Best grenade for room clearing?, Help me choose! Options

[FuelDrop]

I'm looking for the best lethal and non-lethal grenades to clear a room, SWAT style. Default plan:

1)Breach door with shotgun loaded with shock-lock rounds blowing out lock.
2)Crack door open.
3)Next character throws grenade through crack.
4)Door closes.
5)Grenade is detonated remotely.

Now the classic non-lethal option is the flash-bang, and with good reason. Since it doesn't have a damage drop off it's rebounding damage is very good, meaning that most rooms are going to get 12s damage minimum to everything within. Other less lethal options include tear gas, neurostun splash, snare and flash grenades.

Going lethal we find an interesting problem: many of the nastiest lethal grenades will destroy the room or even blow down the door and hurt you. heck, the old standbys of white phosphorous or incendiary grenades will likely burn the building down with you inside it.

the obvious option for lethal room clearance is the frag grenade, as it's damage drop off means that you're normally getting a solid coverage with damage due to rebound and it's AP of +5 reduces the risk of it punching through the walls and door to injure you. A close second is the cluster grenade, which basically turns the entire room into a massive suppression fire zone which, with its rebound damage bonus, is going to normally be looking at 16P in a confined space.

Any other thoughts?

[Umidori]

Splash Grenade + DMSO + K-10

Not terribly practical, but amusing.

~Umi

[FuelDrop]

Splash Grenade + DMSO + K-10

Not terribly practical, but amusing.

~Umi

Of course, Woad will do something similar on a budget. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[DoomFrog]

If you are interested, a different tactic is to us a grenade launcher instead.

Since the grenade won't detonate at less than 5 meters, you can fire through the door using the Shooting Through Barriers rules. Just take the -6 for blind fire and -Armor for the door. Since you don't really care where the grenade lands in the room the scatter won't effect you much.

In our game we allowed this (maybe as a house rule if you don't think it is RAW). Though we also ruled that if get zero successes the grenade doesn't penetrate the door. If you glitch the grenade is damaged and does half damage. If you critically glitch the grenade doesn't penetrate the door, plus somehow the damage arms it and it goes off at the end of the next initiative pass.

[Shrike30]

Lonestar EyeBall. Throw it into the room, have it spot for you, take the +3 bonus for having extra information coming in from your network to counteract the -6 blind fire penalty, and start shooting through the walls at your targets in the next room. Works even better with APDS ammo...

[Umidori]

If you are interested, a different tactic is to us a grenade launcher instead.

Since the grenade won't detonate at less than 5 meters, you can fire through the door using the Shooting Through Barriers rules. Just take the -6 for blind fire and -Armor for the door. Since you don't really care where the grenade lands in the room the scatter won't effect you much.

In our game we allowed this (maybe as a house rule if you don't think it is RAW). Though we also ruled that if get zero successes the grenade doesn't penetrate the door. If you glitch the grenade is damaged and does half damage. If you critically glitch the grenade doesn't penetrate the door, plus somehow the damage arms it and it goes off at the end of the next initiative pass.

What.

...

What.

...

I don't... and you... why?

What GM would allow this? This is just... physics don't... this is not possible. This is absurd. This is ludicrous. This is just plain stupid. I need to go lie down now.

~Umi

[Shrike30]

Launched grenades are pretty solid, heavy objects travelling at a decent speed. They impact hard enough to break bone. Not sure I'd be dumb enough to try this particular stunt on a regular basis (since the penalties are high and the glitches leave a grenade in my lap), but shooting one through a thin object (like a hollow-core door used in cheap construction) shouldn't be hard. If it's wireless enabled, you could even do it more safely by turning off impact detonation entirely, using the launcher to give the shell a kick through a thin wall or door, and then detonating it once you know for sure it's on the other side, all without having to take both hands off your rifle.

[Umidori]

According to wikipedia, a 40mm grenade weighs just about 0.5 pounds and has a muzzle velocity of around 250 ft/sec. Calculated out, this gives us 658.44 J of energy. For comparison, a 9x19mm parabellum round possesses 570 J.

However, we need to take into account the area over which this energy is distributed. A projectile with a diameter of 9mm has a cross sectional area of 63.585 square millimeters. A projectile with a diameter of 40mm has a cross sectional area of 1,256 square millimeters.

So the 9mm round delivers 8.96 J/mm^2, while the 40mm round delivers 0.52 J/mm^2. The pistol round hits with about 18 times more force.

But who needs math? Here's a dude with a 40mm chalk practice round firing into a cinderblock. It does a fair bit of damage, but that's to be expected with a single loose cinderblock. Note that it doesn't continue further onward, though, that the plywood behind the target is unaffected.

So yeah, you could put a decent dent in a wall with that 40mm round, or even bust a cheap lock on a flimsy door, but you're not penetrating cleanly and continuing through into the other room.

~Umi

[Shrike30]

I'd always gotten the impression (from capacity, mostly, with things like the XM30 grenade launcher and its 8 round magazine) that the launched grenades of the SR world tended to be closer to the 25x40mm range used in things like the XM25. Those run around 700 FPS, though I don't know the weight of the projectile. To punch through drywall or a hollow-core door, at point blank range, doesn't seem particularly difficult. Again, I'm not saying it's smart (certainly, the first time some guy I'm running with tries it, I'll likely find a different place to stand when he's on breaching duty), just that it's not impossible.

Personally, I'd rather see it detonate immediately upon firing on a glitch, were you to try that stunt. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

[Shrike30]

But who needs math? Here's a dude with a 40mm chalk practice round firing into a cinderblock. It does a fair bit of damage, but that's to be expected with a single loose cinderblock. Note that it doesn't continue further onward, though, that the plywood behind the target is unaffected.

So yeah, you could put a decent dent in a wall with that 40mm round, or even bust a cheap lock on a flimsy door, but you're not penetrating cleanly and continuing through into the other room.

Caught me after the edit on that one. Interesting video, but I'm not sure how relevant it is.

• The 40mm practice round is being propelled by a 12 gauge blank out of a golf ball adapter for a semiauto shotgun. What's the velocity?
• This is a chalk practice round. What's the weight?
• The cinderblock isn't backstopped. A small part of the energy is going to be wasted moving the cinderblock around.
• It's a chalk practice round; effectively a frangible bullet designed to break and leave a big mark where it hits, with ballistic performance quite unlike a grenade, and much closer to, say, a door breaching round. Upon striking the cinderblock it's going to fragment into a ton of little pieces and, rather than penetrate, immediately transfer all of its energy to the cinderblock. Which it did, shattering the cinderblock.

And yeah. The first time I watch a shadowrunner try and put a grenade through a cinderblock wall? Definitely leaving.

[phlapjack77]

Lonestar EyeBall. Throw it into the room, have it spot for you, take the +3 bonus for having extra information coming in from your network to counteract the -6 blind fire penalty, and start shooting through the walls at your targets in the next room. Works even better with APDS ammo...

If you're that close you might as well use the ultrasound sensor so you can see through the walls for no blind-fire penalties...

[Mäx]

For less-than lethal, throw in a party-mix of teargas grenade and pepper.punch gas grenade.
As for the throught the wall trick, thats what you use a shotgun loaded with these babies:
Gas shells
These shells are designed for police to use against barricaded suspect, used to deliver gas(tear commonly) to suspect by shooting the shell trought the barrier.
Gas shell releases a cloud of gas over an area with a diameter of 10 meters.
When trying to shoot the shell into other side of the barrier douple the damage and compare that to the modified armor value of the barrier,
if the damage doesn't exceed the armor the shell doesn't penetrate and releases it gas payload to users side of the barrier.
-1 -1 I 10R(or chemicals witch ever is higher) 100+chemical
(from my own gear document)

[FuelDrop]

If you're that close you might as well use the ultrasound sensor so you can see through the walls for no blind-fire penalties...

I'm fairly certain that ultrasound doesn't work that way.
Don't get me wrong, the ability to see through thermal smoke, cloaking and invisibility is extremely useful, but it's not x-ray vision.

UWB radar, on the other hand...

[Umidori]

Some solid points about the previous video, so here's an example of someone being (willingly) shot with a 40mm "foam baton" style practice round from an actual grenade launcher.

These weigh only a quarter of a pound (half as much as the normal variety), but they're still solid enough little devils. So yeah, this fellow takes a half power grenade round and walks away with a bad bruise. A solid wall will fare about as well, even against a full power round.

As for 25mm rounds, I'm having trouble finding reliable and non-conflicting numbers to calculate. With the XM25 CDTE being experimental, I'm not sure I'll be able to find accurate information without really digging.

~Umi

[phlapjack77]

I'm fairly certain that ultrasound doesn't work that way.
Don't get me wrong, the ability to see through thermal smoke, cloaking and invisibility is extremely useful, but it's not x-ray vision.

UWB radar, on the other hand...

My mistake (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Yes, I meant UWB

[FuelDrop]

My mistake (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Yes, I meant UWB

That works... if they don't have anti-wifi wallpaper, or a jammer, or antiwifi paint. To be fair, those aren't going to be everywhere, but in a secure strongpoint? I'd bet that they have something like that ready and waiting for you.

EDIT: rereading it, this seems really harsh.

[phlapjack77]

That works... if they don't have anti-wifi wallpaper, or a jammer, or antiwifi paint. To be fair, those aren't going to be everywhere, but in a secure strongpoint? I'd bet that they have something like that ready and waiting for you.

EDIT: rereading it, this seems really harsh.

No worries (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) And I'm not saying UWB would be my go-to tactic for this scenario, only that IF you're close enough to toss an iBall in the room solely to lessen blindfire penalties, might as well use UWB to avoid the penalties altogether.

As to the actual post topic, how about splash-grenades + dmso + slab. Depending on how the GM adjucates drugs & toxins, Slab is a pretty perfect one-hit-KO. No chance of overdosing and accidentally killing the target like any drug / toxin that does S damage either.

[FuelDrop]

No worries (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) And I'm not saying UWB would be my go-to tactic for this scenario, only that IF you're close enough to toss an iBall in the room solely to lessen blindfire penalties, might as well use UWB to avoid the penalties altogether.

As to the actual post topic, how about splash-grenades + dmso + slab. Depending on how the GM adjucates drugs & toxins, Slab is a pretty perfect one-hit-KO. No chance of overdosing and accidentally killing the target like any drug / toxin that does S damage either.

That is really cunning. more expensive than my go-to pepper punch, but still very cunning.
Hmmm... what's the radius on a splash grenade full of freeze foam again? That could also be a very effective way of one-shotting a room.

[Umidori]

Okay, trying my best on the 25mm front.

One number that's cropped up in several places is ~690 ft/s muzzle velocity, which is pretty high. The problem is pinning down the round weight.

I've found numbers on the Korean Daewoo K11, a purported copy of the XM29 OICW, both (I believe) chambered in 20x30B mm. These smaller rounds do match the 690 ft/s muzzle velocity, but the rounds themselves are extremely lightweight, only 100 grams, or about 3.5 ounces.

I've also found numbers for the XM307 ACSW, chambered in 25x59B mm. These rounds seem to have two variants, one weighing 132g fired at 425 m/s, and the other weighing 141g fired at 400 m/s.

Unfortunately, these are all experimental designs that fell out of favor, so I can't be 100% sure of any of these numbers. Still, let's calculate them for fun.

With the 20mm round, we've got 1620 J of energy divided by a cross sectional area of 314mm^2, so we end up with 5.15 J/mm^2.
With the 25mm rounds, we've got an average of 1078.88 J of energy divided by a cross sectional area of 490.625mm^2, so we end up with 2.2 J/mm^2.

Both of these are improvements over the 40mm round, but they're still less impressive than the 9mm round you'd find in a light pistol. The 20mm round comes closest, but that's to be expected from a smaller, lighter, higher velocity projectile.

~Umi

[Shrike30]

Another awesome thing to load grenades up with for room/crowd control is splash+freeze foam. 44 nuyen gets you a 10 meter radius blast full of Structure 6/Armor 6 hard foam, which will seriously impede most people's progress and stop a decent number of bullets. If you're just trying to keep whoever's in the room stuck in there, and not necessarily dead or unconcious, this stuff is a quick way to accomplish that. Also works great in hallways.

[Lansdren]

Grenade - DMSO - SLAB


Nighty Night to all who arnt in a chemsuit

[Umidori]

I dunno, I've never been okay with using Drugs as Toxins, since the RAW doesn't really have a proper way to handle those two systems cooperating.

~Umi

[UmaroVI]

Well, they do have rules - it's Power 6 if you use Drugs as Toxins.

Pepper Punch, Neuro-stun, Narcoject, KE IV, and Breathtaker are the go-to nondrug Toxins (mix the non-Contact ones with DMSO). Breathtaker is generally the best of these except that some people are outright immune; Pepper Punch is significantly cheaper, doesn't have immunity problems, but is slightly less powerful. Neuro-stun and Narcoject do more damage, but don't inflict Nausea - they're generally inferior, but against targets with high Body/Willpower and chem resistance, they'll do more marginal damage. KE IV is lethal and in some cases that's worth it, but generally it is less good than just using an incapacitating gas.

[KarmaInferno]

Now the classic non-lethal option is the flash-bang, and with good reason.

Just don't be these guys.




-k

[DireRadiant]

Freeze Foam grenade.