Grenade Reluctance

[zmoney]

While giving a temporary target command within 30 meters the Germans seem reluctant to throw grenades. I am currently playing the first mission in the broken shield campaign. 
 

First instance, German assault team in cover from the woods given a temp target order to a building 20 meters away. No nades thrown. Second instance, entire squad in a building temp target a different building 25 meters away. No nades thrown. Third instance, Plt HQ in the woods temp target given 28 meters away in the woods. No nades or shooting in this instance.

 

This could be chalked up to a bad roll of the dice but in other titles grenade usage seems to flow like the Nile. Possible bug but want other’s opinions and I will do more testing before reporting.

[chuckdyke]

28 minutes ago, zmoney said:

This could be chalked up to a bad roll of the dice but in other titles grenade usage seems to flow like the Nile.

You need to provide screenshots. When you peel off an assault team typically 3 men from the section, they will have most of the grenades and will throw them. On top of that you keep an eye out on morale and experience. 

[Sgt Joch]

75-100 feet is pretty far to throw a grenade. Pick a target within 10 meters and you will see them throw a lot.

[AlexUK]

I still wish we had a specific throw grenades command. It is so frustrating to watch hardly any grenades get chucked while the smg blasts off his magazine, then has near empty mag for the attack. From films, admittedly, but it seems very common practice for grenades to get thrown en masse before a prepared close assault. 

 

My idea would be equivalent to throw smoke command for infantry.

Edited May 11, 2021 by AlexUK

[Kraft]

19 minutes ago, AlexUK said:

I still wish we had a specific throw grenades command.

That would be great, it always bugs me when that 2 man squad with 13 Grenades wastes 2/3 Magazines and refuses to throw some grenades unless you direct assault a tank.

[Sgt Joch]

I was playing a campaign in FI a few months back (latest version), Operation Encore, scenarios are at night or in forest so enemy troops were often discovered at very close range, often 10 meters or less, my U.S. pixeltruppens whether given an attack order or acting on their own would throw lots of grenades to great effect, so your pixeltruppens will use grenades when the time is right.

[AlexUK]

14 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

I was playing a campaign in FI a few months back (latest version), Operation Encore, scenarios are at night or in forest so enemy troops were often discovered at very close range, often 10 meters or less, my U.S. pixeltruppens whether given an attack order or acting on their own would throw lots of grenades to great effect, so your pixeltruppens will use grenades when the time is right.

Not sure about that. I'm talking more a out yhe common situation where there is no direct line of sight to the assault position, e.g. (small) reverse slope.

I very distinctly remember (an excellent @Bulletpoint scenario - Pierrefitte en Cinglais), a foxhole just over a very small bump. I got slaughtered because smg fired off and almost no grenades. Team then ran up to top of slope and the enemy team were ready and waiting. gunned down, pinned, panic, more casualties. Rinse and repeat.... 

 

If they had thrown a few grenades and had the close assault weapon ready to go it would have been a very different outcome. 

1 hour ago, AlexUK said:

I still wish we had a specific throw grenades command. It is so frustrating to watch hardly any grenades get chucked while the smg blasts off his magazine, then has near empty mag for the attack. From films, admittedly, but it seems very common practice for grenades to get thrown en masse before a prepared close assault. 

 

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, AlexUK said:

I still wish we had a specific throw grenades command.

I find success comes when you leave the initiative to the TacAI. Peel off assault team morale ok experience regular or better, fitness ready or rested. 10 to 15 meters for foxholes or adjacent to buildings. Play against yourself on hotseat difficulty basic training to test and experiment. 

[zmoney]

2 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

I was playing FI my troops would throw lots of grenades to great effect

This was kinda my point. In other games I use the same commands and my troops launch away like they are playing hot potato. I believe it is an RT specific problem.

 

I too wish there was a grenade specific command. I would also like to see an option for vehicles to fire different rounds like there is for fire smoke, fire HE, Heat, AP, missile or machine gun etc....

 

RT-FR is in my opinion (yes I spelled that out cause I’m an adult) one of the best BFC releases but with a few odd game specific bugs if this nade thing ends up being a bug. Such as I would provide a save to show my issue but alas the save bug has eaten my file  

Edited May 11, 2021 by zmoney

[benpark]

There shouldn't be any reason the code is different from the other games, in that regard.

A new command suggestion I'd submit for this (knowing there are many ahead of it) would work as follows -

Proposed new order - "Seize" command.

Order is plotted like a Blast command.

-Unit moves to wall.

-Upon reaching wall side of order, throws (if available) 1 satchel charge OR 2 grenades

-Short Pause

-Unit Assaults to location of order end (further Target commands could be strung to this, as usual for covering fire)

 

 

[AlexUK]

 

2 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

I find success comes when you leave the initiative to the TacAI. Peel off assault team morale ok experience regular or better, fitness ready or rested. 10 to 15 meters for foxholes or adjacent to buildings. Play against yourself on hotseat difficulty basic training to test and experiment. 

Where they can see the enemy I don't really have an issue. 

The issue I have is where they don't see the enemy, as in my example, where a slight fold in the ground hides direct line of sight. 

[AlexUK]

10 minutes ago, benpark said:

There shouldn't be any reason the code is different from the other games, in that regard.

A new command suggestion I'd submit for this (knowing there are many ahead of it) would work as follows -

Proposed new order - "Seize" command.

Order is plotted like a Blast command.

-Unit moves to wall.

-Upon reaching wall side of order, throws (if available) 1 satchel charge OR 2 grenades

-Short Pause

-Unit Assaults to location of order end (further Target commands could be strung to this, as usual for covering fire)

 

 

Interesting. How would that work where there is no wall? I. E. my example of effectively reverse slope. The other issue I guess is how would length of blast order work in this scenario? Presumably need to close to grenade throwing range. So if issue blast order greater than say 30 metres away, troops would run to 30 metres distant (or wall/side of building into which grenades are to be thrown) ? 

[benpark]

That suggestion would be more a proposal for an order system for securing structures, dealing with enemies in bunkers, or behind hedges - which seems to be where most of the desired behavior would happen.

If that isn't the going concern, an explicit "toss explosives" seems the option.

This is the domain of the TacAI, and they do utilize their explosives (in close range) - which is probably part of why this hasn't been an explicit order. The AI also utilizes most every behavior the player can, so that would be an area it would need to be "taught" to utilize reasonably.

We tend to control a lot in CM, but leave this (and a few other behaviors) up to the TacAI - it may be worth a suggestion, but what behaviors exactly to suggest (that don't upend the entire apple cart) is the question to ponder.

[chuckdyke]

8 hours ago, AlexUK said:

Where they can see the enemy I don't really have an issue. 

Unfortunately, my screenshot didn't process my line of fire. To let you assault team plot their hand grenades indirectly you plot a line of fire. You will see their line of fire turn grey. This is what you want as the only weapon they can use is their hand grenades. I drew a grey line in my photo processing software. Take my word on the screen it turned grey.

[zmoney]

Grey just means that only part of your formation can see what you’re aiming at. 
 

How many meters away are your troops there?

[RockinHarry]

With regard to grenade throwing I found CMRT is no different than the other games. Key thing is mentioned grey targeting line, although that doesn´t mean the required "stick" to target action spot (center of it I guess) gives desired range (<= 30m). Also grenade throwing works best if a squad still has its full load available (15 for germans). AI becomes very hesitant throwing grenades if at least half of them are used up already. At least it´s so when doing the indirect targeting thing. So generally no problem targeting behind (high) walls or crests with the grey targeting line method. Another interesting use for indirect targeting behind high walls is actually breaching them. If one aims diagonally and very shallow angle, chances are high that most the grenades hit the wall or very close to it. Takes about 8 to 10 grenades to create a breach this way. Usually within 1-2 game minutes. Handy way if there´s no breach team available.

Targeting a building (with grenades used) seems working best if firing unit is deployed directly at the building. If the firing unit is more than 1 action spot away, then it works not so good or not at all. Also in case a german squad has a rifle grenade guy, then this one seems prefered for grenade lobbing. So getting this guy out of the squad by splitting the squad and then just use assault team for grenade throwing instead, seems working better.

Another nice variation lobbing grenades at buildings is when there´s a high wall between a unit and to be targeted building. Here again comes the grey targeting line method and one can do short range grenade lobbing at the building directly.

For AI implementation I could image the "target briefly" command be possibly suited best. With this command and when range <= 30m, the AI then could be encouraged to start a very effective grenade volley at target action spot. Command sequence then could be like: Approach to grenade range (<= 3 AS) with any the available move orders, "target briefly" (grenade throwing sequence) at desired target AS (<=30m), then after 15sec followed by any other move order for assaulting the position. Think the AIP could be taught that method as well. Influencing factors as usual would be training and leader ratings, suppression etc.

[chuckdyke]

6 minutes ago, zmoney said:

Grey just means that only part of your formation can see what you’re aiming at. 
 

How many meters away are your troops there?

First thank you for your comment. Unless they have X-Ray eyes, I can't see how they see through the shed and beyond the little wall. I try here to be of assistance of @zmoney of how to throw grenades indirectly. I play at present Seelow in F&R; I had already secured the position. Conditions to throw grenades: the team needs to have grenades; this assault team has 14. When a squad comes close to the objective, I split them up. Assault and Support. Morale needs to be OK (Nervous people do silly things with grenades). They need to be trained (Regular or Up). I have used this method for the last five years at least. LOS and LOF are two different things. When you plot a LOF it means Line of Fire it shows what you can hit. LOS means what you can see. Sometimes you have LOS but you can't hit and sometimes you have LOF, but you can't see. Try to put a 60mm mortar just behind a crest it can plot an LOF to an MG42 but the MG42 can't fire back. Not sucking out of my thumb but tactics I use. @RockinHarry your comment, I read it and appreciate it. 

[chuckdyke]

For illustration purposes the Panther can't see inside the building he can certainly plot a fire mission inside it. It works when you can fire at the 2nd floor but the AI gives you a No-LOS. I go inside the building and plot an LOF. 

[Bulletpoint]

22 hours ago, zmoney said:

First instance, German assault team in cover from the woods given a temp target order to a building 20 meters away. No nades thrown. Second instance, entire squad in a building temp target a different building 25 meters away. No nades thrown.

I think the issue here is that they won't throw grenades at buildings in general unless the throw team is very close (in a square adjactent to the building basically). This means they have to be up against the wall themselves, or if there's a low wall in the adjacent square, they can also throw from there.

23 hours ago, zmoney said:

Third instance, Plt HQ in the woods temp target given 28 meters away in the woods. No nades or shooting in this instance.

If I recall, the max range for a grenade throw is 30m. If you plot a target order 28m, that order is calculated from the centre of the squad, but individual troopers can be farther away than that.

In general, what seems to determine the amount of grenades thrown is the amount of grenades carried. The more they carry, the more likely they are to throw them.

I agree the entire grenade throwing / assaulting / infantry game could do with some improvements.

[JoMac]

And here I'm complaining that Squads thrown Nades way too often...I think 1x Nade per FIreteam per turn would be more appropriate. 

[LukeFF]

7 hours ago, JoMac said:

I think 1x Nade per FIreteam per turn would be more appropriate. 

What? That is far, far too low.

[chuckdyke]

Here is one for down the road, durchkammen is the German word for clearing urban terrain. Literally combing through and you need grenades lots of them. Just plot a LOF in which the only thing what can hit is a grenade. Red or grey doesn't make a difference.