Dad brought this back as a souvenir from the Tet Offensive. I'm trying to figure out exactly what type of munition it is.

Per Gemini

What you are looking at nestled inside the crushed tip is the brass or copper-alloy firing pin striker / plunger assembly.
In point-detonating ordnance, that center plug is designed to be driven backward upon impact to initiate the primer chain. Because the tip buckled but didn't entirely disintegrate, the mechanical striker mechanism is still entirely intact inside the housing.

Are you sure that thing's inert?

OldArmyCT said:

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Are you sure that thing's inert?

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first, set up go pro. Second, take a hammer.....

OldArmyCT said:

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Are you sure that thing's inert?

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I could take it through TSA and see what happpens.

How tall is it?

Looks like a fuse for an artillery shell.

CactusThomas said:

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How tall is it?

Looks like a fuse for an artillery shell.

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About 4 or 4-1/2 inches.

Gotta be a fuse

CactusThomas said:

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Gotta be a fuse

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After much, much searching I finally found a couple pics that look like it. It may be the top portion of a Russian Katusha Zig-Zag fuze or a MRV-42M, which were definitely used during the Tet Offensive in the attacks on Da Nang and China Beach.

That's a heck of a souvenir, but just out of curiosity, had you ever had it checked out by a bomb squad?

JA83 said:

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That's a heck of a souvenir, but just out of curiosity, had you ever had it checked out by a bomb squad?

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Nope. I had not seen it since I was a kid until I found it in a box the other day.

Russian Katusha Zig-Zag fuze:

Based on what I see with the remnant I have, the plunger/firing pin mechanism was activated before the nosecone deformed.