Grenades

[PLM]

Is it me or are grenades in CM very weak? A grenade is more than a projectile in real life its something you throw with relative precision. I've never seen a grenade take out more than one person, but it should be quite possible for a grenade to be thrown at an MG in a foxhole at close range and take out 2-3 people and to be thrown into rooms in buildings. It may not be the easiest throw but i've never seen anything like this happen, ever.

also, why does the battlefront not have a CM general discussion forum? the CM series are so close to each other its a shame to have to choose which forum you want to put a thread in if it isnt about a specific theater of the war.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

By saying grenading is easy I think you are ignoring the fact that the thrower is likely to be more busy not to get shot then making an accurate pitch. And having adrenaline gushing out of his ears from battle stress won't help his aim either.

[securityguard]

in my opinion they are a little on the weak side, however a nice throw lands you good results in CM. it's just rare to see.

[ July 07, 2004, 11:15 PM: Message edited by: securityguard ]

[Sanok]

Originally posted by securityguard:

in my opinion they are a little on the weak side, however a nice throw lands you good results in CM. it's just rare to see.

Then doesn't that make them more than a little weak? I agree with the original poster. Grenades are not as effective as they should be.

[securityguard]

Originally posted by Sanok:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by securityguard:

in my opinion they are a little on the weak side, however a nice throw lands you good results in CM. it's just rare to see.

Then doesn't that make them more than a little weak? I agree with the original poster. Grenades are not as effective as they should be. </font>

[stikkypixie]

And don't forget terrain abstractation (or however you spell it), if you see open terrain in CM, it's not like "open" terrain in real life, but there are plenty places to hide. Could this be an explanation?

[PLM]

what im saying is, ive *never* ever seen a grenade take down more than 1 person in any circumstances. i was talking to some people in the combat mission hq chat and they said the same thing. i know foxholes/open terrain and all could mean several foxholes and all but you'd think there would be a tiny probability of a good/lucky throw clearing a few guys out in an instant. i'd think there would be more a probability of a grenade getting multiple kills over a small shell, a grenade being somewhat more accurate (at times).

grenades seem almost useless in buildings in CM. And in that kind of closed environment, you'd be a little more concerned with where your grenade goes than outdoors, given the fact that it could bounce off a wall and smack the thrower in the face. So they should be somewhat more useful in inner-building combat. you dont throw a grenade clear across most buildings, there isnt a whole lot of open space in most buildings (maybe not factories). You typically throw it into rooms to clear them. And if you assume most rooms have the obsticals all along the wall, with at least one open space in the middle most likely holding the enemy, there isnt a lot of places to hide if that grenades lands in the right spot.

This is all of course eliminating entirely the possiblity of someone cooking a grenade and lobbing into into a room with half a squad giving them no time to react.

I think the developers need to rethink grenades in buildings because the way things are right now buildings provide the same bonus agaisnt grenades as against small arms fire. also, i've still never seen an MG get creamed by a grenade and considering the fact that there's almost always more than 1 man right next to the MG and i know its so incredibly hard to believe that once or twice in the entire war sweaty, shellshocked, terrified john doe tossed a grenade randomly into the air and it landed in a foxhole with 3 guys manning an MG and they were all sent up into the air. You'll never ever see that happen in CM.

[Joachim]

If I'd expect close combat in a house, I'd make damn sure there would be some cover against grenades. Moving wardrobes/matresses into the center or as cover for the rear etc. Then again a squad can spread over the whole house and a grenade in a room won't find too many tagets. (If it's just a hut that won't help much.)

And there are instances when grenades take out more than one person - you just need some squads close together

I doubt that a grenade sends 3 men into the air - the fragments kill, the explosion is to spread the fragments but won't move 80kg into the air. Nevertheless it might kill/wound more than one.

The bigger the grenade the more deadly it is. A 81mm mortar round coming down at the same place would have a bigger effect than a hand grenade. Yet I usually only get more than 2-3 kills per 150 rounds when treebursts occur or when firing at a massed enemy. Using up the 25 or so grenades of a squad gets a bigger score. So grenades are already deadlier than mortar rounds.

Yet still close combat is less than optimal. Excessive ammo use for small arms and grenades seem to assume spread teams/squads.

... only below a few metres it gets better when advancing/assaulting with hand-to-hand combat.

It's hard to model everything perfectly.

Gruß

Joachim

[chashm]

"i know its so incredibly hard to believe that once or twice in the entire war sweaty, shellshocked, terrified john doe tossed a grenade randomly into the air and it landed in a foxhole with 3 guys manning an MG and they were all sent up into the air. "

I think that we have been watching too many bad war movies. A grenades damage doesn't really come from the boom, but from the multitude of tiny, nasty, sharp pieces of metal that get scattered about.

[Runyan99]

Ever seen a grenade take out a machine gun nest? Me neither.

I agree that they are undermodeled.

[Sergei]

That also has to do with CM's way of not treating MG's as crew served weapons like mortars or guns. You can take an MG bunker out with a hand grenade, though, but then it represents close assault.

[MikeyD]

If they were to remodel grenade they should take the different types of grenade into consideration. German 'stick' grenade could be considered offensive weapons because the grenade body breaks up into small enough pieces that a soldier could throw one far enough to be outside the lethal area. American 'pineapple' grenades were another matter entirely! When one of those big steel square breaks off its more than capable of spiraling off further than a solider could throw so the thrower absolutely needed to be under cover when it went off. You don't seee many G.I.s in CM fragged by their own unit's grenade in a tight firefight!

[Ant]

American 'pineapple' grenades were another matter entirely! When one of those big steel square breaks off its more than capable of spiraling off further than a solider could throw so the thrower absolutely needed to be under cover when it went off. You don't seee many G.I.s in CM fragged by their own unit's grenade in a tight firefight!

AFAIK there were two types of grenades, defensive and offensive grenades. Defensive ones had a larger powerful blast, you could throw it from your foxhole and duck back down again thus avoiding the undesireable effects.

Offensive grenades were less powerfull so that you could throw them into a room or into an enemy foxhole with less risk of injuring yourself.

[K_Tiger]

I`ll hope CMX will give us a other Soldier Model. I dont want to play abstractions anymore.

I though, the Stick-Grenade have some pros compared to egg`s. They do not bounce off so easy from hard surfaces and eighter not roll away.

I think too, that grandes should have more effect in closed Buildings and in Trenches. Also, i belive, a grenade-thrower would aim in first place at the most valuable target a group of ennemys and not at single soldiers.

[Denwad]

defensive grenades rely on large amounts of shrapnel. The Mills, Pineapple and F-1 are examples of this.

offensive grenades rely on concussion. STiG-24 and the Of-37

[PLM]

dont offensive grenades generally explode on contact while defensive grenades are timed to explode

[YankeeDog]

The line between "offensive" and defensive grenades will always be grey, to a certain degree.

However, AFAIK, all of he grenades used in WWII to any significant degree were triggered with timed fuses, not contact fuses.

At the very least, the U.S. "Pineapple" was definitely a timed fuse, rather than a contact fuse grenade.

Cheers,

YD

[flamingknives]

British No. 69 MkI blast grenade had an impact fuse. German stick grenades had time fuses, as there are accounts of them being thrown back.

[John Kettler]

MikeyD,

You may be interested to know that the external scoring on the pineapple type grenades has been found to not affect the fragmentation characteristics. Rather than getting a bunch of near identically sized fragments, the fragment sizes ranged from little more than dust up to chunks which were dangerous to tens of meters. To get uniform fragment size, the scoring has to face the burster charge. This is why current U.S. frag grenades are smooth cased, for the frag component is within, and consists of coiled notched square section hardened steel wire, with the notches on the inside facing toward and surrounding the burster charge. A thin metal jacket then covers the otherwise somewhat lumpy grenade proper.

As for the German stick grenade, are you aware that slip on frag jackets were available which essentially changed the offensive pattern grenade to a defensive pattern? The basic Stielhandgranate was called an offensive grenade because it could be used at reasonable ranges without having to take cover, since its kill mechanism was almost wholly blast and concussion, effects of very short range. The case holding the explosive was very thin stamped metal, was shredded by the explosion, and the fragments, being so light, didn't carry. By contrast, a pineapple grenade had a thick case, and it killed by fragment penetration. If you detonated such a grenade on the ground, most of the blast went upward at an angle, pushing a cloud of high velocity fragments before it. If you're standing up and in range, odds were high you'd eat it from your own grenade. Prone, though, even a few feet away from the detonation the fragment spray would pass right overhead. That's per the highly decorated Anthony Herbert in his book SOLDIER.

Regards,

John Kettler

[MikeyD]

I recall one anecdote from Somalia where a (Russian design?) grenade was chucked over a wall and landed literally at the feet of 3 or 4 U.S. soldiers huddled together. BANG! When the smoke cleared they were surprised to find the blast pattern had all focused upward and nobody had got a scratch.

A question. Is the U.S. offensive 'concussion' grenade a wartime design? I thought (probably erroneously) that the Pineapple was pretty much it during WWII.

[flamingknives]

According to my 1944 catalogue of standard US ordnance, there was a

"Grenade, hand, offensive, MkIIIA1 - Limited Standard"

14oz. with a 6.83oz. TNT charge.

[Michael Dorosh]

Anybody who has actually thrown a live grenade at least once, please put your hand up now.

Mine is in the air, who else?

Much of the damage done by greandes is not the tiny bits of metal it becomes, but the blast. And they are directional in many cases; there are anecdotes of German NCOs who would detonate grenades on top of their steel helmets as a training aid. Don't know if it is true or not, but explosives are remarkably lazy - the energies they release take the path of least resistance. You could be next to a grenade blast and not be affected at all, depending on the orientation of the grenade.

As for "precision", no, not really. I think Elmar's comments are correct here.

[Sergei]

"Anybody who has actually thrown a live grenade at least once, please put your hand up now."

Me! Me! Me!

...and then the instructor said, "okay good, now get up, bring it back AND THIS TIME PULL THE PIN OFF!!!"

I agree with what you say. A Finnish example would be the late General Adolf Ehrnroth who in summer of 1941 as a Lieutenant got first hit by a bullet, then a handgrenade dropped right next to him. Well yes he did become a casualty, but his helmet protected his head and he survived his wounds and later took part in the battles of 1944 as a Regimental commander. He died this year. Anyway, if the grenade explosion had been anything like what they in Hollywood often are, his body would have been in thousands of pieces scattered over a square kilometre area.

[John Kettler]

Michael Dorosh,

Donald Burgett, a green Screaming Eagle at Normandy, reports in his book CURRAHEE! that he played hot potato in the bocage with a German stick grenade and that the thing blew up in his hand on the second throwback round. Knocked him out until dusk, blew off most of his clothes, and left him temporarily deaf, but he survived otherwise unscathed. Would've been a sieve (not mention missing a hand) had that been a pineapple grenade.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Sergei:

I agree with what you say. A Finnish example would be the late General Adolf Ehrnroth who in summer of 1941 as a Lieutenant got first hit by a bullet, then a handgrenade dropped right next to him. Well yes he did become a casualty, but his helmet protected his head and he survived his wounds and later took part in the battles of 1944 as a Regimental commander. He died this year. Anyway, if the grenade explosion had been anything like what they in Hollywood often are, his body would have been in thousands of pieces scattered over a square kilometre area.

Helmets protect from grenade fragments rather well. People are often mislead by how useless they are against direct rifle bullets, but with much else they are useful.