North Vietnamese Army Canvas Two Cell Short Stick Grenade Pouch

The North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong used a few varieties of two and four cell hand grenade pouches. Their pouches were designed to hold either long or short handle stick grenades.

Most had a heavy, loosely woven, canvas body but some had cotton poplin bodies. Shoulder straps were either canvas or poplin. All used a long tie tie to secure the hand grenade handle against the body of the pouch. Many had cotton material sewn to the edges. The color of the trim often was different than the body of the pouch. These were manufactured to be issued for the long march to the South from available materials where matching colors, a collector’s notion, were not of any importance.

They are very dissimilar to the Chinese made 1960s era pouches you may come across. Chinese grenade pouches used a wooden toggle with flap that went over the end of the handle. All Chinese grenade pouches were for long handle stick grenades. The PLA did not use short handle grenades like the NVA and VC. The color of the Chinese pouches from the 1960s was an olive green color. I have never seen a period photographs showing an NVA or VC wearing a Chinese flapped grenade pouch.

Nice two tone colors.