Grenade Launcher

[Winter]

I don't fully understand the flechette rounds, which seem to fire like a monstrous shotgun with a wide spread. In this case, the flechette rounds actually make a great storming weapon, because nothing, and I mean nothing, at close range can survive one shot of it.[/quote]

Yep, that's how they work in real life, too. They made 40mm flechette rounds for the old M79 in Vietnam, and they've also been used (albeit rarely) in the M203 underbarrel launcher.

They've not been popular because most of the flechettes hit side-on rather than point-first, but 2084 technology has fixed that and turned them into a nice little close-range "fuck you" statement.

Why don't you use flechette rounds instead of a sidearm, Aiki? Too long to reload? (Which was kind-of the point . . .)

Regards,
Winter

[Aiki-Knight]

I've started using the flechette rounds for storming, but I'm still concerned about close quarters because the spread is really wide, so I'm worried about hitting nearby agents beside the line of fire in stacked entries. Lots to learn and play.

[DanielOR]

Winter,

speaking strictly 2084 technology vs today's here...  There was already one project for sure, two possibly to switch primary military assault rifles to flechettes.  I believe a flachette-based rifle design by Styer competed for replacement of M16 and lost on ballistic characteristics.  It was deemed not worth it to switch and retrain.  The gun did, however, have the advantage of having less recoil and being lighter.  I can provide link if there is interest.

So...may it be an option to switch the assault rifle to that type of ammo as well, making it, perhaps, lighter, less recoil-prone, and hence more accurate in full-auto?  Just thinking here....

[Winter]

Winter,

speaking strictly 2084 technology vs today's here...  There was already one project for sure, two possibly to switch primary military assault rifles to flechettes.  I believe a flachette-based rifle design by Styer competed for replacement of M16 and lost on ballistic characteristics.  It was deemed not worth it to switch and retrain.  The gun did, however, have the advantage of having less recoil and being lighter.  I can provide link if there is interest.

So...may it be an option to switch the assault rifle to that type of ammo as well, making it, perhaps, lighter, less recoil-prone, and hence more accurate in full-auto?  Just thinking here....

The design team covered this in our first technology brainstorms. To be honest with you, I don't think flechettes will gain any ground as a primary munition for anything, except as a close-range alternative to buckshot. They have too many built-in limitations. Let me just quote straight from the Wikipedia page here:

However, the flechette has a number of weaknesses that limit its effectiveness as small arms ammunition. They tended to penetrate heavy armor less deeply than heavier, higher momentum rifle bullets. Their extreme light weight caused them to be deflected extremely easily; a single leaf, or even a raindrop, could destabilize a flechette and cause it to tumble wildly. Because of the hard nature of the flechette, it does not deform on impact, and while it penetrates extremely well, it produces very little tissue damage. The last issue with small arms flechettes is accuracy. To fire the finned flechette out of a smoothbore requires the use of a sabot. Since flechettes do not achieve sufficient stability when spun by rifling alone, the main source of stabilization is the fins. When the sabot separates, it can disturb the effectively unstabilized flechette, and cause deviations in its flight.

And they don't even mention that flechettes can even blow off course in a strong wind. Just not practical compared to ordinary bullets.

Regards,
Winter

[DanielOR]

Winter

that was my main source as well.  been a while since I've read it, though.  I see your point.  It does look like flechette is not going to be a main army round.

[Darkpriest667]

flechettes also have 0 penetration on hardened armors .... which most modern military armies equip even the basic infantryman.

I assume aliens who can travel across the solar system at the very least and possibly interstellar are much more advanced with polymers and fibers than we can hope to be even in 2084. 

In other words flechettes would be useless against the standard alien infantryman(woman).

I have , however, been very pleased with how effective they are in close quarters in the game..

[VoxDissident]

Obviously I think we can all agree that the range of the grenade launcher shouldn't be 300 m. However, I agree that it should be capable of firing further, with less accuracy, more roll/bouncing due to grenade's momentum and a more pronounce ricochet effect when being fired at longer ranges. Right now the grenade launcher is really only good at short ranges (even with the timed option) and, even at short ranges, is only worth having when the situation calls for a weapon that can fire around corners and up onto the roofs of buildings and ledges. At short range, I'd rather have a combat shotgun or flamethrower if we're talking about straight shooting. Even with the 25mm plasma burst rounds, I've taken to removing the grenadier from my team in order to get another sniper on my team.

On the topic of the flechettes, I've always been under the impression that flechette grenades were actual grenades (and not shotgun rounds) that burst into a 360 degree flurry of small medal pins. I read about this a while ago when I read the memoir of a Navy Seal (the title of the book, if I recall correctly, is Warrior Soul) who fought in Beirut, Colombia and numerous other places. I recall clearly that he stated he and his team were pinned down by a large caliber machine gun mounted on the back of a truck when he fired a flechette grenade around the corner to take down the gunner. Of course, that has nothing to do with gameplay itself. I don't think its a bad idea to have the grenade launcher capable of close-quarters straight firing, it's just that I'm not familiar with this particular variety of flechette (since, as Winter stated, the flechette is not a good replacement for rifle rounds.

-Vox

[Darkpriest667]

Vox you are exactly on the mark

The grenade launcher range in this game does not reflect its real capability... it should be able to shoot entirely across almost any map that is in the current version.. i find it cant usually shoot over 30 meters... sheesh i can build a nade launcher out of parts at home that throw 10mm grenades 100 meters...

this should be fixed immediately

[DanielOR]

the scales are relative - sniper rifles are good for a little more that 250 meters, also.  Laser and particle wepons should have no measurable spread at that distance.  Maybe, muliply by 10 and apply "reality" that way?

[shevegen]

The problem is that the maps in itself are not very big. So realism is not really feasible, else pretty much every
weapon will be the same concerning range

I think the accuracy vs range could be a feasible idea though.

[vedrit]

people, the grenade launcher isnt a mortar. You shouldnt be bombarding the other end of the map with explosives. The Grenade launcher is supposed to be a mid-range weapon, targeting people behind cover, where rifles cant get, and you cant throw far enough.
But the "Out of range!" should be done away with for the launcher. Just a difference between having a good idea where its going to land (Or explode with air burst), and having no freaking idea. Green being high accuracy, red being low accuracy.

[Aiki-Knight]

The GL shouldn't be able to fire across the map, just for play balance, but it could be tweaked to give substantially more distance than throwing a grenade. Great weapon, though - bravo to the developers.

[Surrealistik]

I'm a proponent of unlimited range save for the small handful of weapons for which hard limitations would make sense (i.e. the flamethrower). Hard limitations should be substituted in all other cases by spread; it won't matter if you can fire a grenade launcher across the map if your projectiles are so wildly inaccurate that they fail to hit anything, even with their splash radius. In some cases however, a hard prohibition on first turn use of the grenade launcher for the first player in a multiplayer game may prove expedient, as both players should have the opportunity to seek cover from incoming bombardments no matter how inaccurate. I feel I've the experience in single and multi-play to state with confidence that this change would prove a reasonable forward step in the evolution of UFO:AI's gameplay.

[Mayhem]

I love the grenade launcher, I get a lot of use out of it.  I usually have 2 in my squad.

Used as backup to a lightly armed scout, it can generally be used to take out threats without exposing the grendier to danger, by lobbing grenades around corners, over walls or through windows and doors etc.