Nail bomb

The nail bomb is an anti-personnel explosive device packed with nails to increase its wounding ability. The nails act as shrapnel, leading almost certainly to greater loss of life and injury in inhabited areas than the explosives alone would. The nail bomb is also a type of flechette weapon. Such weapons use bits of shrapnel (steel balls, nail heads, broken razors, darts and bits of metal) to produce a large radius of destruction.

Nail bombs are often used by terrorists, in particular by suicide bombers, since they cause large numbers of casualties when detonated in crowded places. Nail bombs can be detected via electromagnetic sensors and standard metal detectors.

On March 6, 1970, in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, three members of the Weather Underground were killed in the accidental explosion of a nail bomb intended to be set off at a non-commissioned officers dance at the Fort Dix, New Jersey Army base.

A number of nail bombings occurred during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, either by Republicans or Loyalists.

American Mafia figure Philip Testa was killed by a nail bomb in Philadelphia in 1981.

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