Bangkok Library Digital library and information center for Bangkok, Thailand

The M79 grenade launcher has attracted considerable media attention in Thailand. The launcher is a single shot, shoulder fired, break-action grenade launcher which resembles a large bore sawed-off shotgun.

In the US alone, 350,000 devices were produced between 1961 and 1971. About a hundred homemade M79 grenade launchers were recently seized from an auto parts maker in Ayutthaya’s Wang Noi district, and the weapon has been mentioned in several attacks, including five M79 grenades launched into the Silom Road / Sala Daeng area of Bangkok.