HE Grenade

“The high explosive fragmentation grenade administers high damage through a wide area, making it ideal for clearing out hostile rooms.”
―Official description

The High Explosive (HE) grenade is a type of grenade available in the Counter-Strike series. Players can hold only one HE grenade at a time, excluding in Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes, where they may hold three at once.

Overview

When thrown, it explodes after a short period of time, dealing damage to a large area. In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, doors can be destroyed when they are caught in the explosion.

When held, the player's movement speed is 250 units per second, meaning they suffer no speed reduction. In Global Offensive, the player's movement speed s 240 units per second.

Properties

Game	Maximum damage
Game	Unarmored	Armored
Counter-Strike	96	48
Counter-Strike: Condition Zero	96	48
Counter-Strike: Source	98	72
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive	96	57

Advantages

High damage
Wide damage area (useful to damage enemies that move in groups or to clear rooms).
The explosion can penetrate through walls in Goldsrc Counter-Strike games only.
Price is cheaper than the Terrorist and Counter Terrorist exclusive firebombs.

Disadvantages

Creates attention.
Easily avoidable (unless the intended target(s) are clustered together in tight spaces).
Depending on distance of targets from the grenade, it may not even do that much damage in some cases.
If you incorrectly throw this grenade, it will harm teammates, yourself, and even the hostages!

Gameplay

Tactics

Great for softening enemies, finishing off wounded or scaring ambushers. A much frowned-upon tactic called "grenade spamming" is to stand in a buy zone and throw grenades at any place the enemy may come from, then buy a new grenade and throw it again. The result is a rain of grenades that doesn't stop until the player runs out of money to buy the grenades, or the buy time ends. When friendly-fire is off, the grenade can still injure or kill you if mis-thrown, but it won't injure your teammates.
A great way to effectively use a HE grenade is to keep it until after a few people have been killed after a rush. By this time, enemies will be settling into camping spots and will have taken at least some damage. Toss a grenade at a known camping spot, and you'll usually either kill or flush out and damage a target.
- Moreover, some players will refrain themselves from using HE grenades at the beginning of the round. Instead, they may use it at later periods especially when enemies have taken damage.
- Great for finishing off wounded enemies that are holed up from afar rather than risking your life to finish off directly (especially if they have a shotgun or an automatic weapon at close quarters)
HE grenades are also useful if an enemy uses a smoke grenade at the start of the round. Since most enemies go through the smoke, toss a HE grenade so that you'll damage some enemies, making it easier for your teammates to pick them off as they come through.
This weapon can be devastating if thrown at a large group at the start of a map, preferably if the group is in a tight area. If you get lucky, you can take down up to four people with one grenade.
If you are out in the open and you are seen, use an HE grenade to distract the enemies and run.
Take advantage of physics when using grenades! Throw them at walls if you want to keep your cover anyhow. Be sure to practice in aiming at specified angles otherwise the grenade may not hit its target or even harm your team members or yourself!
If you know your enemy is weakened (i.e. if you hit him with Scout) but he has you pinned down, use HE grenade to flush him out.
HE Grenades can instantly kill hostages, be careful using them around them!
It would be better if you throw a grenade after dealing some damage at your enemy, so that the grenade has a better chance to kill them instantly.
In bomb maps, the attackers can throw some HE grenades to flush some defenders out first before rushing in, this tactic is most effective when the bomb zone is small and the defenders are already hurt.
Depending on where the HE grenade has been thrown, the health of targets, and if they have kevlar, it will normally take at least two HE grenades to eliminate enemies. Since players can only hold one, be sure to cooperate with team members to have an easier time in engaging assailants.
- Having a volley of grenades from multiple teammates thrown into a rush will either severely injure or outright kill at least one enemy: especially on the first round.
Destroying doors in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive increases the speed of a rush (as players no longer need to wait for the door to open completely) and allows more aggressive tactics to be implemented.

Counter-tactics

If you witness enemies wielding the grenade, eliminate them (they are defenseless before they throw them).
- Be careful and try to kill them from afar as a primed grenade can still do damage after being dropped from a dead wielder.
If the grenade is thrown your way, run or hide. When running, switch to your knife, or a lighter weapon, such as the Schmidt Scout or a submachine gun since it allows you to move much quicker. Jumping can also reduce the damage from the grenade.
If the grenade is thrown your way, you can expect a player to follow it. This can be helpful when camping. Changing camping spots (e.g. from box to door) can help also, as the player may be suspecting someone to be camping in the wrong spot.
If you cannot see the grenade, listen to the bouncing sound and vacate the area.
Try to not hide behind a wall, since the grenade explosion can penetrate through walls. Instead, try to run away from the grenade explosion, this is less an issue in Source version.
Players will refrain from using HE grenades around hostages, especially if they were harmed. Due to this, some enemies will hide close to injured hostages.

Achievements

Weapon

HE Grenade Expert
Kill 500 enemy players with the HE grenade.

Kill

Defuse This!
Kill the defuser with an HE grenade.

Shrapnelproof
Take 80 points of damage from enemy grenades and still survive the round.

Three the Hard Way
Kill 3 enemy players with a single HE grenade.

Special

Premature Burial
Kill an enemy with a grenade after you've died.

Weapon Specialist

HE Grenade Expert
Kill 100 enemies with the HE grenade.

Premature Burial
Kill an enemy with a grenade after dying.

Combat Skills

Defuse This!
Kill the defuser with an HE grenade.

Shrapnelproof
Take 80 points of damage from enemy grenades and still survive the round.

Three the Hard Way
Kill three enemies with a single HE grenade.

Gallery

Main article: HE grenade/Gallery

Trivia

The explosive grenade in Counter-Strike: Source is a M26/M61 grenade, which is a fragmentation grenade, rather than an HE grenade. A frag grenade uses shrapnel from the explosion to do damage, whereas a HE grenade uses the explosion itself to do damage.
- In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the grenade represents a M67 grenade, which is also a fragmentation grenade.
The Pipe Bomb in Left 4 Dead is based off of this weapon. It uses the same explosion and bounce sound files though it will always be ignited before being thrown, has a slower fuse time and the Common Infected will be attracted.
In Counter-Strike: Source, the HE grenade can be thrown much further than in previous games, which makes it much easier to use. It also does more damage, but its explosion cannot go through walls.
The Counter-Strike: Source, the HE Grenade Expert achievement uses the purchase icon from the original Counter-Strike HE grenade while the other achievements represent a Mk 2 frag grenade (a grenade used by Allied forces in World War II) for their icon.
The grenade in Deleted Scenes deals higher damage than its multiplayer counterpart. It will usually kill a fully armored player/target. Also, the damage is so high that it can gib players/targets when they stand next to the explosion.
- The grenade in Deleted Scenes cannot penetrate through surfaces.
After the 2/5/2014 update in Global Offensive, all grenades received a secondary fire where the grenade will be bounced for short range throw, as well as a third medium-ranged throw (by holding both primary and secondary fire buttons).
Bots with HE grenades will sometimes throw them at walls or other obstructions so players should be cautious when following friendly bots with grenades when friendly fire is enabled, especially in Condition Zero. Prior to CS:GO, if the player issued the command "GO! GO! GO!", bots will switch to their firearm (if they agree with that command).
In Deleted Scenes, NPCs that uses the HE Grenade will often be armed with the Glock-18 (Terrorist) or USP (Counter-Terrorist) as their sidearm. They appear almost the same as a normal NPC armed with a pistol, except they will be defensive rather than aggressive (e.g. hide, throw grenades while hiding, etc).

External links

HE grenade at Wikipedia.

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