Changes to stick grenade bundle effectiveness

[Food Critic]

One of the things i like to keep tabs on in game through patches is how effective basic infantry are at dealing with tanks. I'll run a little test where i pit a german infantry platoon against a platoon of russian tanks (typically t34s) and see how they fare. After the august 31st patch, i was suprised to find that my infantry could be quite deadly, reliably crippling 2 out of 3 t34s in the close assault. The september 10th patch, however, seems to have swung things right back in the opposite direction. german rifle grenades and grenade bundles (6x M-24s) are borderline useless against russian mediums-- the most i've seen them do is damage a sight or wound (not incapacitate) an occasional crewmember.

So, giving the drastic swings in effectiveness I'm honestly not sure which outcome was "correct", and I have to ask, what are intended and/or historical effects of stick grenade bundles on tanks? I can't find much info out there on their historical effectiveness, other than that german anti-tank manuals depict them being used against heavier tanks (whether or not that translates to practical effectiveness I do not know). I would suspect that they would have some effect if detonated on top of the tank, or against a track, however, I have observed multiple examples of both such hits in game post-patch, to no effect.

As an aside, I don't expect german infantry to be all-powerfull tank killing machines. If memory serves, german doctorine was, when facing tanks, to hide or fall back and let the anti-tank guns deal with it. However, I would asume stick grenade bundles would have some effect, whereas, at the moment, they have no effect.

[andrey12345 v2.0]

Originally posted by Food Critic:

Originally posted by andrey12345 v2.0:

Powerful grenades are guaranteed death or injury for the thrower, as the mass is large, and it will not be possible to throw it far away.
Running towards the target and stick on it something is even more risky. It looks good in German films and methodologies, in reality it's suicide.

You're saying this, but every source and account I've come across so far has described german antitank weapons as being hand-placed in addition to being thrown. From "Tank Killers: History of the Tank Destruction Badge":

Walter Voigt- noted as rushing a soviet tank and destroying it with a grenade bundle.
Ferdinand Frech- placed a magnetic mine on a t34 before jumping for cover.
Gerhard Konopka- credited with 4 tank kills and served as an instructer in anti-tank tactics as a result. "Try to outflank them, get in from the rear and place your charge." I see no evidence that he or any others disregarded german doctrinal training on anti-tank assault.
Joachim Peiper was even credited with a tank kill-- in march '43 he alledgedly climbed up on a t34 and dropped a grenade bundle down a hatch.

All of the above individuals acheived these actions and lived to tell the tale (one of the requirements of the tank destruction badge was that you had to survive the encounter.) Were these easy feats to pull off? No. Was it extremely dangerous? Yes. but the fact of the matter is, this is what soldiers did (and I'm sure there are plenty of similar soviet accounts out there as well).

I'd also like to note that I can, in game, easily march an infantry squad up next to a stationary tank and have them hang out for as long as they feel like at minimal risk to the squad. if those infantry could then just place their at weapons on the tank rather than hucking at point-blank in these wild arcs that invariably miss, that tank might actually be in danger. if these antitank tactics are a suicidal as you claim, either a) the infantry shouldn't be able to just run up next to a tank or b) not throw their AT weapons at point-blank range, since it would risk blowing themselves up. right now they are able to do both easily, which is the complete oposite of what you claim to be realistic.

I hope you understand that the Soviets have much more tanks than 4 destroyed in the episodes you cited?
And so that these examples could be classified as "regular practice", you need some statistics. For example, how many tanks such grenade throwers destroyed (authentically). For example, for any operation?

If there% tangible is one thing, if it tends to zero - all this is an empty chatter that is needed to raise the morale of the troops. Can you give a layout for some kind of operation, where do you think grenades destroyed many tanks?

[Flan]

Originally posted by andrey12345 v2.0:

Originally posted by Flannelette:

With the AT weapons being dangerous to the thrower, don't people have special protection from friendly grenades so they don't blow themselves up? You often see friendly grenades do nothing to your own troops.

I do not understand here. Obviously a large amount of explosives (which in theory should destroy a tank) is dangerous for an unprotected thrower much more. What options can there be?

Something I see a lot, squad attacks in close combat: a bunch of grenades are thrown at a enemy and 1 of my guys runs over to punch him and the grenades kill the enemy but just push my guy around. Or satchel charge thrown lands on my own troop and just throws them in the air without much damage. Only thrown weapons, though it was so squads don't kill themselves with grenades.

With the German magnetic mine, I can't find any records of it being able to throw? It has no way to keep it stable like other AT grenades if you throw it so it would lose its HEAT effect if thrown. It would just be a blast grenade like RPG-40 if thrown unless you were very lucky and it landed on the magnets.

[andrey12345 v2.0]

Please look at throwing grenades after yesterday's patch.

[Flan]

Originally posted by andrey12345 v2.0:

Please look at throwing grenades after yesterday's patch.

They're more accurate now but can still leave something to be desired
Hans discovers he can not throw a magnetic mine 60m
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1518121740

The face of disapointment
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1518126935

There might be some truth to the 7xM24 (it's called a 6xM24 but has 7 warheads which is odd), I was putting them all over the top of a T-70 with its 10mm roof armor and it only managed to shake the tracks/chassis a bit.

Did you have any information on throwing the HHL-3? I can't find anything about an impact fuse or being effective as a thrown grenade, are they using a not standard fuse for it?
It seems like you had to place it on the target to use it making it too dangerous to use for anyone but the most fanatic soldier or in a very secure environment so it was quickly replaced. Would be more useful for getting through a heavy door or to sabotage than as a battlefield AT weapon.

[Food Critic]

Originally posted by andrey12345 v2.0:

Originally posted by Food Critic:

You're saying this, but every source and account I've come across so far has described german antitank weapons as being hand-placed in addition to being thrown. From "Tank Killers: History of the Tank Destruction Badge":

Walter Voigt- noted as rushing a soviet tank and destroying it with a grenade bundle.
Ferdinand Frech- placed a magnetic mine on a t34 before jumping for cover.
Gerhard Konopka- credited with 4 tank kills and served as an instructer in anti-tank tactics as a result. "Try to outflank them, get in from the rear and place your charge." I see no evidence that he or any others disregarded german doctrinal training on anti-tank assault.
Joachim Peiper was even credited with a tank kill-- in march '43 he alledgedly climbed up on a t34 and dropped a grenade bundle down a hatch.

All of the above individuals acheived these actions and lived to tell the tale (one of the requirements of the tank destruction badge was that you had to survive the encounter.) Were these easy feats to pull off? No. Was it extremely dangerous? Yes. but the fact of the matter is, this is what soldiers did (and I'm sure there are plenty of similar soviet accounts out there as well).

I'd also like to note that I can, in game, easily march an infantry squad up next to a stationary tank and have them hang out for as long as they feel like at minimal risk to the squad. if those infantry could then just place their at weapons on the tank rather than hucking at point-blank in these wild arcs that invariably miss, that tank might actually be in danger. if these antitank tactics are a suicidal as you claim, either a) the infantry shouldn't be able to just run up next to a tank or b) not throw their AT weapons at point-blank range, since it would risk blowing themselves up. right now they are able to do both easily, which is the complete oposite of what you claim to be realistic.

I hope you understand that the Soviets have much more tanks than 4 destroyed in the episodes you cited?
And so that these examples could be classified as "regular practice", you need some statistics. For example, how many tanks such grenade throwers destroyed (authentically). For example, for any operation?

If there% tangible is one thing, if it tends to zero - all this is an empty chatter that is needed to raise the morale of the troops. Can you give a layout for some kind of operation, where do you think grenades destroyed many tanks?

unfortunately, i don't have notable statistics on the matter and I agree that a proper statistical analysis is the most important evidence for this situation. There are more books on the subject, but I don't have access to them at the moment. May need to order one or two at some point when i have the extra cash.

My point in the handful of examples was more to demonstrate that explosive charges were used as a hand-placed device, and that such tactics were taught in earnest by instructors. I plan to do some more digging on the subject, and if/when i find some more complete information on the subject, I'll be sure to share it. It doesn't help that i have no knowledge of german or russian and therefore can't effectively dig in to source documents. So far, the only data I've found on tank kills are from the post-panzerfaust era, early 44, which record only a handful of kills per month on the eastern front with mines and grenades. not exactly indicitive of the effectiveness of these weapons, since fausts would have been widely distributed at that point but here they are anyways.


The numbers:


Feb 44:

Haft H3: 5
Teller mines: 2
Hand grenades:1


March 44:

Teller mines: 18
Haft H3: 13
Hand grenades: 3
Flare gun: 1

these represent 13% of infantry tank kills (the rest being fausts and shreks, and for februrary, only 0.7% of all 1219 tank kills on that front for that month. Fausts and shreks, in contrast, made up 4% of the total for the month. (only infantry AT weapon kills were provided for march, so I can't exactly make the same comparison for that month.)

this still doesnt tell us much, but i would think it would be safe to assume that, in the pre-faust era, infantry anti tank explosives would have made up a similar percentage of kills as the combined total of the two here. other than that, we can only really conclude that these weapons were still in limited use during the later periods of the war.

[Kyso4ek]

To kill tanks with infantry you need to reinfoce squads with AT weapons. They get engineers which have shaped demo charges. They are going to be utilized in very, very limited circumstances when the tank accidentally stumbles into said engineer squad. I have seen this happen and i see no problem with infantry at on its own. Man vs machine is not really in favor of man.

[Food Critic]

Originally posted by Max Damage:

To kill tanks with infantry you need to reinfoce squads with AT weapons. They get engineers which have shaped demo charges. They are going to be utilized in very, very limited circumstances when the tank accidentally stumbles into said engineer squad. I have seen this happen and i see no problem with infantry at on its own. Man vs machine is not really in favor of man.

I don't disagree with any of your points really, and i have generally found engineer anti- tank perfomance to be quite effective. But that was never really the subject of the discussion here. I'm interested in the historical performance and implementation of german stick grenade bundles, and believe that these weapons currently underperform in game. Andrey disagrees with me here, and i doubt either of our beliefs will be ♥♥♥♥♥♥ on the matter without some solid historical evidence.
To futher clarify my beliefs, I would asume that a typical german infantry platoon, on good defensive terrain (forest, town, etc), if overrun by an unsupported soviet tank platoon, would stand a reasonable chance of significantly damaging one or more tanks, up to and including t34s. In game, at present, this is not the case, and the infantry are quite lucky if, having expended most or all of their anti-tank weapons, have managed to even minorly damage a single tank, let alone incapacitate one.

[Kyso4ek]

A typical landmine which is designed to detrack a vehicle weights ~8 kg and contains ~6 kg explosives and when it detonates, it applies its effect directly to tank tracks.

Expecting the same from a bundle of fragmentation grenades which needs to be thrown from close range and does not have a contact fuse is very unrealistic. A bundle could in theory (?) do something to a track but i dont think its possible to acheive that by throwing it and more so without a contact fuse. Maybe if you throw grenades 1000 times something will happen thanks to sheer luck. But that needs to be done in a labaratory. If you miss by 1 cm you lose lol. And if the grenades bounce by 1 cm you lose too. You just end up killing yourself.

[Flan]

The M24 is a blast grenade and 7 of them is not a small amount of explosive. If they land handle up and all detonate evenly (not just launch the other warheads!) it is semi comparable to the RPG-40.
I was thinking that FoodCritic might be right, they might actually be too weak as they have trouble with the Russian light tanks T-26/T-60 etc only causing mild vibration damage to the tracks not even breaking sights or stunning crew.
Also want to know if there is any evidence of the HHL-3 being thrown as I can't find anyhing on it like that, and as Food Critic posted there were cases of crazy soldiers sticking them onto tanks.