I'm running a modern/investigation/conspiracy game (think X-Files) and one player wants to get grenades. Not sure why, since the combat so far has been light. But it's probably a matter of time before the character finds a logical way to acquire them. The game takes place in a major US city. Since this is a semi-realistic game, I'd like to know:

1. How much noise does a grenade make when it detonates?
2. What is the blast radius?
2. What will the response of any onlookers be? (run, cower in fear, record it with their iphones?)
3. How fast should police arrive on the scene, and with what force?
4. Would the FBI or anti-terror force investigate the incident? How soon after it occurs?
5. If bystanders are injured or killed, will the incident make national news? (i.e. Boston Marathon bombing)

Grenades should be nigh impossible to get ahold of.

1: From all I've seen they tend to make alot of noise.
2: Depends on the type. Some throw out fragments in an upwards cone. Some use concussive force, heat, etc.
2: Probably a broad range of reactions. Assuming they werent injured.
3: Someone setting off a bomb, which a grenade is, will probably get the cops there ASAP unless it was done in an out of the way place. Even so a detonation will draw attention in a city probably fast.
4: I can tell you that in some stated just threatening someone with a fake grenade is LIFE IN PRISON. Way back I got an order for my RPG from a person in Texas. He was doing life for trying to rob a bank with a fake grenade.
5: Depends on what happened. But if bystanders were harmed then there probably would be a blip on the news. Then forgotten in the sea of crime reports.

Quote from: Aglondir;9720721. How much noise does a grenade make when it detonates?

A lot. More than a double-barreled shotgun blast. "Roll to see if you go temporarily deaf" loud.  

Quote2. What is the blast radius?

It's complicated and it depends on the type of grenade, but for game purposes you can reasonably get away with just saying that it's a two- or -three yard blast radius.

Quote2. What will the response of any onlookers be? (run, cower in fear, record it with their iphones?)

Most people have never heard a grenade detonate, so they won't know what it is, which would probably add to the fear response. It depends on the individual, but expect panic, running, screaming, hitting the dirt, crying, that sort of thing.

Quote3. How fast should police arrive on the scene, and with what force?

If they have reason to suspect an explosion (which is what a grenade is), expect a SWAT team to arrive as soon as they possibly can. If reports misidentify the pop as a firearm discharge, they might be a little more chill about it, which means it depends on how bad the neighborhood is. Law enforcement does NOT take grenades lightly--in a lot of jurisdictions, standard operating procedure would be to shoot the guy with the grenade just in case, and if it turns out later to have been a fake grenade, oh well. A grenade detonation is a terrorist incident.

Quote4. Would the FBI or anti-terror force investigate the incident? How soon after it occurs?

Yes, and as soon as they figure out there was a grenade involved. Which means the local police will cordon off the crime scene, and the big boys will arrive six hours to a couple of days later to take over from them.

Quote5. If bystanders are injured or killed, will the incident make national news? (i.e. Boston Marathon bombing)

It will probably be an international news item, just because a grenade detonation is a rather unusual event, at least in the United States. In Sierra Leone, not so much.

Some types of grenades would be easier to get a hold of than others. A reasonably connected law enforcement PC could probably get teargas & smoke grenades. Getting military concussive/explosive grenades would require a good connection with an illegal arms dealer. Actually USING those types of grenades in a typical encounter is a good way to get the PCs sent straight to the top of the most wanted list.

It depends a lot on where the grenade goes off, who sees it, what/who gets hurt, and so on. Grenade explosions aren't that distinct from other loud explosion sounds, so if no one knows it was a grenade and reports it, it might not get the immediate "OMG A GRENADE" response. Of course it also depends when the game is set. GURPS, Aftermath, Phoenix Command all have detailed grenade rules including exactly how likely someone is to get injured in what what from various types of grenades in what specific circumstances. As others have said, there are many various designs. models and variations of grenades.

I would think that any situation where someone used grenades in the United States (particularly if they weren't law enforcement, but even if they were) would cause an absolute shit-storm.

I think now we need to make distinctions between different types of grenades.

Fragmentation or anti-personnel grenades are probably the first that most people think of when they hear the word 'grenade'. These are your classic pineapple grenades--they are designed specifically to kill people really hard, by sending shrapnel in every direction. (The little squares are actually designed to break off and fly out like bullets specifically to make you into chunky salsa.) Only military personnel have access to these, and they are so very, very illegal for private citizens to have. Getting a live frag grenade on the black market would mean dealing with someone who is in a position to get access to military ordinance--perhaps a Mexican cartel lieutenant who has a corrupt army quartermaster in his pocket, that sort of thing. One of these detonating is a major terrorist event, and very unusual in the United States.

Then there are concussion or flash-bang grenades. These are the metal cylinders you see SWAT guys wear on their kevlar vests. They produce a very loud bang and blow all the air out of the room, theoretically disabling everyone in a building by stunning them, deafening them, and knocking the wind out of them simultaneously. Because they produce no shrapnel, they are supposed to be non-lethal. They're not, of course--you can easily kill someone through sheer blunt force concussive trauma if the flash-bang goes off close enough to them, and if they are in an enclosed space, well...we've all played Shadowrun, yeah? It's like that. A detonation of a flash-bang isn't nearly as big a deal as a frag grenade going off (though you will almost certainly do time in a federal prison if they catch you popping these things willy-nilly), and getting your hands on one isn't quite so hard either--just about every SWAT team in the nation has actual or theoretical access to flash-bangs thanks to the War on Drugs, so if you had black market ties to a corrupt police sergeant or similar, you might be able to get your hands on a few of them. These see much more widespread use than frags.

White phosphorous grenades burn really, really hot, and cannot be extinguished. They have specialized uses--incendiary and rapid production of lots of thick smoke--so they aren't really meant for taking out individual people. (Just burning down the building where they are holed up.) Strictly military-issue, so take all that stuff I said about frags and apply it to WPs, too. Handy if you have to fight vampires, though.

Tear Gas and Smoke grenades are little canisters that burst and shoot out tear gas or smoke. They are strictly non-lethal (unless a riot cop manages to catch you in the head with one), and produce no shrapnel. Law enforcement response and availability to private citizens would be similar to what I said above about flash-bangs, only less strict, because the destruction these things can produce is much more limited.

2. What will the response of any onlookers be? (run, cower in fear, record it with their iphones?)

Initially, people tend to do nothing... Until the penny drops. Then they run!

With larger blasts... And People are at a significant distance from the blast they still tend to look and assume they are safe because of their proximity. However, shrapnel travels very far and fast indeed.

You know...the fact that I ended up learning so much about grenades back in the day suddenly has me second-guessing the choices I made when letting new players into my games in the late 90's.

I mean, it shouldn't have come up quite that often. I wasn't in the military. I had to learn this shit so I could adjudicate the killing sprees of socially-maladjusted munchkins, pretty much. Oh, the trenchcoats, katanas, and gold-plated Desert Eagles...

Because nothing says PERSONAL HORROR and GAMES FOR MATURE MINDS like having to put stats for freakin' frag grenades on your standard equipment chart. :rolleyes:

I think the extreme reaction expected in the USA applies when used in public and otherwise conspicuously identified as a grenade where it shouldn't be, but not all cases. Look at YouTube results for "grenade explosion" and it appears some people do gets their hands on grenades and go play with them and post it on YouTube without being descended on by Homeland Security or anything.

The  USA is really behind the times -- in many places, like Sweden, for instance, grenade usage is a common occurrence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Sweden
Sweden appears to get a grenade attack every week or so.

Quote from: Skarg;972672I think the extreme reaction expected in the USA applies when used in public and otherwise conspicuously identified as a grenade where it shouldn't be, but not all cases. Look at YouTube results for "grenade explosion" and it appears some people do gets their hands on grenades and go play with them and post it on YouTube without being descended on by Homeland Security or anything.

To be fair, it's a lead-pipe cinch that player characters who get their hands on grenades are not going to be using them to make harmless YouTube videos.

What every one else said but with A few add ins that no one else brought up.
1; there are actually 2 types of killing grenades offensive and defensive what this really means is whether they have shrapnel or not. Offensive grenades have no shrapnel because its counter active to have your soldiers killed by the shrapnel from there own grenade. Then there's defensive grenades that do have shrapnel because its assumed that the guy useing them will be fighting from cover so the shrapnel is less of an issue.

2; While getting a hold of A real  mil spec or police grenade would be rather hard it's not super hard to jimmy rig one if you think about it.
Just some thing to keep in mind if your pcs are of the "handy sort". A good example of A common grenade used in riots is A m80 firework with smaller nails wired to it. soldiers in ww1 did something similar with dynamite.

Quote from: kosmos1214;9744312; While getting a hold of A real  mil spec or police grenade would be rather hard it's not super hard to jimmy rig one if you think about it.
Just some thing to keep in mind if your pcs are of the "handy sort". A good example of A common grenade used in riots is A m80 firework with smaller nails wired to it. soldiers in ww1 did something similar with dynamite.

True enough. Heck, isn't the claymore anti-personnel mine essentially a hard plastic outer casing over ball bearings and C4?

Quote from: Harlock;974437True enough. Heck, isn't the claymore anti-personnel mine essentially a hard plastic outer casing over ball bearings and C4?

yeah more or less and a triggering device thats pretty much what it is in a nut shell.

Postscript to my last post.

Another thought would be soupcans filled with black powder defiantly be dangerous as hell though.