WWII. In the first game they precede the grenade with a few bursts from a tommy gun for good measure.
** A flashback set during the UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsII'' has the player doing this to a twin-barreled Soviet tank with a mortar shell.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Mercenaries}}'', you can hijack tanks this way. You'd assume the frag grenade would probably ruin in the inside... or at least make it very, very messy. Not to mention you can take the driver's sidearm and grenade on their chest multiple times, fail to put the grenade down the hatch, and have to do same thing ''all over again''. Part of the animation involves, at least some of the time, headbutting a guy wearing a helmet with your mohawked, bare-headed idiot. You also protect yourself from the blast through the open hatch by putting a finger in one ear. [[RuleOfCool Mercenaries runs on action film rules.]]
* Part of the FinalBoss battle in ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie'' involves firing remote-controlled Clockwork Kazooies into the exhaust hatch of a DrillTank and detonating them over its gearboxes.

* In ''VideoGame/Bomberman64'', the Red Mountain boss is ''Hades the War Machine'', a giant robot you fight in the heart of a volcano. If you smack it in the head with a fully-pumped bomb, a panel on the front opens up for a few seconds and reveals the cockpit; tossing a bomb in there gives the player a Gold Card.
* In ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'', this is a viable tactic for taking out the reactors of Maximilian's massive Batomys tank. While it would normally take three or four Lancer shots to disable one, a soldier who moves quickly enough can toss a grenade into the hatch and blow it up in a single hit.

* ''VideoGame/BrothersInArms'' used this as the third method of destroying tanks. The first being the far more intelligent "with other tanks", with the second being to find an anti-tank rocket launcher like a Panzerfaust or Bazooka.
** Semi-subverted in ''Earned in Blood.'' You can no longer run up to the tank and 'nade it right off the bat, as apparently the Germans decided to start locking their hatches shut. But if you have a Panzerfaust ready and hit it in the rear, the commander's hatch will open, allowing a grenade to be dropped in.
** Averted in ''Hell's Highway'', where German tanks can only be destroyed by anti-tank weapons, allied tanks, or planting TNT on the rear of the tank.
* The second installment of the ''VideoGame/HeavyGear'' mech-sim game has something like this as part of its opening. Tanks are treated as extremely dire threats to Gears as opposed to being CannonFodder as they usually are in HumongousMecha titles, and after seeing a teammate go down, one pilot jumps up onto the offending hovertank, [[ShootOutTheLock blows off the hatch]], and empties his Gear's main gun into the crew cabin until [[TakingYouWithMe both he and the tank explode]]. Ironically, Gears can carry grenades, so he could have just [[SenselessSacrifice dropped one into the open hatch and jumped off...]]
* ''VideoGame/RogueSquadron III: Rebel Strike'' puts a twist on the Battle of Hoth level. Instead of how most ''Star Wars'' games have you do the tie-up-the-AT-AT-with-a-towcable ''thing'', it's set up as a ground mission after Luke gets shot down. You have to kill the [=AT-ATs=] by doing Luke's little trick in the movie.
* In ''VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefront'', if you are driving a vehicle, you will notice grenades bouncing off your tank and doing very small amounts of damage. It does make it hard to pick up a copilot though.
** The exception is if they toss concussion grenades, which stick to tanks and do more damage, or if you're playing the sequel, where the normal grenades are given the ability to stick, but are still individually weaker than a rocket.
* This is how Gordon Freeman deals with the Combine autogun in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2: Episode Two''. Originally he was meant to simply shut it off with a switch, but the designers decided it would be more satisfying to straight-up destroy it.
* The cinematic trailer for ''Videogame/PlanetSide 2'' shows a [[MegaCorp New Conglomerate]] light assault trooper killing the exposed gunner of a [[TheEmpire Terran Republic]] Prowler and then tossing a grenade down the tank's hatch to blow it up. However, TrailersAlwaysLie, as in-game, the secondary gun is controlled remotely (no exposed hatches), and regular grenades are harmless to tanks and other heavy vehicles.
* ''[[Videogame/MechWarrior MechWarrior Living Legends]]'' has completely enclosed cockpits for its [[HumongousMecha BattleMechs]], which makes tossing [[StickyBomb C8 sticky grenades]] onto the canopy one of the favorite tactics of [[PoweredArmor BattleArmor users]]. Crippled battlemechs, however, are easy pickings, as cockpit canopies are destroyed if the pilot uses his EjectionSeat or someone cores [[SnipingTheCockpit through the canopy and kills the pilot]] to [[GrandTheftPrototype steal it]]; simply hurl an [[KillItWithFire Inferno grenade]] onto the lap of the pilot and watch in glee as the pilot has about a quarter second to realize he's doomed.
* In ''VideoGame/Titanfall2]]'', if you rodeo a Titan while already carrying a battery, your Pilot will drop a frag grenade down the Titan's empty battery socket.

* The first of the ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken Star Wars'' specials parodied the instance from ''The Empire Strikes Back''. It starts off depicting Luke grappling up to the AT-AT, cutting a hole in it, and tossing a grenade in... then cut to inside the AT-AT, where the grenade lands [[TheCanKickedHim in the bathroom while one of the pilots is busy on the can]]. He wonders aloud "what in the fuck is-" before it explodes and takes out the entire AT-AT.

** Followed up in the {{Prequel}} ''AppleseedAlpha'' where Iris jumps off a building onto of a tank that has Deunan pinned down; silently rolling in the only grenade they have and causing a big explosion in the process.

* The Black Rider does this to an APC in Creator/MarvelComics ''SixGuns'' mini-series.

* ''Series/TheMandalorian''. In the episode "Sanctuary" the Mandalorian throws a thermal detonator through the viewport of a former Imperial AT-ST. However given that these are nine meters off the ground, the problem lies in knocking the bipedal walker off its feet first--their plan to do so takes up a major part of the plot.

* ''VideoGame/BrothersInArms'' used this as the second method of destroying tanks. The first being the far more intelligent "with other tanks".
** Semi-subverted in ''Hell's Highway.'' You can no longer run up to the tank and 'nade it right off the bat, as apparently the Germans decided to start locking their hatches shut. But if you have a bazooka team ready, you can have them shoot the tank once, which will knock the hatch open and allow you to insert said grenade. Or you can just have your bazooka team finish the tank off.