Grenade Throwing Distance.

[jwilly]

Quote

 

For a distance overarm "throw" (such as a baseball pitch) you'll get range but poor accuracy. Conversely, for accuracy at medium to long range, a cricket-style bowling acttion is used. It is more accurate because the trajectory at range is vertically downwards (...)

 

 

Fidd, you seem to be imagining how soldiers might badly throw grenades, without sufficient knowledge of how soldiers actually throw grenades.

Soldiers aren't dumb. They get experience with their particular army's grenades in training and then in combat. If they need to have a grenade end up at a particular location, and their army's grenades are time fuzed, they aren't going to fast-ball or cricket-bowl directly at the target location on the fly. They're going to throw the grenade on an arcing path so that...if their accuracy is good...it lands with a substantial vertical-motion component, just short of the target, and has a minimal bounce or roll before it explodes. 

Throwing a time-fuzed grenade is akin to firing a mortar shell. You don't shoot it directly at the target. You arc it.

Of course, impact-fuzed grenades (such as Italian "red devils") were thrown directly at targets with no roll/bounce allowance...sometimes arcing if the target was on basically flat ground or you wanted the grenade to land in a trench or hole, but sometimes straight-line if the target was backed with something solid that would activate the fuze. Different ordnance, different throwing styles.

[fidd]

On 10/16/2021 at 5:50 AM, jwilly said:

Fidd, you seem to be imagining how soldiers might badly throw grenades, without sufficient knowledge of how soldiers actually throw grenades.

Soldiers aren't dumb. They get experience with their particular army's grenades in training and then in combat. If they need to have a grenade end up at a particular location, and their army's grenades are time fuzed, they aren't going to fast-ball or cricket-bowl directly at the target location on the fly. They're going to throw the grenade on an arcing path so that...if their accuracy is good...it lands with a substantial vertical-motion component, just short of the target, and has a minimal bounce or roll before it explodes. 

Throwing a time-fuzed grenade is akin to firing a mortar shell. You don't shoot it directly at the target. You arc it.

Of course, impact-fuzed grenades (such as Italian "red devils") were thrown directly at targets with no roll/bounce allowance...sometimes arcing if the target was on basically flat ground or you wanted the grenade to land in a trench or hole, but sometimes straight-line if the target was backed with something solid that would activate the fuze. Different ordnance, different throwing styles.

It appears you are disagreeing with me by re-stating what I said (!?), namely that the lobbed (arc'd) grenade is the more accurate, if slightly shorter ranged method. I was attempting to counter the notion that the had been advanced that the "pitched" - ie faster, flatter trajectory throw, was optimal that someone had raised, and to which I was replying.

We agree, I think?

[jwilly]

I don't think your analysis...that there is a fundamental difference between "lobbed" and "baseball pitched", i.e. flat trajectory...is correct. 

A soldier of an army that utilizes time fuzed grenades, wanting to land one within effective distance of a target he can see, inherently will throw it at an upward trajectory, and with a throw-strength that will result in a descent angle comparable to the upward throw angle (that being fundamental physics) just short of the range to the target. Soldiers know how to throw grenades to achieve the military effect they need.

My fundamental point is: there is no difference between a long range throw and a medium range throw except how hard you throw. The same biomechanical motion will be used for both...at least by Americans.

Americans might use a variety of other biomechanical motions...sidearm, underarm, over the head, fingertip/wrist toss, straightening-arm push-throw...for very short range throws, on the order of a few inches through an adjacent window to a few feet or yards over an adjacent wall. If you want to call those "lobs", OK. But an intermediate range throw and a long range throw are done the same way, except with more or less muscular effort. And for an experienced thrower, the trajectory is automatically at the highest angle (up to about  biomechanically achievable to the needed range. 

Quote

For a distance overarm "throw" (such as a baseball pitch) you'll get range but poor accuracy. Conversely, for accuracy at medium to long range, a cricket-style bowling acttion is used. (...)

To clarify, a grade thrown in the manner of a baseball pitcher is thrown with a much flatter faster trajectory, to that of a lobbed grenade.

I'm quite sure few US WWII infantrymen threw grenades to intermediate or long range using a cricket bowling action. American kids just don't learn those biomechanics.

Edited October 18, 2021 by jwilly

[fidd]

The difference is in the steepness of the path of the grenade, and the accuracy with which that can be delivered. British army grenade throwing doctrine, as instructed, came out the need to land grenades into enemy trenches a mere 8 feet or so between parapet and parados. That requires both great accuracy in range, but is also much more effective as the grenade falls vertically into the trench rather than having either to hit the parapet and roll over into it, or the parados, again rolling back in. This method of grenade throwing had the additional benefit of your intentions being obvious, by sight alone, to your nearby mates, rather than the aural warning, which although practiced, couldn't be relied upon. There must have been wartime training of this technique, of US troops, both in WW1 and II, as it's frequently seen in photographs, footage, descriptions and other material. It simply isn't rational, unless one has truly formidable accuracy in throwing, to use a technique as much more more likely to cause friends to move into the lethal area of the grenade, than you are likely to "post it" into the very small gap required to obtain the result of the grenade landing in the trench or other small fortification. Which is why these skills are taught. 

In my experience. if the army were to discover you had a dead-eye'd accuracy throwing grenades - they'd make you a cook!

[goreblimey]