Somehow the idea of spiked ammo feels more wrong than rigged grenades and mortars.. Last two can't be used for anything beneficial, at least ammo can be used for hunting. And celebrating too, imagine one spiked batch of bullets and a wedding party.. Grenades and mortars are exclusively for killing humans so in a way, they still are 100% fit for the purpose ( i actually don't care which side they kill, who makes the decision to kill has to be ready for consequences like getting killed.)

There is another effect to this tactic besides that. Say you're not a well organized armed group that doesn't have access to you're own supply of weapons and ammunition. Then people would be apprehensive, taking a second thought, or some I'm sure would be terrified of firing if they thought it would kill them. It's a tactic to terrify the enemy from shooting at you.

Everyone's been using them eh? What can you say, war is dirty.

This is probably a very minor issue when it comes to spiked ammo, but I think anyone who fires an assault rifle in celebration is getting what's coming to them. Just ask the families of hundreds of Filipinos who are killed or injured each year by "celebratory gunfire". So long as heavily armed idiots don't understand parabolas, I'd be happy if their guns explode.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2013/01/03/filipino-child-dies-from-new-year-eve-shooting/5DPm8tGbjjQ6yvPFv1uSdL/story.html

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/01/new-year-gunfire-firecrackers-injure-400-in-philippines/

I contracted for non-invasive inspection with ARDEC back in 2001. We have the technology to scan these bullets at an extremely fast rate (1000+ bullets/sec) using Photoelectric Effect and Compton Scattering and single out the bad powder using electron density and Z effecitive. We can definitely help the insurgence avoid these traps if politics weren't in the way.

My point was that those who uses in celebrations or hunting, are not firing the gun in order to kill another human being. i know this is my personal value and not shared by all (there are tons of examples where my logic fails..) but those who take the gun to kill another human, have to accept the fact that it might kill them. It's my upbringing, being third generation conscious objectors (grandfather, during the continuation war and my father went to jail because of it, law was changed, i didn't have to) but picking up that gun in that pretext is next to murder (it's a murder when you succeed in your quest of killing someone, anyone that happens to be wearing different clothes than your side)

So getting killed from spiked up bullet is much harder to "justify", but with grenades and mortar etc the issue is more clear. I'm not saying this is RIGHT as spiking the ammo is an act of war too. With ammo it can easily spread and wreak havoc years and years from now, just like landmines, spreading the casualities of war well outside that particular conflict.

How about we make spiked gun factories that make fruit instead of guns. And then we'd simply need to defend ourselves from bananas and kiwis and other semi-dangerous fruit types. That way we don't kill enemy combatants, we capture them; and when our own soldiers find these fruit in their own armories, they can consume them as nourishment.

Come on! It's brilliant, AND I know of the perfect training instructor for the job. Though he may actually kill you upon defending your fruit attack. Due to this risk, it's probably best to simply let enemy combatants find and distribute these arms without training in the operation of them.

Does the same factory also make 16-ton weights?

Politics tend to be in the way - it's what it does.