Grenade and small HE effectiveness

[Darkmath]

I know it has been already discussed, but I can't help myself...

What is the highest infantry casualties score you got wih a single grenade or a small caliber mortar (50-60mm) ?

Because I have never, ever, seen a nade take more than 2 men at one time.

Of course, it does make sense in open ground where infantry would be spread out and can have time to take cover.

But in a trench, or a building? Why does in these confined spaces a large casualty number (more than 2 soldiers) never seem to ocurred ?

All the effects of a grenade I have seen in a trench is pinning, or taking out one guy at most.

I think grenade losses a lot of its lethality over 15 metres, but can you survive to grenade fragments when you are in a small 10m² room?

BTW, I had very few experience with trench with the game, so...

P.S. :...But I am too lazy to do some tests

[Baron von Beergut]

I agree, I have not seen better than two either. And in a building you might think more but since game buildings dont have rooms they could be anywhere in that floor of the bldg.

In real life I have read of situations of no casualties from groups of lucky guys. In one, a US lieutenant threw a grenade into a German foxhole and attacked - the grenade exploded just as he got to the foxhole and he was the only one wounded. The two terrified germans surrendered unharmed as the grenade went in the mud and exploded up but not out.

[JasonC]

The 12 guys in that squads aren't all hugging each other in a 2m by 2m block o love when the grenade comes flying in.

The squad location is a centerpoint with the men actually spread around it tactically to make use of the available cover.

SOP in combat is for men to stay 5m apart under any kind of fire. Crew served weapons sometimes 2-3, but not even the full team sizes you see in CM. (Some of whom are instead running ammo back and forth etc).

The right effect of a grenade going off is to pin people nearby and occasionally get a man. Same with a machinegun burst, incidentally.

The comic book idea that the purpose of rapid fire or area effect weapons is to get lots with each burst is not borne out by the reality, which instead had literally 1000s of rounds of small arms or tens of large caliber shells fired to produced each casualty, on average.

[The_Enigma]

Jason, lies lies and more lies ... we all know that when a grenade goes off half the city block is going with you!

Or are you trying to tell me Hollywood has lied?!

Ha, i doubt it!

[ June 23, 2007, 09:04 AM: Message edited by: the_enigma ]

[Darkmath]

JasonC,

In the case of a 12 man squad in a open spaces, I agree it does makes sense a grenade usually pin because of the SOP used by the troops.

But does it still work in confined spaces like trenches or building?

Could a soldier avoid grenades fragments in a 10 square metres room ?

I think the casualty rate would be higher in such spaces.

Does CMX1 model some kind of "special rules" for the buildings or is it just considered as a "foggy" terrain with 10% exposure?

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[Darkmath]

Originally posted by AdamL:

Is there some other infantry weapon that is supposed to be more lethal than machine guns and grenades?

... flamethrower?

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[flamingknives]

Mortars?

AIUI, flamethrowers are not particularly lethal, but they are primevally scary.

[JasonC]

Just because CMx1 doesn't model interior walls, don't imagine that all buildings are one room. Nobody puts 12 men in one room, what would be the point? As for trenches, they have traverses precisely to limit blast effects to a narrow location, and men are spaced out along them. Foxholes aren't one hole in the ground with 12 men in it, either - at most 2 men per fighting position.

As for infantry weapon effectiveness, MGs are by far the most effective infantry weapon. Medium mortars are also quite effective - the light ones much less so. Scoped rifles are also effective for the number fielded. Any other kind of small arms fire, or grenades, are minor in comparison (but achieve their tactical effects in cooperation with the preceding). All infantry arms together are a significant cause of loss but well behind tube artillery.

A typical infantry-caused casualty occurs because someone attempts to move over ground the mover does not know is under direct enemy observation. An MG fires and wounds one moving man, and movement attempts then cease in that immediate area. Occasionally, addition men may be wounded trying the same route after suppression fire that does not prove sufficient, or get hit trying to aid a downed man.

Other typical causes of infantry loss are called artillery or observed medium mortar fire, against positions believed to be occupied because movement from them was recently seen. The combined arms effect with the previous is that MGs stop an enemy formation and then HE hurts them while still close, but out of immediate sight.

Well aimed rifle fire, especially scoped, sometimes causes additional causalties, mostly by waiting through extended periods for enemy to show themselves. Patience is the operative cause, working with limited enemy info or carelessness. The average soldier on either side fails to get a single hit this way, but specialists ignoring supposedly critical missions to focus instead on such patient stalking, regularly do.

The main uses of other small arms fire is to protect the immediate environment of infantry in good cover, or to expose enemy driven to positions which lack LOS to protect themselves, by all the preceding forms of fire. Grenades are one version of this but typically less important than aimed, short range small arms fire, mostly due to range limits.

In other words, men hiding from the artillery in built up terrain or the lowest possible ground, unable to move because of observing MGs, and unwilling to even show so much as a head outline because of snipers, are usually poorly positioned to see enemy infantry creeping closer to their own position. When one of those suddenly gets LOS at relatively close range, the side that sees first wins. If neither sees before the range drops to 30 yards, hearing first and throwing can decide instead.

It is all much more patience-trying and careful than games like CM depict. It attempts to abstract all of that with cover ratings and limited effects of infantry fire, heavy on the suppressive effects. All of which is trying to capture what actually works by small scale visibility or its absence, driven by the willingness of the parties to expose themselves to see things, and the like.

A side can often tell it is losing this creep struggle long before losses have gone too high. When the enemy has more volume of fire, it is because he is seeing more and one's own side is deeper in their cover, trying to avoid more than to see. If one can still move to the rear at that point, that is what typically happens. As a result, the brushes at very close range are relatively brief and involved small portions of the rival forces, only.

Lots of fire occurs against men in such good cover that hits are for all practical purposes impossible. Ammo and firing opportunities are so abundant, that once the chance of actual hits to some subformation rises to a few percent, the hits in fact occur, removing the occasion by destroying that subformation (or hitting some with the others decamping successfully).

The Hollywood version of men standing up in full view of each other blazing away for 15 minutes, is physically laughable. Every modern-era army is capable of annihilating its opposite number in about a minute flat if so exposed, but modern-era wars lasted years, and the average soldier came through them unscathed, or lightly wounded once.

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[Kineas]

Trenches work in a strange way in CM. They are a narrow patch - to enter. Once a unit is in a trench, he has the same protection as if it was in a 20x20m trench-tile. So your trench become 2 dimensional.

So if a grenade finds its way into a trench and explodes, that doesn't mean half of the trench is cleared. The target unit has a lot better chance than in a woods tile.

(Though the nearness of the explosion indicates better hits in a wood tile, I don't know if this still applies to trenches)

You can check the trench vs HE effectiveness in the TOW demo. (Let's assume it is more realistic)

[The_Enigma]

Isnt a stright piece of trench as represnted in game a portray of something which is already zig zagged, have sort of dug outs, firing pits etc and not just a stright line?

As stated in this and other threads, grenades arnt uber weapons for killing infantry so why should a single one clear half a trench?

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[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by AdamL:

Is there some other infantry weapon that is supposed to be more lethal than machine guns and grenades?

Lethality is only a means to an end, though. Body counts are an aberration; in the 20th Century, real estate and prisoners became the goal, not dead bodies. Push the enemy off and round him up. If you killed him, so much the better, but overcoming basic human taboos among armies made up of civilians was a hard thing to do. So as JasonC says, you pour lots of lead at the target and hope he'll go away; push him away far enough and the war will end. If you want to kill him, use your artillery and air power. Your infantry won't do it very well or economically, and every time they try, they run just as much risk as being killed themselves in the process.

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[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by AdamL:

Are you suggesting infantry are deliberately under-equipped as far as weapon lethality is concerned?

No.

I'm suggesting they kill more people in the movies than they do in real life.

I'm sure the training emphasized lethality in the Second World War. The training manuals were very bloody minded. The Canadian Army Training Memorandum constantly harped on the need for men to kill; Montgomery talked of it often as well. In the field, it was harder to make it an imperative. Men would rather use grenades or artillery than get in close with a Sten or knife and make sure.

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[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by AdamL:

What about today's training? In this area what differences are there?

None that I can tell. Less emphasis on hand to hand combat possibly.

[The_Enigma]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

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

Are you suggesting infantry are deliberately under-equipped as far as weapon lethality is concerned?

No.

I'm suggesting they kill more people in the movies than they do in real life.

I'm sure the training emphasized lethality in the Second World War. The training manuals were very bloody minded. The Canadian Army Training Memorandum constantly harped on the need for men to kill; Montgomery talked of it often as well. In the field, it was harder to make it an imperative. Men would rather use grenades or artillery than get in close with a Sten or knife and make sure. </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

SLA Marshall said that, and was later castigated for his methodology. Strome Galloway said much the same thing about riflemen, though, and I think Marshall's methods improved later in the Korean War? Grossman is supposed to be the gold standard as far as that goes, but I've yet to read him.

[The_Enigma]

Was it Gavin who asked that they send all these one or two men to him and he could win the war a hell of allot quicker?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by the_enigma:

Was it Gavin who asked that they send all these one or two men to him and he could win the war a hell of allot quicker?

Actually, they did, kinda - the American Airborne were IIRC all volunteers and generally of a higher calibre than the standard line infantrymen. Whether they used their weapons more in battle, I don't know.

[Other Means]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

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

What about today's training? In this area what differences are there?

None that I can tell. Less emphasis on hand to hand combat possibly. </font>

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