Tips on Frag Grenades

I’m going to talk a little bit about grenades today. I’ll be talking a bit about all sorts of grenades, mainly America’s Army usage as it’s what I know best. In COD4 nades don’t take nearly as long to pull and throw, so it’s easier to use them effectively. In America’s Army it’s very easy to get shot while pulling, holding, or throwing a grenade. You also can’t throw them 2/3rds of a mile.

I figure I’ll start with the blowy upy grenades and work my way down. My next post will probably be on flashes. Frag grenades are extremely useful in America’s Army because they have a big blasting radius and they can get places that you might not be able to shoot. A perfect example of this is on the map ‘pipeline’, where you can grenade someone (that you might not even be able to see) while they’re taking Primary Valve. This is probably the perfect use of a frag grenade. Throwing a frag grenade into an area while the enemy can’t see you, and you don’t have to worry about being shot.

My biggest mistake when it comes to grenades (of any type) is pulling them at the wrong time. My second biggest is not cooking them long enough. I’ll tackle each of these with their own paragraph, perhaps even two. I’m not going to cover spam spots or anything like that. I’m just going to deal with practical issues and let you figure it out from there. As far as learning to spam goes, there can be no substitute for practice.

When to Nade

Since it takes so long to just throw a grenade in America’s Army (shouldering your weapon, pulling the grenade, pulling the pin, cooking it, throwing it, and bringing out your weapon again), it is very important that you are aware of your tactical situation when you decide to use one. This is a bit like reloading, I suppose. If you don’t know what’s going on around you and that you have enough cover to perform an action, you probably shouldn’t perform it. Frag grenades should really only be thrown when you have no other option.

It’s also a very good idea to have a lot of cover between you and the enemy. You need to be able to keep him from being able to fire at you long enough to get the grenade off and bring up your gun. A lot of the time I throw the grenade because the individual in question doesn’t know I’m there. Unfortunately as soon as he hears it hit, he comes running out of his cover; he then sees me with my gun down, fires, and kills me. When you’re throwing your grenade it is very important to keep in mind what it is going to make the other person do. If you cook your grenade long enough this won’t matter as much. I still like to have two obstacles between the opfor and me. One close to him so he feels like he doesn’t have to run away from me if he sees me (thus rendering the nade useless), and one close to me so that if he charges me, I can buy some time by putting it between us.

Cooking Grenades

I suppose this brings me to cooking. This is another big problem of mine. I rarely cook grenades long enough. The key is, and I always forget this, to time how long you’ve held the nade by how many times the “Live Grenade” indicator blinks. I don’t remember exactly how many times it blinks (and this can be effected significantly by lag). You’ll need to find out for yourself how long you’re comfortable cooking a grenade by getting on an empty server and practicing a bit.

Cooking your grenades obviously gives the enemy less time to run away. That’s really the whole point. Five seconds (the timer on a grenade) is entirely too long to give the enemy in most situations. Any good player can probably get out of range or to cover with time to spare. You need to judge how long you cook by the situation; more cover points may mean you need to get a bit riskier (cook longer), fewer cover points and more risk to you of being shot means you may wish to consider cooking shorter. I usually make a point to start cooking a nade as soon as I pull it, and allow the time I spend aiming to suffice as cooking… this usually isn’t long enough, but it is a start.

There are some times when you want to avoid cooking. Sometimes you can use your frag grenade as a bit of a mine. You throw it on the ground as you retreat, and hope to either blow the enemy up as he follows you, or just keep him off your six long enough to reload. These are the sorts of situations it’s best to avoid, but if you need to it can be a useful tactic. Just keep in mind that the longer a grenade is on the ground, the greater the odds of a teammate walking in and getting blown up by it.

Call of Duty 4

Nades in COD4 are completely different. Most people just use them as spam. Some of what I mentioned above may be useful, though, in learning how to use grenades. The only advice I can think of right now would be not to throw your grenade directly at the enemy. Flashes and smokes will kill him as soon as you hit him, but frags just bounce off. They may even bounce in such a way as to shield him from the blast. Throwing your grenade off to the side a bit or at your enemy’s feet can help to insure your kill.

Practice

No matter what, though, the best way to learn is just to practice. Getting on empty servers, or just loading up a map to learn how grenades work is important. You should figure out how they bounce off of different objects, how long you can cook them for safely, what the range is (about 10 meters in AA, I believe), and how long it takes you to throw them.

Have fun!