Grenade Throwing Range

By ExoSaeptus, in Only War Rules Questions

Does anyone else feel that the throwing range for frag grenades and similar is kind of... low?

I mean, SBx3 means, for the average starter character, that you can throw a grenade 6 or 9 meters at most. For one grenade, this becomes outright dangerous (the hallucinogen grenade, with Blast (6), which if I'm understanding it right makes it have an effect on everyone within 6 meters), while the others are still a bit uncomfortably close.

Going by the weights listed in the book, a Frag Grenade weighs around 500 grams. The M67 Frag Grenade weighs in at ~400 grams. The M67 can be thrown 30 to 35 meters by the average male soldier, if Wikipedia is correct.

Edited by ExoSaeptus

All weapon ranges in the game are kind of silly. Keep in mind, though, that the SBx3 range is only for the listed range. You can throw it up to two times that range with no penalty, and up to 4x with a -20.

Movement rates are horribly slow, all weapons have pitifully short ranges, and everyone throws grenades like they are lead weights. I like to think that this was done for the sake of balance, and not as a result of some British developers knowing very little about guns or realistic sprinting speeds for people in shape :D :P

All weapon ranges in the game are kind of silly. Keep in mind, though, that the SBx3 range is only for the listed range. You can throw it up to two times that range with no penalty, and up to 4x with a -20.

So 36m for a SB 3 character, and they're grenades getting close to the target is all you need.

What they really skimped on is the blast radius, unless all frag grenades are defensive grenades (which the name would not imply) but being POTENTIALLY deadly to targets, including the thrower, at range farther than that grenade can be thrown would involve a lot.

In short, their frag grenades, if you want to get real you do not throw them unless you are in cover at all.

36m would be a good throw for someone with a decent arm - grenades are roughly baseball sized and weighted the same, so tossing them 36m should be pretty average. Just like gun ranges, it is a bit on the short side.

For example, the U.S. Army considers 500m to be the (rather short) average engagement range in Afghanistan. That range would be outside what is possible with a lasgun as per RAW.

36m would be a good throw for someone with a decent arm - grenades are roughly baseball sized and weighted the same, so tossing them 36m should be pretty average. Just like gun ranges, it is a bit on the short side.

For example, the U.S. Army considers 500m to be the (rather short) average engagement range in Afghanistan. That range would be outside what is possible with a lasgun as per RAW.

Correction, granades are roughly baseball sized and weight rougly 3,3 times more than the said baseball :)

Accurate tossing a 0,5 kg of steel and explosives on a distance of 36 m is quite challanging.

From Wikipedia:

Fragmentation grenades can be divided into two main types, defensive and offensive, where the former are designed to be used from a position of cover, (e.g. in a slit trench or behind a suitable wall,) and have an effective radius greater than the distance it can be thrown, while the latter are for assaulting troops and have a smaller effective fragmentation radius.

Modern fragmentation grenades such as the United States M67 grenade have a wounding radius of 15 m (49 ft) – half that of older style grenades, which can still be encountered – and can be thrown about 40 m (130 ft). Fragments may travel more than 200 m (660 ft) [ 15 ]

Also from wikipedia the weight of the M67 granade is around 0,4 kg.

So all in all the numbers are not so wrong, try doing an experiment, find a stone about 0.4-0.5 kg and throwing it accurately at a target 20+ meters away, you will most likely throw it near, with a bit of training 2-3 m away, and don't do it like they do in movies, the lob throw sucks hard, do it like throwing a normal stone, that is how you actually throw a granade, unless you want to lob it over the wall or sth.

The only thing in OW is blast radius of said granades, but I take it's for the sake of balance since the game would end up even more broken if normal frag had blast (15) and "defensive" frag (houserule it if you need one, there is no profile in book) blast (45-60).

Ad. the engagement distance, I guess most soldiers would start shooting at the distance of 500m since noone want's to be closer and get a well aimed bullet, but those engages are usually minor skirmishes in which noone gets hurt, since most of the fire is very inaccurate. Effective range of M4 carabine (from the colt official site) is 600m and what it means is that at 600 m it still has a leathal stopping power.

From my personal experience from national service (in Poland) and some technical info from wikipedia, AK-47 (gun that I was using) has a maximal range of 3000 m, effective range of 600 m, and with skilled marksman an accurate range of 400 m for a single round fire and 150 m for a burst. As an unskilled soldier while shooting at the range 100 m was a hell of a challange with just an iron sight and a single round fire, 50 m was fairly easy, but it was on a upper body, stationary silhouette target, and most enemies don't stand stationary while showing you half their body.

To sum things up [TL:DR] ranges are not so bad, and guardsman with a chance 30%+ to hit of a living target that is activly trying to avoid the fire and hiding in some cover, at the distance up to 150m (2x range of standard lascarabine with) is quite badass I'd say, and very accurate.

Edited by Elmer84