Throwing grenades over a wall ...How ??

[LRC]

OK, private Smith knows that the full wehrmacht is hiding behind this city wall. How can I instruct him to throw a few grenades above this wall ??

 

[hobo]

For starters, tell him not to stand up and throw it like a baseball.  If he is impressed in to the front lines from the stenographers pool, I would not suggest he even try it as they do have a nasty habit of bouncing back if the throw is short.  Other than that, tell him to attack the krauts and let him figure it out.

[weapon2010]

you cant, but you should be able to just like popping smoke

[RockinHarry]

Don´t bother with frags. Take a satchel charge and blast the wall with the Wehrmacht behind instead.  Never go out hunting, without at least 1-2 breach teams in your force, the more if it´s MOUT.

[RockinHarry]

Made a quick test and figured you can actually get frags thrown over a high wall by simple use of short range (~10m) area fire beyond a wall. You´ll either receive a blue or grey targeting line, indicating that as long a unit has a weapon able to reach over a wall (grenades!) it will use them, although the unit can´t actually see the area beyond a wall. The targeting units soldiers attempt to area fire with rifles and such, but can´t and short range area fire game mechanic cyles through available weapons until a grenade is selected and then thrown. That means you can´t start a full volley of grenades, but need to wait til the game picks a random grenade throw from the area target cycle. Didn´t know it is possible until I just made this particular test.  

Edit: Made another test, this time with a full german squad and a HQ section at the wall. Area fire beyond the wall got these throwing 8 grenades over the wall in 30 seconds and another 4 til the turn ended. The US teams just beyond the wall, were all killed during this 1 minute turn this way and my little test mission ended prematurely. My first test was just with a scout and breach team, but already showed it works, although with far less grenades thrown over the wall.

Edited September 28, 2015 by RockinHarry

[Sublime]

Whoooa thats reaaally interesting and will definitely help me. You.re referring of course to the very tall walls the men cant see over and a tank can even hide behind? ( guessing from parts of your post it seems obvious but wanna be sure )

[RockinHarry]

While at the topic, I´ve made a couple more findings related to area fire and walls maybe not known to everybody yet:

Area firing "at" a wall from within grenade range (30m), enables some expedient wall breaching (high brick wall tested), although the target line sticks not at the wall itself, but in the same AS. The infantry squad (german one tested with stick grenades) expends a whole lot of ammo overall, but at last about half a dozen grenades made the breach. Bits of self suppression occured as well, but no injuries.

Bouncing shots at walls to suppress and kill enemy troopers otherwise not targetable by direct fire. Area fire directed in flat angles (150-180°, incoming + outgoing angle) at a wall enables this, although ammo expenditure will be high again.

Grenades can be thrown into a building by area fire as well, if the attacker is directly at the building (<= 1 AS). You can aim area fire that includes grenades upto 3rd or 4th story, although the area where grenades land are a bit random and it could even happen that a grenade might pass through a building and explode at the backside. Appears to work more reliably (with grenades) from 1st to 2nd story of a building. Door and window configurations of a particular building might have an effect, but that´s hard to evaluate, as area fire covers always more of the targeted AS, even if one can select a particular story of a building.

 

[RockinHarry]

Whoooa thats reaaally interesting and will definitely help me. You.re referring of course to the very tall walls the men cant see over and a tank can even hide behind? ( guessing from parts of your post it seems obvious but wanna be sure )

Yes, but so far I only tested with high brick walls type. Now need to test with other nations, particularly with grenade blast effects vs. walls. I do not expect any difference between german stick and allied pineapple type grenades though. We´ll see.

[MOS:96B2P]

Made a quick test and figured you can actually get frags thrown over a high wall by simple use of short range (~10m) area fire beyond a wall. You´ll either receive a blue or grey targeting line, indicating that as long a unit has a weapon able to reach over a wall (grenades!) it will use them, although the unit can´t actually see the area beyond a wall.  <Snip>

Rock,

Interesting information.  Thanks for sharing this. 

<Snip> Area firing "at" a wall from within grenade range (30m), enables some expedient wall breaching (high brick wall tested), although the target line sticks not at the wall itself, but in the same AS. <Snip>

Grenades can be thrown into a building by area fire as well, if the attacker is directly at the building (<= 1 AS). You can aim area fire that includes grenades upto 3rd or 4th story, <Snip>

Also, IIRC, using the AT team split from a squad can get you an expedient wall breech from a longer (safer) stand off distance with a zook or schreck.

It is part of my TACSOP to throw grenades into the 1st floor during a dynamic entry.  I did not realize they could also be thrown up to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th story.  I wonder if you need to be concerned with bounce back.  It would be just my luck, the grenade bounces off the second story wall and lands in the center of one of my fire teams ................     

[Sublime]

ya tell me about it MOS. Speaking of lousy luck whats up with our games ? =p

seriously thanks Rockin good find n work

[A Canadian Cat]

Nice information there @RockinHarry I had no idea an infantry squad could breach a wall. Sounds fairly expensive but still useful to know.  

I wonder if you need to be concerned with bounce back.  It would be just my luck, the grenade bounces off the second story wall and lands in the center of one of my fire teams ................     

Well *if* it bounces back it will be bad for your men.  I am not sure if that can happen or not.  What I *know* can happen is if the guy about to throw a grenade is hit he will drop the grenade and his squad mates will not be happy.

[RockinHarry]

Rock,

Interesting information.  Thanks for sharing this. 

Also, IIRC, using the AT team split from a squad can get you an expedient wall breech from a longer (safer) stand off distance with a zook or schreck.

It is part of my TACSOP to throw grenades into the 1st floor during a dynamic entry.  I did not realize they could also be thrown up to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th story.  I wonder if you need to be concerned with bounce back.  It would be just my luck, the grenade bounces off the second story wall and lands in the center of one of my fire teams ................     

Yap, although it takes a couple of hits on a wall to make the breach with zooks. But it´s better than wasting ammo loads of everything in an infantry squads arsenal to make such a breach. From my testing it appears germans have slight a bit of an advantage with the offensive type stick grenades to breach walls. Hard to tell, as there could also be some net effect involved, where all that lead put on a wall could add to the damage.

You could aim the area fire high on a building, but the higher you aim, the more there is a random distributuion of fire on the vertical axis of the building as well. No bounce back for grenades seen so far. It´s a rough method and I wouldn´t likely try to area fire and want grenades used on stories higher than 2.

[Bulletpoint]

I wonder if you need to be concerned with bounce back.  It would be just my luck, the grenade bounces off the second story wall and lands in the center of one of my fire teams ................     

In this game, hand grenades cannot cause friendly casualties.

[Baneman]

In this game, hand grenades cannot cause friendly casualties.

Er... disagree.

Many of us have lost squadmembers to dropped grenades.

[womble]

Yeah, there's a point where they count as "thrown" and after that they won't cause casualties to the element that threw them. If they get shot while winding up for the throw, or the grenade lands in among another element, friendly casualties are likely.

Good detective work with the blind chucking and "expedient" mouseholing, RockinHarry.

 

[Bulletpoint]

Er... disagree.

Many of us have lost squadmembers to dropped grenades.

I stand corrected, then. Never saw this happen, myself. Maybe I just always assumed any unusual explosions must have been enemy grenades.

However it seems that my point stands for grenades once they are thrown, so grenades can't bounce back from a wall and hurt your troops at least.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Bulletpoint

[Baneman]

....

However it seems that my point stands for grenades once they are thrown, so grenades can't bounce back from a wall and hurt your troops at least.

Hmmm, I'm going to have to try that - I am certain I have lost men to a grenade bounceback from a bocage hedge - but that was a looong time ago, so probably pre-version 3 ( probably even pre-version 2 )

[womble]

You can certainly lose team members to other teams' grenades. So if the neighbouring assault team pings one off a tree trunk and it lands at your feet, you're in trouble.

[Bulletpoint]

You can certainly lose team members to other teams' grenades. So if the neighbouring assault team pings one off a tree trunk and it lands at your feet, you're in trouble.

That's interesting, especially in forest. I often end up with many small teams trying to leapfrog carefully, and if they can kill each other with grenades... well it might be better to keep them as one squad then, instead of splitting them.

[RockinHarry]

Here´s that mini CMBN scenario file I used for testing all the reported stuff from today (play any side): https://www.dropbox.com/s/2lrzzn8kddbqleu/!0Grenade-Wall Test.btt?dl=0

Best results with hand grenades vs. walls & buildings can be achieved generally, if the attacking infantry is either directly positioned at the wall, or 2 AS away, when targeting area fire. I usually area fire directly at the wall geometry (for wall breaching), or in case of buildings, at a window of a particular story, from ground view (1 - key). Area fire across walls works best in birdseye view. The game then selects an appropiate AS which sometimes looks odd, but at last gets the grenades fly where you want. A normal infantry squad will burn about 50-70 % of it´s grenades for this purpose, mostly in a single turn, so you can do this mostly just once in a game, when the squad still has its full load. After that and with what is left of the grenades, the game then uses these sparingly.

I wonder if we have this particular area fire feature since long time, or if this was added since V3.x maybe?  

[Bulletpoint]

Question: Will troops throw grenades using Target Light?

Because when I send in an assault team, I don't want the leader to area fire with his SMG, to save ammo, and also to keep it ready for if any enemy pops up. Nothing worse than charging in and then having the leader stop to reload and get shot by a pistol.

[Bil Hardenberger]

Yes, Harry's method works well, also great for tossing grenades over a ridgeline... I have used it many times for that, one opponent sent me an email wondering what I was firing on his team with and from where.  

I outlined the procedure (loosely) in my Platoon Scouts Blog post (look for the Cresting a Rise section).

Edited September 28, 2015 by Bil Hardenberger

[RockinHarry]

Yes, Harry's method works well, also great for tossing grenades over a ridgeline... I have used it many times for that, one opponent sent me an email wondering what I was firing on his team with and from where.  

I outlined the procedure (loosely) in my Platoon Scouts Blog post (look for the Cresting a Rise section).

 

Thanks, Bil! Nice variation of the grenade throwing variant across obstacles. Got to try that! Reminds me of some battle action written in:

Block by Block: The Challenges of Urban Operations, from CGSC Press

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/BlockByBlock_TheChallengesOfUrbanOperations.pdf

"On 13 October the reduction of Aachen began, with the two battalions moving out in simultaneous but separate attacks. The first obstacle that confronted the 2/26 was a railroad embankment, fifteen to thirty feet high, that ran from southwest to northeast along the battalion front. Three artillery battalions delivered a 23-minute preparatory fire on the far side of the embankment, followed by a “grenade barrage,” in which every man of the two lead companies tossed grenades over the obstacle. At 0930 the troops clambered over the embankment, only to find that the area behind was undefended."

Nice to figure out that some these actions are basically possible in CMX2, which speaks for the game engine!

Excellent Blog, btw.

Edited September 29, 2015 by RockinHarry
link added

[RockinHarry]

I got the situation above (battle of Aachen) nicely recreated. So hand grenade salvoes across railroad embankments are doable, although not in quite so spectacular fashion as in the battle action example. (Another battle account mentiones about 1000 men doing that hand grenade salvoe simultaneously across the length of the embankment). Neat.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

Squads tend to decide for themselves when to lob grenades. They tend to do it when storming positions, often when on an Assault order.