Grenade goes through wall

[Vinnart]

Here’s a first. In this first pic you can see a potato masher on the right side of the wall landing near the base of the wall. It was thrown from across a lawn. I felt I had my troops in an excellent cover position behind the tall wall, but the grenade went THROUGH the wall, and exploded on the other side resulting in pic 2. I have never seen this before, so I do not know if this is a bug, or just a freak occurrence.

[Holman]

I would chalk it up to abstraction. It looks close enough to your troops, despite the presence of the wall, to be considered to have landed in their action point. Just imagine that it cleared the wall and landed on their side.

I guess the way to test this would be to try it with troops on both sides of the wall and see if one side is protected, but that test would be nearly impossible to set up reliably.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Bullets don't go through brick walls. Grenades shouldn't either. Looks like a bug to me.

[Vinnart]

I don’t think the abstraction argument washes. The wall is there, and is a solid physical object. It is not an abstraction. If the wall allows for physical objects to pass through it defeats the purpose of the wall being there in the first place. These next shots may shed more light on the strangeness of this.

I went back, and replayed the replay movie, and noticed an oddity with the wall. If you notice it is transparent except for the top. You can see the grenade passing through as if the wall is not there. The last pic catches the grenade as the handle sticks out of the side, but notice the transparency of the wall. In the first pics I posted the wall looks solid, and not transparent. Very strange, but I do not recall loading a “Merlin's Secret Magic German Weapons with grenades that pass through walls mod" . Must be hopefully a fluke bug.

[JonS]

Walls are commonly transparent when viewed from that angle.

[Holman]

I wonder how CM actually calculates these things.

Is this a case of the wall not properly blocking the grenade blast (because it was located on the other side from the troops) or of the graphics not properly indicating the grenade's location (as it landed on the same side as the troops)? In the images posted immediately above, the game appears to be trying to show the grenade on the troop side.

[c3k]

Obviously the bricklayer had enough forethought to've built small drainholes along the the base of the wall. Proud of his work, he had been taught by his father that water is masonry's biggest threat. The standard round drainhole was sufficient to ensure that no standing water would rot the mortar. No one had ever asked him to proof it against grenades rolling through.

[Sgt Schultz]

Grenades are coded to bounce and skitter across the ground a bit before exploding. I just had one dance a few hops in deep woods before going off. It is a bit of dodgy code at the end of the throw.

The grenade in the OP pics seems to have bounced up to the wall and skittered through instead of bouncing off.

I would think that if one were to set up a test and repeat this action, then it would not happen often.

Also remember, all walls are placed in the center of a tile. It may have caught the edge of a code line that made that happen.

You got hosed no doubt, but them's the breaks.

[womble]

It could just be that there's no animation for a grenade being lobbed over a wall, so the game just shows the "usual" trajectory. I'm assuming that the thrower wasn't aiming at a different target, but actually trying to frag some dogfaces he heard scuffling about behind the wall.

Then again, there have been oddities with walls before...

[Lt Belenko]

You would have thought one brave soldier would have dived on it and saved the other six. ...That will be out with the Medal of Honor patch.

[Lanzfeld]

Taking the grenade.

[JRMC1879]

Bullets don't go through brick walls. Grenades shouldn't either. Looks like a bug to me.

Well, its not the wall thats an abstraction but the path of the grenade. I would imagine its fairly routine to track the path of the bullets into the wall as the wall is so high and the bullet starts at a certain height and travels in a straight line.

I would image the code for lobbing a grenade is the same regardless of if it travels over a wall or not. So - it may be coded to check if it hits the wall - and would explode on the other side if it does - it just doesnt show the thing on a curve over the wall it it hits. I have seen plenty grenades explode on the safe side of the wall in that situation.

[Hister]

It's the same with bocage - goes through it and mostly not over it. Guess lacking animations makes it so. It's probably an abstraction.

[$Pec5]

Lanzfeld, that was a hilarious post

Also, +1 to Hister.

[Sgt Schultz]

I have seen 'nades go over walls. If the thrower is positioned far enough back to get the arc, that puppy sails right over.

My pop smokes 'nades go over tall walls fairly consistently. Not to say I have not seen bugginess, but it all seems to even out in the end to me. If your team is throwing for a tile, most of the time it will get there. They bounce right off walls and back in your face too. That REALLY makes you pissed... but at yourself and not BFC.

What hurts me hurts mine enemy.

[c3k]

Let's flip this around: grenades thrown towards walls bounce back towards the thrower. How much WORSE would that be?

Sure, watching a grenade roll through a wall and kill your guys leads to ragequit. But, um, who the hell bunched his men behind a wall within grenade range of an enemy who knew they were there? What should've happened? The grenade should've come OVER the wall and killed them.

Actual: grenade killed everyone by rolling through wall

Real Life: grenade killed everyone by sailing over wall

Potential "fix": grenade misses target, bounces off wall, and kills throwing unit

Of the three options, it is clear which one is the least offensive.

[Vanir Ausf B]

So any grenade thrown at a squad behind a wall should just be assumed to go over it. No chance the guy throwing it may misjudge the distance or just have a bad throw? Since when did grenade throwing soldiers become infallible?

If it's a good throw and the game intends for the grenade to go over the wall then it should show the grenade going over the wall. I know for a fact I have seen grenades tossed over bocage so it's not like the game engine is incapable of showing a grenade flying over other objects.

[Rocky Balboa]

Would be interesting to know where the thrower was. A throw like that would be difficult to get it up and over the wall so that it lands close enough on the other side to KO the squad.

The closer the thrower is to the wall the easier it would be and the farther away he is the more likely it is that the grenade would sail over the wall and the heads of doggies. I would think the proper placement of that grenade would require more of an underhand lob rather than an overhand throw.

Of course timing the proper amount of cook off could have the grenade detonate over the heads of the poor sods as well. Is cook off even modeled? ... wait don't answer that ...

[c3k]

So any grenade thrown at a squad behind a wall should just be assumed to go over it. No chance the guy throwing it may misjudge the distance or just have a bad throw? Since when did grenade throwing soldiers become infallible?

If it's a good throw and the game intends for the grenade to go over the wall then it should show the grenade going over the wall. I know for a fact I have seen grenades tossed over bocage so it's not like the game engine is incapable of showing a grenade flying over other objects.

My bold: not really what I meant.

There are limits, obviously. My point was to only take a look at the issue from the opposite perspective. A cluster of men behind a wall within grenade range of the enemy SHOULD be in danger.

I suggest some tests. I've done some, well in the past, regarding the throwing range of German "stick" grenades vs. "pineapple" grenades. IRL, the stick grenades went further. Not so in-game.

This roll through the wall behavior is sub-optimal. Bounce off a wall would be more sub-optimal, no? That was my point...

[Vanir Ausf B]

I'm not sure how to test. We don't know where the thrower was in relation to the wall or how he even had LOS to the other side to know anyone was there. For that matter we don't know if that squad was even the intended target.

[Vinnart]

I'm not sure how to test. We don't know where the thrower was in relation to the wall or how he even had LOS to the other side to know anyone was there. For that matter we don't know if that squad was even the intended target.

The Thrower gets the grenade off right before getting killed. The grenade arcs up, and then down hitting the ground on the German side.

Here is the point of impact with the ground. From that point it bounces up a bit toward the wall, and goes through instead of bouncing off the wall as one would expect. The only other theory I can come up with is there must have been a second grenade thrower…. Perhaps hiding in the grassy knoll

There is no way this was going over the wall.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

That German grenade thrower has to have the longest neck I've ever seen!

Despite what the screenshots are showing, perhaps it represents the grenade being thrown through the gap in the wall and at the angle the thrower is at, the explosion could well be right in amongst the prone U.S. soldiers. i.e. where we see the end of the wall isn't really where it ends, but some distance further back towards the T junction of the 2 walls.

Regards

KR

[mjkerner]

The only other theory I can come up with is there must have been a second grenade thrower…. Perhaps hiding in the grassy knoll

That has to be it, since this guy is moving back and to the right...back and to the right

[Hister]

That has to be it, since this guy is moving back and to the right...back and to the right

Funny, he he.

In that case it's a bug - if it bounces of the ground and then goes through the wall.

[nik mond]

That has to be it, since this guy is moving back and to the right...back and to the right

Then the grenade must have been thrown by a second grenadier hidden on the grassy knoll.