Infantry Smoke Grenades

[JeffRaider]

Okay, I've got a question about infantry smoke grenades.

***DISCLAIMER***

I have read the manual and understand that the reason infantry smoke grenades are not modelled/included is because BTS could find little or no supporting evidence that they were used as anything other than signals.

Okay, here's the question(s):

Are infantry smoke grenades not a viable tool? Do they exist for any purpose other than signalling? Is the reason that they are not in the game because they were used only at the sub-squad level, for example, "Johnson, throw smoke to cover Smitty!", and as such be inappropriate and gamey for a game of CM's scale?

If you can muddle throught those rather stupidly-worded questions (it's very late where I am), thanks!

[Bruno Weiss]

There was a discussion a while back on this. Do a search for the topic. I believe I remember BTS saying (but I don't want to misquote), that the evidence they had did not support the idea that squad level smoke was used extensively in combat situations. Something on that order anyway.

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"Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses

open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth."

-Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916)

[IPA]

BTS' stand is clear and unshakeable, in that their "research shows little credible evidence that this type of smoke (grenades)was used at the squad level in WWII for anything beyond signalling purposes" (page 99 CMBO manual). I also understand that BTS wanted to avoid the instant smoke popping tactics akin to games like Steel Panthers.

IMHO I don't agree, but neither do I have the "evidence" to contend their stand. I do however have many sources to support that(SG) they were carried as a fairly standard piece of kit, if not always at squad level, most certainly by the platoon HQs. Anyway, perhaps there's no use in flogging that dead horse again.

So OT (appologies to JeffRaider) here's one more alternative for their use other than signalling. I'd be grateful for feedback from the grogs enforcing or refuting this one.

Quote:

"The main purpose of a smoke grenade was an anti-tank weapon, and the tactic was to generate dense clouds of white smoke in order to force out the crew of an armoured vehicle" from "Remember Arnhem" by John Fairley (He served with the Reconnaisance Corps during WWII).

Thanks

IPA

[This message has been edited by IPA (edited 12-10-2000).]

[tss]

IPA wrote:

So OT (appologies to JeffRaider) here's one more alternative for their use other than signalling. I'd be grateful for feedback from the grogs enforcing or refuting this one.

Quote:

"The main purpose of a smoke grenade was an anti-tank weapon, and the tactic was to generate dense clouds of white smoke in order to force out the crew of an armoured vehicle" from "Remember Arnhem" by John Fairley

Yes, that did happen. One example (that I've already posted here) happened at Portinhoikka 26 June 1944 when men of the heavy tank company of the Finnish Armored Division smoked out the crew of an immobilized ISU-152.

However, only crews of immobilized tanks can be forced out since a mobile tank will simply drive away.

Also, at least here in Finland close-defence AT men used smoke grenades to momentarily blind mobile tanks so that men with demolition charges and Molotoc coctails could close in.

- Tommi

[JeffRaider]

I wasn't questioning BTS, I was just curious about other uses.

[Formerly Babra]

I've started cataloguing recorded instances of smoke and WP being used by infantry. Hardly enough yet to justify their inclusion, but interesting.

------------------

Years have passed and I keep thinking what a fool I've been;

I look back into the past and think of way back then;

I know that I lost everything I thought that I could win;

I guess I should have listened to my friends

All the burning bridges that have fallen after me;

All the lonely feelings and the burning memories;

Everyone I left behind each time I closed the door;

Burning bridges lost forever more

[Los]

Since I did the bulk of the historical research in this area (just call me Mister Smoke) for CM1 and 2 I'll tell you this.

There is not enough evidence to justify their inclusion in a broad-based manner across all squads in CM1. I researched the ever living hell out of this. There's not much to go on, primarily, IMO, because it just isn't something people wrote much about. Remember for something like this to be included in CM we would have needed enough evidence that it was used on a regualr basis, (Even Rifle grenades only made it in at the last minute.) Plus we would have needed to create a new menu item for them to be used effectively. Without number one, the effort for number two isn't justified.

Yes if you talk to any *infantry* vet from the western front period, (And we talked to few) he could remember the odd instance where some guy through a smoke grenade to get out of trouble, but it wasn't something that they did ALL the time, (like today) which justifies inclusion.

However millions of masking type smoke grenades were manufactured and used. There is plenty of occurances where they were used in specialist scenaios like deliberate assaults on fortifications, tank killing, and what not. (Cm1 design philosophy was not particularly geared to address these situations competely) Our research on the Eastrn Front is turning up near SOP-type usage of the things for events such as bunker assaults and tank hunting. But these have to be figured in somehow and we are mulling over that. (i.e. perhaps a pioneer capability?) The German Army Handbook and other primary source material, unavailable at the time of CM, (written by the Western Allies in 1945) cleary documents their used on a regular basis by the Germans and interviews with Soviets vets Valera has been doing for us confirms this.

So anyway, some form of a CM2 capability for at least some unit type remains an open issue.

Hope that helps.

Los

[Guest Napoleon1944]

It seems with the new patch that smoke is used more frequently. I thought they might have added it into the game.

[Olle Petersson]

I thought smoke grenades were used by the infantry to cover a retreat, and would be great to use in CM as part of the "withdraw" command. (Pop smoke and bug out, this would reduce the casualties taken in such situations.)

Cheers

Olle

[Samhain]

It's funny, but watching The Longest Day again yesterday, they showed an instance of using a smoke gren for cover at the squad level--then again, a movie like that is hardly historical data

What I don't understand is why something had to be used extensively to be included in CM. If it was used at all and wouldn't create excessive extra work for the CM team or inbalance the game, why not include it for the many players who enjoy hypothetical tactics and scenarios? I know people have raised this same point--and rightly--about obscure vehicles like the Sturmtiger and so forth. If the players want something (like running MG teams under certain circumstances), why not listen to them if an alteration or addition won't harm the overall game balance? Those who want to re-enact history strictly can of course refrain from using certain items and tactics, and the rest of us can have fun with them.

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Hope you got your things together,

Hope you are quite prepared to die. --CCR

[Dr. Brian]

Re: Extensive Research....

A topic I may now a little something about....

Many times throughout history, something that is widely used, doesn't "make print."

Instead, look at the production records for smoke grenades. If millions and millions were produced here in the U.S., then either two things occured:

1) They were used extensively, since there are no stockpiles of smoke grenades in the US or overseas;, or

2) There is a gargantuan factory somewhere in this world, with about a billion smoke grenades inside.

In effect, if a lot were made, most likely, they were used, and more than just signalling.

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Doc

God Bless Chesty Puller, Wherever He Is!

[Terence]

Is it possible that millions and millions of them were used for signalling?

Of that maybe they were used for other stuff, the way troops in vietnam used burning c-4 to heat their rations...

[IPA]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Los:

Since I did the bulk of the historical research in this area (just call me Mister Smoke) for CM1 and 2 I'll tell you this.

There is not enough evidence to justify their inclusion in a broad-based manner across all squads in CM1. I researched the ever living hell out of this. There's not much to go on, primarily, IMO, because it just isn't something people wrote much about. Remember for something like this to be included in CM we would have needed enough evidence that it was used on a regualr basis, (Even Rifle grenades only made it in at the last minute.) Plus we would have needed to create a new menu item for them to be used effectively. Without number one, the effort for number two isn't justified.

Yes if you talk to any *infantry* vet from the western front period, (And we talked to few) he could remember the odd instance where some guy through a smoke grenade to get out of trouble, but it wasn't something that they did ALL the time, (like today) which justifies inclusion.

However millions of masking type smoke grenades were manufactured and used. There is plenty of occurances where they were used in specialist scenaios like deliberate assaults on fortifications, tank killing, and what not. (Cm1 design philosophy was not particularly geared to address these situations competely) Our research on the Eastrn Front is turning up near SOP-type usage of the things for events such as bunker assaults and tank hunting. But these have to be figured in somehow and we are mulling over that. (i.e. perhaps a pioneer capability?) The German Army Handbook and other primary source material, unavailable at the time of CM, (written by the Western Allies in 1945) cleary documents their used on a regular basis by the Germans and interviews with Soviets vets Valera has been doing for us confirms this.

So anyway, some form of a CM2 capability for at least some unit type remains an open issue.

Hope that helps.

Los<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks Los for taking the time to give us info on the rationale, even though this topic has been debated several times. IMHO the smoke function should not be commonly available to all infantry units, but to the HQs units only, in order to limit the pop smoke fest situation whilst retaining a limited capability.

IPA

[Dr. Brian]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by IPA:

IMHO the smoke function should not be commonly available to all infantry units, but to the HQs units only,

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, I'd agree to that to an extent. Engineers had tons of smoke in their OB, I'm sure. They would be the first to use it. Working down the line though, as troop experience and quality decreased, I'm sure their ability, or willingness, to use it decreased as well. Conscripts wouldn't throw smoke... probably wouldn't know how!

The "west" used more smoke that the axis, and, I recall seeing numbers, and this is going to blow you pants off... the Soviet Red Army used the most smoke of any nation!

However, I must admit, the number was smoke delivered by artillery, which they had a lot of too.

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Doc

God Bless Chesty Puller, Wherever He Is!

[Subvet]

I think engineer units should have a limited smoke capability. If this is too much work to add though, then I can understand not doing so.

[patboivin]

Smoke at the squad level was available in ASL, for some squads.

Where did they get the idea to put that in the game? Did they do their own research?

Why did some squads have smoke capability (however unlikely, sometimes you had to be really lucky to be able to use it), and others not?

[dalem]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by patboivin:

Smoke at the squad level was available in ASL, for some squads.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

They F-ed up, in my opinion. I've played tons of ASl (still do) but I've always hated the infantry smoke rules. Too much of it and too easy to use. And most importantly, as LOS pointed out before, no real convincing evidence for infantry smoke grenades being used for tactical combat on a regular basis.

-dale

[Pak40]

Quoted from page 554(hardback), chapter 30, in Ambrose's D-Day:

Porteous lost nearly a quarter of his men getting over the seawall, either to mined obstacles, mortar fire, or machine-gun fire coming from a pillbox to his left. "We got off that beach as fst as we could. We put down smoke grenades which gaves us quite a bit of cover to get across the beach. The pillbox was protected by concrete and they were safe as could be but the smoke let us get over the beach."

[Olle Petersson]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dr. Brian:

Engineers had tons of smoke in their OB, I'm sure. They would be the first to use it. ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>AFAIK, the engineers had tons of smoke generators, to produce huge, long lasting smoke screens.

A US smoke generator weighted about a ton and was transported on a truck.

Cheers

Olle

[Subvet]

This is way off topic so forgive me. All this talk obout smoke grenades brought back a funny memory. I used to play paintball alot back in the late 80's. We often used smoke grenades during paintball games. It was now in the early 90's and I was in the Navy. I had a leftover smoke grenade that I had never used during my paintball days. During a 4th of July party that my division was holding I remembered this smoke grenade. There was a guy in our division that brought his brand new truck to the party. He was quite proud of it and was showing it off to everyone. When he wasn't looking I snuck over to his truck and threw the smoke grenade under the front of it, and ran back to the group. I suddenly yelled that his truck was on fire. The guy ran over in a complete panic. I had let most of the guys in on the joke before hand, so everyone was laughing their ass off watching this guy react. He was quite pissed off when he figured out that he was the butt of my joke, but in the end he realized there was no harm done and he could even almost laugh about it.

[Jeff Duquette]

A quick reveiw of FM 17-36 (the March 1944 version of War Department

field manual "Employment of Tanks with Infantry") indicates that -- at least from a Doctrinal perspective -- US ARMY Infantry should employ smoke grenades for screening tactical movement. I suspect if I were to get hold of the 1943-44 version of FM 7-8 or FM 7-10 the use of smoke grenades will be elaborated upon even further.

Cracked open my copy of the training Manual for "The German Squad in Combat"

a reprint of the German Armies 1943 manual of German squad level tactics,

and it indicates that the typical combat load of all Schutzen

(Riflemen 4 through 9 of the squad) was to include smoke grenades. Why

would typical combat loads include smoke grenades if they werent being

employed for screening movement?

In Alex Buchners German Infantry handbook, smoke is apart of the recommended tactic for close assault (presumably for attacking bunkers),the four man team would consist of:

Troop Leader; MP-40[later 44] with Magnetic mine 2 handgrenades 2x twin smoke grenades

Blinder ; pistol plus smoke bombs ,two hand grenades ,two twin smoke grenades.

Destroyer; pistol smoke bombs 1 magnetic charge 1 x T-mine with anchor hooks [ 1 x 3kg concentric charge -teller?]with detonator and three detonators & 2 handgrenades.

Securer. Rifle , 1 magnetic charge,1x T-mine with anchor hooks ,with detonator and three detonators & 2 handgrenades .

pg 70-71.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Hi there,

Los has pretty much summed it up. However, I did want to address a couple of points:

Dr. Brian wrote:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If millions and millions were produced here in the U.S., then either two things occured:<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, there is a third. And that production numbers of consumables is not a good indication of how many were used in combat. Smoke grenades were consumed in the following ways (that I can think of):

1. Training - huge numbers would have been used in training. I mean HUGE.

2. Combat - obviously, many would have been actively used in combat. We don't question this. The question is how, in what circumstances, and to what extent. That is where the debate is.

3. Theater preference - it is likely that something like smoke grenades were used more in the PTO than the ETO.

4. Loss - not everyting made is actually delivered to front line troops. Some is lost in transit (sunk, stolen, sold, misplaced, etc.) And even if they do make it there, how many were lost before they were used?

5. Stockpiling - The US ended the war with warehouses, in the US and everywhere their armed forces went, full to the brim with all sorts of stuff. Huge quantities of material was never used. Everything from socks to trucks. The smaller and the more consumable the item is, the more likely it was to be stockpiled. Hell, we US taxpayers are STILL footing the bill for this stuff. There are warehouses full to the brim of WWII stuff. I know, because fresh batches come out onto the collectors market all the time (that and a 60 Minutes show covered this waste of money ).

6. Infrastructure problems - this was more peculiar to Germany and Japan. They produced lots of stuff that never left the factories. Heck, it is estimated that only ONE THIRD of the 400k Sturmgewehr 44 rifles were actually delivered to troops. So just because it is made, and critical, doesn't mean it was in fact used.

Jeff wrote:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>US ARMY Infantry should employ smoke grenades for screening tactical movement.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

True. It is also in the German Infantry Squad Handbook to pump all available firepower into any smoke grenade's "cover" on the assumption that someone would be up to something. And with the MG34/42 this would be devistating. So picture a fresh squad in a platoon trying this once and getting wiped out. This would most likely cause other grunts/leaders to be a little bit more picky about when they used it.

The bottomline is that we decided it would be better to err on the side of under use than over use. I think most veteran wargamers would agree that other games have erred in the other direction and that it "feels wrong".

As Los said... we are looking at this again for CM2.

Steve

[This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 12-13-2000).]

[Jeff Duquette]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>So picture a fresh squad in a platoon trying this once and getting wiped out. This would most likely cause other grunts/leaders to be a little bit more picky about when they used it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Speculation

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

Speculation<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As is your implicit assumption (forgive me if I understood it incorrectly) that just because it is in the FM, the soldiers would actually use it. Doubler shows quite well how the doctrine was adapted when that was necessary, i.e. after somebody f'ed up following doctrine in the first place. AFAIK this was never documented as clearly until he came along, so why should it not be possible that the same thing happened with smoke usage. Doctrine says use it, you follow it once, your squad gets ripped apart, you never do it again and instruct all comers to this end. Never gets documented anywhere. BTW, I do not agree with Doubler's conclusion (I really like his analysis though) that US doctrine was shown to be sound and that all the adaptations were just minor issues. After reading the evidence he presented I concluded exactly the opposite. I guess him being an officer had something to do with his conclusion.

Another possibility what happened to all those smoke grenades is that they were sent to the Soviet Union.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 12-13-2000).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

Jeff wrote:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Speculation<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes. Informed and reasoned speculation, but speculation none-the less. Historians often have little more than this after even the most extensive research. Doesn't mean we LIKE to speculate, but we also take it for granted that it has a rightful place in historical documentation of events when used wisely and soundly in concert with all known "facts".

However, Andreas is also correct. Your assumption that since it is in the FM that it was regullarly practiced is also "speculation", especially because there is little accounting of such wide spread use in veteran's reports. While the LACK of reporting does not prove the tactic wasn't used regullarly, the LACK of widespread mention raises questions that would otherwise not be asked if it were mentioned regullarly.

IIRC, Doubler basically showed that US Army FM persrcibed doctrine for attacking fixed fortifications and river crossings was tossed out the window. But now, 56 years later, if you picked up one of those FMs you would be mislead if you believed that those tactics were used regullarly AND were proved successfull.

As Los said... he researched the Hell out of it. It would appear that smoke grenades, used as a squad level screening tactic, was not done nearly as regullarly as the FMs and post war use would have us think. That it was sometimes used for this role is not questioned, but the regular use of it is.

And that is why we decided to err on the side of NOT including this capability for squads. Because if we did include this capability we feel that, on balance, CM would be LESS realistic as a result.

Steve