How to Blow Things Up: Period 1, Week 3

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

Today the class wasn't meeting in the Danger Shop.  Following the directions in the note handwavily delivered, the students would find themselves in a clearing with sandbag 'bunkers' at one end facing a large pile of stones and twisted metal.  On the other end, several rows of different types of grenades were laid out carefully.  Aly stood in the middle, trying not to be nervous over her students' first experience in class with live explosives.  She was mostly failing, but the nerves weren't showing through to her students as anything other than a bit of tenseness.

Once everyone was assembled, she spoke up.  "Morning, everybody.  As I hope you've noticed by now, we're not in the Danger Shop.  Which means that the grenades over there are live.  Today is so not the day to fool around or be in less than your absolute top form or you'll be lucky if detention is the least you get."

Confident she had everyone's attention, she nodded.  "This is going to be fun.  Those of you who haven't handled live rounds before, don't be nervous, just be very careful.  You'll be fine."  She gave a short and thorough lecture the development and uses of different types of grenades before going on to the proper procedures for arming and throwing the weapons.

"No explosive we try is going to be the best possible choice in every situation," she said, wrapping up.   "For grenades, the delay between pulling the pin and the explosion means you can throw it, but the enemy could throw it back at you or it could bounce off a wall and roll back towards one of your allies.  So what I want you to do today before trying them for yourself is discuss with a partner or two the tactical advantages of grenades.  Why use them and not a Molotov cocktail that can't come back at you?  Or a gun which has a longer range?  Or would you use them at all except as a last resort?"

"After that, come over and try them out for yourself."

Aly had positioned herself so only one person at a time could approach the bunker with its firing position.  No need to for more chaos to impinge on some of the students.

[OOC:  Whee, things go boom!  Aly's completely serious about the penalties for horsing around in this class.  If you want to get detention ping in the OOC thread, otherwise I'll give you a heads up if your character is skirting the line.  Please wait for OCD is up!]

Comments

[Explodey 7/24] - Sign In

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

In a nice orderly fashion.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Sign In

[slr-mercury.livejournal.com]

Ami Mizuno

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Sign In

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke Skywalker

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Sign In

[lovesrenoir.livejournal.com]

Animal

[Explodey 7/24] - Discuss

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

So when would these be tactically effective? Why would you carry them? What are other options that would be more or less useful?

Or, you know, random thoughts on 'ooh, blow things up now.'

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Discuss

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke looked around for a partner, hoping this one wouldn't accidentally be blowing ducks up by the end of class.

Silly optimistic Luke.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Discuss

[lovesrenoir.livejournal.com]

Tough luck for Luke.

"THROW! RUN! GO BOOM! HAHAHA!"

Yes. This was him being analytical.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Discuss

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke gave his partner a small smile and imagined him as a tinier, more hyperactive Chewbacca.

Near explosives.

Force help them all.

"Aim, throw, run, go boom," Luke amended.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Discuss

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Annette stared. She wondered how far she could throw a grenade.

Hmm.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Discuss

[bound2blade.livejournal.com]

Setsuna tilted her head a moment at the staring Annette before asking, "Need a partner?"

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Discuss

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

"Hi, Setsuna," she said, nodding. "Yeah."

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Discuss

[multiplez]

As Z waited for a partner, she could think of several benefits grenades had over Molotov cocktails.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Discuss

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure I understand the question," Sokka said, dropping in on the conveniently as-yet-unpartnered Z. "Grenades make a bigger boom. End of story. How is there NOT a tactical advantage?"

He bit his lip for a moment, trying to come up with other reasons. "Also, they look awesome on a bandolier."

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Discuss

[multiplez]

"Well, the Molotovs have the advantage of being improvisable, and like Professor Aly said, they blow up on impact, so your enemy can't throw it back at you," Z said. "But they're also more fragile and require you to throw something that's already on fire, which just does not seem like the safest thing in the world to me."

[Explodey 7/24] - Hand Grenades

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

There are quite a few different types to try out.

Most common are the fragmentation grenades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenade#Fragmentation_grenades), but there's also concussion grenades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenade#Concussion_grenades), and smoke grenades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenade#Smoke_grenades) to try out.

Be sure to hold down the safety lever while pulling the pin like Aly showed you. Aly's right there while everyone tries for any questions or to make sure nothing blows up on the wrong side of the sandbags.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Hand Grenades

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke, not surprisingly, was drawn to the grenades that would cause distraction rather than carnage.

He picked up several smoke grenades and began lobbing them towards the target.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Hand Grenades

[turnthisfrown.livejournal.com]

St. John looked over at Luke, and gave a slight smirk at his choice of weapons.
"A smoker, eh?"

John, himself, had several frags and concussion grenades at hand.

He chose a frag, yanked the pin expertly, and whipped it at the sandbags. He dropped to the ground seconds before a satisfying BOOM, and readied another one.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Hand Grenades

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke shrugged. "I only want to hurt the ones who ask for it. The concussion grenades have a greater chance of accidentally blowing pieces off of my friends."

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Hand Grenades

[bound2blade.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, the concussion and smoke grenades were shiny. Setsuna, feeling she could definitely get a lot of use out of those in the field, worked a bit with them, wishing she were a better thrower.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Hand Grenades

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Annette really would not want to hurt anyone unless she was forced to, in a dangerous situation that meant for her life or death.

She stuck with the smoke grenades, trying to throw them as far as she could to reach the intended target.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Hand Grenades

[multiplez]

Z decided to try one of each type of grenade, so she could get a better idea of the difference in effects.

Also, it meant she got to blow more things up!

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Hand Grenades

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

It probably showed in how well he handled them, that Billy has used grenades before.

Re: [Explodey 7/24] - Hand Grenades

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Oh, Sokka was definitely going for the frag grenades. But, because he is not stupid (despite all the evidence to the contrary), he was very very careful while throwing them and waited until afterwards to whoop, holler, and dance around.

[Explodey 7/24] - Talk to Aly

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

Because she's there before and after class. Not so much during class as she's pretty focused on exploding things. Unless, of course, that's what you need to talk to her about.

[Explodey 7/24] - OOC

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

Hurrah OOC!