BTS & troops:Modeling hand grenades in CM,CMBB, etc.

[John Kettler]

The long SMG thread has inspired me, together with repeated infantry assault disasters vs. Kingfish's Germans using U.S. armed French, to start to wonder about how grenades are modeled

in the game.

What I'd really like to know is why the German

grenades seem to be so nasty, even though basically blast only munitions, while the U.S.

frag grenades, with their thick casings and resultant cloud of fragments, some quite heavy, seem to be far less effective?

I seem to recall some post referring to German squads carrying more grenades or some such, but unless these are Eierhandgranaten, I fail to see how. Those handles are bulky on the Stielhandgranaten.

How does CM, and how will future versions, model the differences between the German blast type grenades and the U.S. and British pattern frag grenades? How do the Russian and other types in CMBB compare with what's already in the game?

Why do the German squads seem to be relatively

unfazed by the grenades my assaulting troops throw, yet his are so devastating that my men

either pin or break and run when hit? Blast falls off very rapidly with distance, but fragments carry much further and can penetrate considerable cover.

I haven't really researched this, nor have I run any tests, so please view this as an impression, not anything substantive.

Thanks for any and all insights on this matter.

Sincerely,

John Kettler

[Sig]

Hello,

Just some info about Stielhandgranaten (NOT the german ones, unfortunately): the swiss army had a very similar model called HG42 (Handgranate 42), basically a copy of the german one. You could screw a hollow cylinder of metal on the "head" of the grenade, which then was called a defensive grenade. This cylinder, nicknamed "chocolate", was preformed and had the same little squares you find on the american "pineapple" grenade. Drawback: adds a sgnificant weight to the grenade. It was never used during exercises with live ammo (safety reasons).

The main drawback of this type of grenade: it takes time to prime (sp?). Just pulling a little ring of steel is faster than removing a cap, grabbing and then pulling a string.

One advantage: you could assemble (screw) many heads together, thereby creating a good demolition charge, or even a sort of small bangalore torpedo.

An additional info: the explosive charge of aroung 300g was lethal in a 2m radius for a standing man. OTOH when prone, as long as you were aligned properly, almost no risk... with a good helmet. And one more thing: the smoke! A nice black cloud develops when the grenade detonates.

So you can basically say that for a soldier, a grenade is only lethal when a/ he doesn't see it incoming(!!) or b/ the blast of the explosion can't diffuse (eg: inside a room, a bunker, a foxhole, a crater) or c/ he has to jump out of cover to escape it and is then killed by the covering/pinning fire (most SOP ask for this covering fire for exactly this reason).

Concerning the problem of the fragments: don't forget that if a fragment can travel farther than you can throw, *YOU* are also in danger of being killed, except if you lay low (and lose vision of the ennemy for some critical seconds). Perhaps one of the reason why some armies chose the "blast-only" grenades. The other being having more explosive for the weight. Don't know. Perhaps some grog has the answer.

Sig

(Edited because THEY call an ananas a pineapple! Tsktsktsk. Thanks Beltfed)

[ 07-02-2001: Message edited by: Sig ]

[Beltfed]

A few thoughts on grenades, btw not a grog, Grenades as stated above are not as powerful as depicted in most movies. It is totally possible to be standing next to one as it detonates and have the blast not hit you. It is rare but it has happened more than people suppose. They are meant to shock as well as injure.

About the potato masher types. One reason they may be more effective is that they could be thrown farther. While the allies are trying to get close enough to toss thier frags you a have a time when they are not close enough to respond to german grenades sp they are more vulnerable.

Finally as I understand it the pineapple grenade was apparently not too efficient in fragmenting the way it was supposed to. That's one of the reasons the newer US frags are smooth. All the scoring is on the inside of the grenade on a coil of wire. Better dispersion of shrapnel.

Then again CM could just suck that way

[Vanir Ausf B]

Ok, this got me curious as I had always assumed grenades are modeled indentical in CM except for the graphic. A search showed this not to be the case:

A thread

I'm not sure if the blast effect is differently modeled. My guess is that it is not. We aren't modeling each type of grenade for each nation as that is a bit more detailed than it needs to be What we did do is make the German theoretical grenade range a tad bit longer than the Allied. Yes, the spud mashers could be tossed a good deal further due to the handle design. However, in most practical situations the range is going to be about the same due to other combat elements.

Steve

Another thread

I am nearly certain we cut down the tossing ranges since the Beta Demo. The Germans can toss about 10m further than an Allied grenade IIRC. There is a random +/- on the range and I am pretty sure terrain is looked at. The adjusted ranges were suggested by Los I think. Man, that was a long time ago we tweaked that stuff

Steve

....Remember that squads don't stand on the head of a pin, so this means the CENTERS of the squads are 40m apart, which means the men in the front of each squad are only about 20m apart. More grenades are thrown as the distance shortens.

Charles

One last little thread

As I recall,

Yes, they are different (German lower Blast rate but slightly further range)

Madmatt

Ok, so it seems clear that German grenades have more range than Allied. What is not clear is if there is a blast difference. Steve seemed to think no, Matt seemed to think yes (German lower, not higher). Neither seemed to sure about it and all these quotes are from the beta days so it could have changed.

I thought I had read somewhere that all CM grenades have a blast rating of 6, but I can't be sure.

[Sig]

Hello,

A little bit of nitpicking concerning the visual representation of the grenade in CMBO: a german grenade when thrown, rotates around it's center of gravity. It doesn't fly like a round object.

This rotation has the additional effect of making the grenade bounce when it hits a hard surface, increasing its range but also sometimes decreasing its accuracy.

Now, concerning the range: don't forget the time it takes for the grenade to detonate. If your detonator explodes after 3 seconds, the *effective* range of your grenade will obviously be far shorter than if it is set to explode after 6 seconds (like for instance the HG42, see previous post).

Sig

[ 07-02-2001: Message edited by: Sig ]

[Mannheim Tanker]

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

A few thoughts on grenades, btw not a grog, Grenades as stated above are not as powerful as depicted in most movies. It is totally possible to be standing next to one as it detonates and have the blast not hit you. It is rare but it has happened more than people suppose. They are meant to shock as well as injure.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I find it funny how they depict grenades in a lot of movies. The grenade comes lobbing in, and people get thrown through the air, but land without so much as a scratch. Have you ever actually seen a fragmentation grenade explode? It sure as hell got my attention...and that was just on a range!

:eek:

[zphil74]

Perhaps one of the reasons that German grenades seems so effective is actually because they are blast-only and not fragmentation. I seem to recall reading somewhere that when a German soldier threw a potato masher, he could follow it right into the enemy position, whereas an American could not, or risk being cut down by the shrapnel cloud of his own grenade. Keep in mind that when soldiers in CM are depicted as throwing grenades at each other, it is actually (I think) an abstraction to show that hand-to-hand combat is taking place. It's possible that the Allied troops panicking and breaking when being the target of a German grenade attack is actually because the Germans were able to overrun their position before the shock of the grenade had worn off, as opposed to American troops who had to take shelter from their own grenade and therefore could not charge the German positions as quickly.

[barrage]

My experience with US troops facing german grenades has been different. Playing a QB in snow, had 2 squads and MMG facing advancing german infantry. For the entire game the US troops exchanged grenades and fire with the german troops without panicing or fleeing. Maybe it was the effect of the leader. Towards the end of the game I was worried the squad nearest the german advance would break but it hung in there. At the end of the game it had 90% casualties.

It was cool watching the grenades being tossed back and forth the whole game.

[Mr. Johnson--]

I haven't noticed the Germans having an unfair advatage in gernades.

I would like to say that I thought the way they were done in CMBO was fine with me. I don't see the need to keep track of every frag in a battle, geez.