Grenades
From Blood Frontier
Contents |
Historical and Modern
Historically, grenades utilized a chemical fuse attached to a trigger - once the trigger was released, the fuse was lit, and the grenade would usually explode within 3 - 6 seconds. Most military and police forces implant encoded IFF(interrogate friend or foe) devices or chips within personnel, equipment and vehicles. This allows Weapons such as mines, grenades, and autoturrets to correctly identify and ignore friendly forces.
As such, almost all grenades manufactured in the modern era are "smart". Grenades automatically register the IFF signature of the user, which allows them to be utilized even in close quarters combat without fear of causing friendly fire casualties. Once activated, a grenade will only explode when any non-friendly entity enters it's active detection radius AND there are no friendly entities within the same damage radius. If an activated grenade fails to detect an appropriate target within 30 seconds of deployment, it will first check to make sure that no friendlies are nearby and then detonate itself.
All this being said, grenades are still dangerous to civilians, as the logic does not notice the difference between non IFF registered/implanted entities and Enemies. As such, for a civilian to attempt to use a smart grenade inevitably results in self-termination of the individual in question. This is accepted as it keeps high explosives from falling into the hands of terrorists.
All grenades are self contained, vacuum sealed and insulated against the elements, and so they retain their effectiveness in water and total vacuum.
Types
There are several different types of grenades for use in both general and specialized situations.
Fragmentation
Fragmentation grenades do not derive their lethal aspect from explosive force, but rather from hundreds of fragments that are propelled outward with the force of the explosion. These are not in common usage as they have a tendency to damage distant components in lower gravity environments, as fragments can travel literally miles - especially if the atmosphere is thin.
Incendiary
Incendiary grenades explode, releasing a cloud of two separate chemicals that ignite when they come into contact with each other, even in a near or total vacuum. Most Armour is fire resistant, and so these are not often used by military forces, excepting for clean up operations or riot situations where crushing the morale of the crowd is paramount. Many ships also carry these as a solution to parasites and disease vectors, as almost no materials utilized in ship construction are easily damaged by fire or combustible.
Concussion
Concussion grenades create a shockwave that damages everything within it's range, including armoured personnel. Concussion grenades have little to no effectiveness in thin or non-existent atmospheres, although they are extremely effective in denser mediums such as water or very thick atmosphere. They are commonly used in such environments, but are seldom found onboard ships since they can be rendered useless simply by venting the atmosphere.
NT Grenades
NT or Nanotech grenades are pure fiction, the idea being to decompile any matter that the ejected nanites come into contact with into dust. Nanites simply can not survive the shock of even a small explosion due to their fragility, and no known nanites can operate long term within a biological or mechanical entity before they are fried by the intrinsic bio-electric or electronic fields of said entities.
Smoke Grenades
Smoke grenades are utilized to create distractions and to shield movements. Modern smoke grenades are usually imbued with a metallic particulate component that blocks almost all electronic sensory apparatus as well as confounding human eyes.
Gas Grenades
Gas grenades in the modern era are completely useless, as even the poorest civilians have emergency skin and breathing modifications that makes what was potentially lethal in past times a slight nuisance in the modern era. As such, they exist only in museums and archives.
Flash Grenades
The flash grenade remains in usage to this day, providing a useful way of disabling and confounding both human and electronic optics. The explosion is not, however, powerful enough to damage sensitive equipment, which makes them extremely useful on spaceborne stations and craft.
Acid Grenades
Grenades containing caustics have become commonly utilized in modern day warfare due to their ability to neutralize self-healing armours and materials. Though seldom fatal to armoured personnel, it does degrade Armour severely enough to render such personnel more vulnerable to contemporary Weapons. Additionally, it can cause damage to electronic components that are normally hardened against EMPs and radiation.
Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Agents
Nuclear, Chemical and biological agents were utilized in both large and small scale explosives historically, although they are not used by modern armies due to medical technology being advanced enough to neutralize them quickly and effectively in all portions of an effected population. While some small-scale nuclear ordinance exists, it is not commonly used due to the large and uncontrollable damage it can cause to sensitive systems which may be required for life support.
