sounds plausible.

of course, i don't want to give a false impression. during our training with throwing fake grenades at a vehicle, i whanged mine off a tree and it ended up thirty yards to my left instead of under the vehicle twenty yards in front of me.

Which is why I like the grenade scatter rules in SR. The implications of a bad roll can be... well just as bad as the real thing. Like that one time I accientlaly blew up a team member due to a really bad rebound in our direction.

Woops.

It'll happen yet I'm sure.

Makes me wonder what kinda crazy it takes to be a grenade range instructor.

The probability of getting killed as a grenade range instructor is still several orders of magnitude smaller than that of getting killed by friendly fire on any actual battlefield -- so it must be the same kind of crazy it takes to volunteer as a soldier to begin with.

That entirely depends on the army in which you serve, if your speaking of the US armed forces (or working alongside them) however you are aparently statistically correct.

The US has a really bad (and well earned) rep for friendly fire incidents. This is not so with other countries.

Could you name a national military which has taken part in large scale warfare in the past 70 years and that hasn't incurred significant losses to friendly fire and various "accidents"?

Not that it matters, because the amount of friendly fire probably has a direct correlation with the amount of morons dropping live grenades inside the shelters.

Canada is one apparently, there has been quite abit of discussion recently about all the friendly fire deaths in Afghanistan since it's military involvment. All reported incidents (assuming there is a possiblity of unreported ones) of which so far as been at the hands of Americans.

Canada might not have been quite as heavily involved in open warfare since the Korean war, but there were actually quite a few Canadian troops involved in Vietnam, and there has been a great deal of Canadian involment in peacekeeping efforts in open warzones since that time.

Germany is another country thats supposed to have a good record, and they've been quite involved. Same with Britan.

Wikipedia has some info on this. THough it seems to be abit hard to find a reliable internet based source for actual hard statistics.

This page seems to have some information as well.

I'll make another post when I can find some reliable online source with some hard data. I'm sure it's gotta be out there somewhere.

EDIT: Not to mention one that doesnt soley point to US FF statitstics. So far most of the hits are all US on US or US on other countries.

I resent that remark, I was a member in the Airborne Infantry with the 82nd Airborne Division out of Ft. Bragg. Statistically friendly fire casulties are low. We are trained in visual recognition. That is why most NATO allied forces use the Kevlar helmet. It is distinctly shaped. "If it doesn't look like us, Kill it."

It is no wonder most of the reports one can find are related to US troops. The US DoD puts out a hell of a lot of information on absolutely everything, and that data is linked and searched for a lot. Consider also the amount of man-years of US soldiers deployed in hostile areas in the post-WW2 era as compared to those from Canada, Britain, Germany, etc.

You'd be fooling yourself if you think Canadians havent had quite a few troops of their own in war torn countries for years. Canada among other countries have a long and noted contribution to peacekeeping efforts.

Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Croatia, Balklands, Somalia to name just a few of the more recent and better known areas where Canadian troops have been deployed as combatants or peace keepers.

The US has been involved in a few more, but partially thats due to being a great deal more agressive than a number of other countries. Especially durring the Cold War era. The US and Russia both got involved in a great deal of 'warring' as it were.

It's a good part of the reason why Iraq and Afghanistan are the way they are today. And just take a look some time at alot of so called 'rebel' groups in various 3rd world countries. It's hard these days not to see them carrying just as many new or very rleatively new US made weaponry as weaponry made by other powers (The AK is still very big as well dont get me wrong).

And while the US DoD puts out alot of information, so do quite a few other countries armed forces. Alot of the more recent stuff isnt even infantry on infantry, it's US airforce on infantry. I think a large part of it is because the pilots are overly reliant on all their little toys.

It doesnt help that the communications between the various allied forces is often a complete mess (This isnt USA's fault necessarily either. Bosnia had huge problems just like this and thats mostly because the Bosians and Serbs would say one thing, do another, and then attack each other not even a few hours after a mutually agreed upppon 'ceasefire' etc)

You'd be supprised however, how often I hear from people in Canadian/British armed forces commenting on how when you take away the toys, the US military as a whole often does quite poorly. How much of this is actual fact is realy hard for me to say, but I certainly wouldnt hear it so bloody often if it wasnt at least partially true. And even then it's from a decidedly biased sourse, but your going to get that from 'your own side' no matter what country it is anyway unless there's some sort of major unrest.

I can't see how commenting further on this subject would do anybody any good, so I'll let it be. I suggest others do the same, lest this thread becomes one big flame. Anybody who wishes to probe the friendly fire issue further should probably do so at a forum dedicated to such matters.

Fair enough. It I suppose, allways will be a horrifically controvertial (not to mention unfortunate) issue.

So then, to get things abit more on topic.

Remote detonated hand greandes.

How hard would this really be to do? I'm thinking something ala Aliens: Reserection. General Gomez(?) or whoe ver it was, pulled one out, rolled it into that escape pod some soldiers were in when an alien followed them in and started slaughtering eveeryone. The 'spoon' was actually a remote detonator, with apaprently a really good range on it too (he detonated it -after- the escape pod in question cleared the ship.

Not hard at all. After all, everything is wireless anyways.

You probably still want a mechanical safety pin and some time delay until the grenade is primed.

The chars I created for SR4 for me to play all had an internal commlink (even the mage), so they could detonate the grenades with just a thought.

But yes, a safety feature for the wireless grenade detonater would certainly be useful. It would make the grenade more flexible. Or you could use sensors and use it as a thrown mine.

One idea: pulling the safety pin allows you to extract the remote control, which also starts the countdown to prime the grenade (duration can of course be set beforehand).
The remote control could be shaped like a common lighter. The red button™ is protected by a cap (like some lighters have). You can flip it up with your thumb and get access to the detonator button.

Hm, I hope I explained it good enough, 'Glühwein', a traditional christmas mulled wine, makes thinking hard...


Edit: the War Nerd's newest article has some good bashing of basically everybody: http://www.exile.ru/2006-December-15/war_nerd.html
(just to get everybody into the christmas spirit)

Well Charon, the fact that the Canadian war museum (before it moved) use to have a decent sized section about Canadian involment in the Veitnam war might have something to do with that.The Canadian army on it's own as it were, wasnt ever really directly involved. THough yes alot of Canadians signed up with the US army because they wanted to go help, and there was some NATO involvement.

NATO itself is a good reason why, alot of times people say Canada wasnt involved area X even though it was, it was however simply part of NATO rather than purely on it's own. It also didnt help that funding for the canadian military has been total crap for years. (And thus the ultimate reason why canadian military helictopers on at elast two occasionas have litteraly fallen out of the sky)

On the supression thing, there's also the noise, airpressure etc. So it's important to note who near the blast (Hell I'd say the whole room depending on size) has hearing dampeners. Anyone who doesnt is going to have some serious ear rining I'm sure.

might be worth some while to go over the concussive effects of grenades as a whole for determining potential penalties of being in the blast zone (Even if you remain uninjured)

@Butterblume:
That pin/remote detnator thing sorta is how the grenades in Aliens: Ressurection worked. Though I'm not so sure there actually was a pin. There was if I recall a saftey cap though. And assumably the grenade only armed whe the detonator was forcibly pulled from the grenade. The detonator in that case was still shaped in the classic grenade spoon arguably not only to keep the size down but to make the tiny detonator easier to hold onto (I should try to find a screenshot, I know there's a few showing him using the grenade in question)

I've heard one story of a grenade range where the person actually accidently dropped the damn thing in their coat pocket. With the entire class right nearby in danger the trainer tossed the person over the wall.

Now, that's most likely BS.

For one thing, the class is in a safe distance in case something happens, unless someone in charge screwed up.

I don't think its even possible to drop a grenade accidentally in one of your pockets, but I am not sure because other countries might use different clothing .

Edit: on a totally different matter, am I the only one who thinks the canadians are trying to conquer DS? Don't even bother to answer, but think about it.

Trying? We already have!

Just to clarify, I didn't mean to suggest using grenades as suppressive fire. I meant to suggest using the rules for being caught in suppressive fire (which, incidentally, are the same rules for being caught in the use of the Storm critter power) for being caught in a grenade blast.

Yeah but what if it was some third world country or something? I mean in WWII russians trained their troops how to use hand grenades with potatoes. I mean that was cause the grenades were 'worth more' than the soldiers.

I really doubt that sort of thing would happen in a 'modern' country. Largely due to the fact that anyone intelligent soon realizes that having recruits screw up like that is a bad thing and can get alot of people killed.

Thus the grenade bunkers etc. And if your really on that much of a shoestring budget that you cant even dig a hole in the ground with a shovel.. then really you should be training them with potatoes.

I just want remote detonated sticky grenades.

There's probably nothing funnier on a run than seeing a panicked sec guard running toward his horrified companions screaming, "GET IT OFF! GET IF OFFFFFF!!!"




-karma

Hmm, well the remote detonator part is as has been mentioned rather easy.

Not sure how you'd make it stick after being thrown. You cant exactly just coat the grenade in glue or it will stick to your hand/clothes etc.

I suppose you could arguably just make up some sort of high tech nanoglue thats solid, but is then 'activated' shortly after pulling the pin so that you've got a few seconds to throw the grenade, after which a sort of outer solid shell of nanoglue starts to get melty and will then adhere to what ever surface it lands against.

doesnt really sound like a practical way of doing it though to me. Arguably plausible given jsut how much nanotech there is in 2070 (Afterall there are now nano doomsday weapons galore) but would be really expensive etc and really, I think, not worth it.

Somewhat possible but geckotape would arguably stick to everything and in either case is generally easily peeled off. If your wanting it to stick to a person i'd definately say you need something better than super velcro

Hmm true, and there were the field created sticky bombs using standard GI socks. They show that trick being used in Saving Private Ryan. Though in that case I believe they used tar.

That article though really simply highlights the problem with the idea of a 'sticky grenade' or bomb of any kind really. Since by nature then it could stick to just about anything. Especialy if the adhesive has to be strong enough that it wont slip off things like a moving vehicle or a person running around flailing away in abject terror.

Shadow Warrior the old PC FPS game had so called sticky bombs which were really just hand grenades with spikes in them. Of course while they stuck to anything, realistically they'd only stick to thinks the spikes could actually penetrate. And then there's ones that use magnetic attachment points like limpet mines.

The trick really is to come up with something that would have actual practical application in SR.

Given: SR has better batteries than we do.
Have a grenade that can generate a strong EM field for a few seconds. It activates when the grenade arms, which is after the spoon flies and it travels at least 5 meters away from the spoon. (everything's wireless) Of course, it only sticks to ferrous metals.
Alternately, use gecko tape as people suggested. It is enclosed in a casing that is sloughed off in mid-air, after it is thrown. This model only sticks to dry things.
Or, for that matter, use both. It won't stick to a wet man, but it just might stick to his gun or other gear.

Well, engineering a grenade with a cover that pops off only after it's been thrown/launched shouldn't be THAT difficult. It seems the issues with the historical version of the sticky grenade stem from having to remove the cover first before throwing it.

One might even design it so one side of the cover can be removed manually allowing it to be used as a limpet mine.

I have to admit I got the idea from a video game - Red Faction. That game had satchel-charge style explosives that stuck to whatever you threw them at - including enemy soldiers, which I found out by accident. I was trying to hit a ledge to blow it out from under a solder, and he at that moment ran forward to shoot at me. It stuck to his chest, whereupon he started running around in a panic yelling for his buddies to help him.

Instead, they started shooting at him, presumably to kill him before he got too close.

I've seen sticky grenades in at last a half dozen games since, though, and I think they might be a nice addition to a runner's arsenal.


-karma

don't those gecko gloves only stick to things when there's a faint electrical charge running through them, or something? just cover the grenade in that. when it smacks into something, it turns on a short-lived battery that charges the gecko material. et voila--sticky grenade.

yeah, but don't SR gecko gloves have an on/off setting? i could swear i remember them having an off switch.

I dont think so. I'm pretty sure it works the exact same way as the RL prototype version where you just sort of peel your hand/foot/knee off in a certain way to get it to unstick.

I dont have the relevant books with me though or I would look it up.

hm. apparently, i made up the off switch for gecko material. ah, well.

An off switch wouldn't make sense, in any case. There's no mechanism or field to turn off or on, it's just millions of synthetic nano-scale hairs. They stick due to van Der Waals forces.

It's molecular velcro, really. Holds til you peel it off in a specific way.


-karma

Well yeah, but if you could get the hairs to respond to a voltage to either curl up or straighten out then conceivably you could get it to turn on and off.

I'm not saying that you can turn them on and off as they exist in SR or RL, but I'm saying that such a thing might exist, and suggesting a possible mechanism.

I could see making "sticky grenades" in terms of mines as being useful, since as far as I know there aren't any rules (at least in 4th ed, no idea about 3rd) for actual mines that attach.

I'm thinking of maybe a half sphere with some sort of cover on the bottom, with a fragile membrane or other substance beneath. Pull the cover off, slam it onto the surface breaking the membrane and exposing the adhesive.

Grenades are ok for making an enemy duck for a moment, maybe costing or delaying them in an action, but it wouldn't be the same as suppressing fire.

You could use grenades to make someone break from cover. If your enemy was behind a bunch of crates, if you landed a grenade back there, they would probably try to run from the grenade, especially if it was close. If you had suppressing fire or were waiting for them to break cover, you could shoot them. If you dropped them, they could also get hit by the blast.

An old real world trick is to carry a few large rocks with the grenades. Throw a real grenade to get their attention, then later a rock. When they scurried around to get away from the noise of something landing, you shot at the movement. That worked best at night, of course. But going to the surplus store and buying a couple of cheap, inert grenade bodies would have the same effect. It all depends on if the GM allows one time to move after a grenade has landed.

Unless on a shoe string budget, one ould always carry more grenades instead of rocks .