(Flashback) Day 225 - Let's Talk About Hand Grenades

Oh, yes. Let's talk about hand grenades.

There are misconceptions about the use of hand grenades when dealing with zeds. Most of the advice you read says not to use them, and this, for the most part, is very good advice to follow. Though any zeds right on top of the grenade will probably be taken out, you'll launch little pieces of zed everywhere, and, in the end, you'll probably only take down a couple of zeds. The rest might lose limbs, but as we know, then you just have torsos dragging themselves after you, or diembodied heads snapping at you from their spot on the ground. Strictly speaking, hand grenades are usually a horrendous idea...

... unless you need a distraction option. The trick here is that, given the choice between a human or animal target and a hand grenade, the zed will always go for the living creature. So, if you're going to employ a hand grenade, make sure you are well away and hidden from the zeds. You might also try dressing the grenade up to look like a small animal, but this more for the amusement of the survivors than it is to get the zeds to chase after it.

In the case of our current push, I decided that we should head by back ways back to the base of operations, and chuck a grenade from there to pull any wandering zeds back to the center of the square. This is always contingent on shaking whatever zeds had caught our scent, so that they won't draw any attentino away from the distraction. I motioned Ian over and whsipered my thoughts. He nodded assent and told the rest of the group. Then we began to pull out and headed back to meet up with Crista.

We found Crista much as we had left her, scouting on the roof. I told the guys to take cover, dug out a grenade, and went to join her on the roof. As I stepped up to the ledge to watch what was happening, she started to draw back and get cover. When I was certain where the grenade should be placed, and that no zeds knew where we were, I dropped back to the far edge of the roof, pulled the pin, and chucked the grenade as acurrately as I could.

I'll admit I was about 5 feet off, missing the best cluster of zeds to hit, but I took out a second, slightly smaller cluster none the less. After about 5 minutes, when the distraction had had enough time to have some effect, I crept back to the edge to see how things were going.

There's little better than seeing a plan come off, but one of those is seeing a plan come off that involves blowing zeds to little pieces with grenades. The carnage may smell foul, but it's actually rather pretty in its own right.

Assured that the distraction was going pretty well, I slipped back to the edge of the roof to meet up with the rest of the crew. The general plan in these sorts of situations is to wait about 30 minutes for as many zeds to amass as possible, and then head out and clean up. Wait any longer and you begin to lose some to idle distractions, so this is kind of the optimal time frame. After quietly chatting about the rest of the plan and waiting for a good time to spring, we geared up, and moved out.

I think at this point everyone was charged from how things were going, because finishing cleaning up the square was short work. It seemed almost calculated at times. There were few surprises, and we adapted quickly to them. All in all it was just a very clean little operation that left us a bit tired, but also exhillerated. With the main part of the square clean, we could now focus on the last little bit of cleanup to the west of the square, and then be done with it.

Truth be told, the rest of the clean-up went pretty easily, and there's not much esle to say about it. We swept through the last bits of the square, pulling out to our escape vehicle, and, once satisfied with our work, we headed for home. All in all, I think we were expecting that this outing would take longer than it did. Thankfully, the whole excercise went pretty flawlessly, and it's always a good feeling to clean things up and get home in one peace.

So that wraps up my story. I hope it provides some insight you can use in your own operations.

Ian tells me he has some stories to tell here, but he was waiting for me to finish up my part. Expect to hear something from Ian soon.

Ciao,

- B