The Rubber Band Grenade was a booby trap set by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war. To make this device, the soldier would remove the pin of a hand grenade and wrap a strong rubber band around the lever, holding it in place. This trap was then hidden in a hut. United States soldiers would torch Vietnamese huts regularly to prevent them from being inhabited again, or to expose foxholes, tunnel entrances, and the like. When a hut with the grenade trap would be torched, the rubber band on the grenade would melt, arming the grenade and blowing up the hut. This would often wound US soldiers with burning bamboo and shrapnel. This boobytrap was also used to destroy US vehicles, by placing them in the fuel tanks; the rubber band would then spontaneously corrode in the gasoline and release the lever, exploding the grenade. This article is about an antipersonnel trap designed for use against humans. ... A Viet Cong soldier, heavily guarded, awaits interrogation following capture in the attacks on Saigon during the festive Tet holiday period of 1968. ... The Vietnam War or Second Indochina War was a conflict between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN, or North Vietnam), allied with the National Liberation Front (NLF, or Viet Cong) against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam), and their allies—notably the United States military in support of... A WWII-era pineapple fragmentation hand grenade A hand grenade is a hand-held bomb designed to be thrown by hand. ... Rubber bands A rubber band (in some regions known as a binder and in others as an elastic) is a short length of rubber formed in the shape of a loop. ... Gasoline, as it is known in North America, or petrol (abbreviated from petroleum spirit), in many Commonwealth countries (sometimes also called motor spirit) but really should be called petrol, is a petroleum-derived liquid mixture consisting primarily of hydrocarbons, used as fuel in internal combustion engines. ...