“The smoke grenade creates a medium-area smoke screen. It can effectively hide your team from snipers, or even just create a useful distraction.”
―Official description
A smoke grenade is a type of grenade available in the Counter-Strike series.
Overview
It was added to Counter-Strike in BETA 6.5.
When landing after thrown, the smoke grenade will release a cloud of smoke after a few seconds of fuze time. In the GoldSrc games, the smoke has very poor vision-obscuring effects at close range and spreads slowly. However, throughout the development of Counter-Strike, the smoke grenade was notably improved by making its smoke more dense and adding much faster smoke dispersion.
In Global Offensive, the smoke grenade instantly creates a thick, medium-sized (288 units diameter, or 144 units radius) smoke screen that lasts for 18 seconds after the fuze expires. The smoke screen is largely opaque except at the corners, obscuring players' vision. If a player enters the smoke, the player's weapon model will fade slightly and all vision will be obscured, even at zero range.
In Global Offensive, the smoke grenade prevents vision-related gameplay elements from taking effect, such as being detected on the radar or having the player name shown when being aimed at.
Bots cannot attack in a cloud of smoke and will not detect enemies within the smoke, giving an advantage to human players.
The smoke grenade normally requires a short moment of fuze time after landing to release smoke. In Global Offensive, the smoke grenade will release smoke instantly when it makes contact with flames from the Molotov cocktail or the Incendiary grenade and will extinguish the fire.
When held, the player's movement speed is 250 units per second in Counter-Strike, meaning they suffer no speed reduction. However, in Source and Global Offensive, the player's movement speed is reduced to 245 units per second.
In the PC version of Global Offensive, all grenades can be thrown at three different ranges. Using the primary fire throws the grenade at long range, using the secondary fire bounces the grenade at short range, and using both primary and secondary fire throws the grenade at medium range.
By releasing one mouse button after the other, throws between the regular 3 can be achieved. There are a virtually infinite amount of ways to throw a grenade using this.
Getting hit by a flying grenade in Source and Global Offensive deals a small amount of damage.[1]
In Deleted Scenes, the smoke grenades are used for weakening purposes, or create concealment against enemy vehicles. When the smoke spreads near an enemy, he will cough and cannot attack. This tactic can be done to any enemies, especially snipers and M72 LAW launchers. Furthermore, M2 gunners can be temporary distracted for a short period using a smoke grenade. The distraction effect also applies to friendly NPCs. Only the player is not affected by this.
However, should a bot bump into an enemy player within the smoke, that bot will quickly react and shoot down the opposing team member. Furthermore, as the smoke thins out, they can become able to fire back at enemies.
Advantages
- Can effectively hide your team if thrown correctly, especially from snipers.
- Can make a good distraction if not used for covering purposes.
- Can extinguish the fire from the Incendiary grenade and the Molotov cocktail, as well as being able to restrict their spread.
- Moreover, firebombs will fail to emit fire if they were thrown into the smoke.
- Capable of confusing the enemy.
- Enemies may not want to venture through the smoke, thus allowing your team to retreat or find alternative routes to flank the enemy.
Disadvantages
- In Counter-Strike 1.6 and Condition Zero, human players can see through the smoke clearly (if they are close enough or when scoped), thus making the smoke grenade nearly useless.
- In Source games, the density of the smoke has increased thereby, seeing through and around the smoke is nearly impossible.
- Causes no damage to the other team other than loss of vision for a short time (In Counter-Strike: Source and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, if a smoke grenade is thrown directly at an enemy or a teammate, it does 1 damage and can kill them).
- If thrown at a group of enemies incorrectly, it can end up making them more or less invisible to you and your team.
- Can attract attention and will become a major focus point for players. Due to this, players will often fire at the smoke and prevent enemies from seeking cover. They may even be bold enough to walk through it and take defenders by surprise, especially shotgun users.
- Aggressive players with LMGs or weapons with high magazine capacities may spray bullets blindly into the smoke, hoping to kill anyone who try to rush through the smoke.
- Can prevent assistance from being delivered in a smoke, especially if friendly fire is enabled.
Gameplay
Tactics
- The main purpose of the smoke grenade is to throw it at an area where enemies cannot see you and/ or your allies, but you can.
- Toss a smoke grenade at pathways where players (on the opposing team) will commonly traverse through. If possible, position it at a specific location where you can still see assailants but still be concealed.
- Use It after you plant a bomb on a site and throw it at the C4 or entrance and hide to the hidden spot and kill the enemy while it defuses.
- Use it to distract snipers. They may try to find out if the enemy is inside or outside of the cloud. Snipers can also retreat and avoid the smoke. However, beware of users that armed with semi-automatic sniper rifle such as Krieg 550 Commando, SCAR-20 and G3SG1 since they prefer to spray blindly through smoke.
- Similar tactics may also be used by snipers, as they may throw a smoke grenade to cover choke points and kill any enemy that comes out.
- Throw it at tight corridors; this will force a few enemies to blindly spray in it.
- Often times, the smoke grenade is useful in allowing players to throw grenades through the smoke without being involved in a great risk of being easily spotted.
- The cloud formed by the smoke can allow players to throw flashbangs, HE grenades, and even a decoy grenade without being easily detected.
- Most players will instinctively spray into or follow smoke clouds, so on winding maps these can be used to throw enemies off your track. Enemies with LMG or weapon with high magazine capacity will more likely to spray into smoke.
- A Smoke Grenade can be used to extinguish the fire from the Incendiary grenade and the Molotov cocktail to allow players to quickly stop the flames instead of waiting. Thus in Global Offensive, its recommended to purchase this while playing Bomb Defusal or Hostage Rescue maps, because enemy players are more likely to use fire to cover important areas.
- Use this grenade for cover when entering/exiting or guarding entryways to important areas, such as a bombsite. This will make it much harder for enemy snipers to eliminate you and other opposing team members may be cautious as they attempt to enter.
- If friendly fire is enabled, players will be careful to avoid killing team members so they may be hesitant in firing their weapons in the smoke.
- When a smoke grenade has been deployed, players will have difficulty in determining the amount of players within the smoke. Due to this, it is advised to stay away from smoke grenades or throw a grenade to prevent enemies from seeking cover or for ambushing.
- It is possible to fool non-AI enemies to mistake a flying smoke grenade as a flashbang. If this happens, you can take advantage of this and eliminate targets.
- Smoke grenades are often used to conceal movement. However, experienced players will often try to find elevated areas to fight back. Basically, enemies in lower areas that are faced with the dilemma of traversing through the smoke or avoiding it are at a serious disadvantage.
- Smokes can conceal a defuser when not all enemies are dead.
- In Global Offensive, its still possible to use "one-way smoke" tactic to take out the enemy without them being spotted or engaged; however this may result in the player being reported for cheating.
Counter-tactics
- Throw an HE grenade or spray within the cloud. If an enemy is hiding in it, this will damage him or kill him.
- Enemies will often shower grenades at the cloud so it may be more wise to move away from the smoke rather than waiting it out.
- Retreat and camp on areas distant from the cloud.
- If a smoke cloud is formed in a tight area, evacuate immediately while being careful.
- If you have allies and the presence of enemy players have been confirmed, you can spray bullets or burst fire at the cloud.
- You may choose to go through the smoke if you have plenty of back up but this is risky and not recommended.
- Using a smoke grenade and a decoy grenade can fool enemies so be alert.
- Assailants will often take advantage of the smoke by throwing a flashbang, emerge from the smoke, eliminate blinded enemies, retreat back into the smoke, and repeat this process. This can confuse enemies to a great extent thus be sure to stick together with team members.
- Be aware of areas with higher elevation if a smoke grenade has been deployed in lower areas. Players can easily ambush enemies who are in lower ground and cannot see through the smoke.
Trivia
- In the GoldSrc games, the model of the smoke grenade, alongside the flashbang and HE grenade, is a retextured version of the CS grenade model, featuring different color stripes.
- The CS grenade (and by extension, the smoke grenade) is modeled after M7A3 CS gas grenade.
- The text "M7A3 RIOT CS" can be seen on the smoke grenade in Counter-Strike.
- The CS grenade (and by extension, the smoke grenade) is modeled after M7A3 CS gas grenade.
- The smoke grenade in Source is modeled after the M18 Smoke Grenade.
- The smoke grenade in Global Offensive is modeled after the Model 5210 Smoke Grenade.
- In Counter-Strike: Source, if a Terrorist is planting the bomb within a cloud of smoke, a bright flash emits from the bomb at the instant when the bomb was beginning to be planted. This can give away positions or alert a nearby lurking "ninja defusing" Counter-Terrorist to a plant even before the sound of the plant is heard.
- The smoke grenade kill icon in Counter-Strike: Source is the same as the suicide icon.
- In Source and Global Offensive only, if the smoke grenade is thrown into the water, it will create bubbles instead of smoke.
- In Deleted Scenes, players and the AI would cough when entering the smoke. This feature was missing from Source, but made a return in Global Offensive.
- SAS CTs (who have gasmasks) will not cough loudly when entering smoke. Furthermore, a faint breathing sound through a gas mask can be heard upon entering the smoke.
- The text "44952 Washington Ave" on the smoke grenade in Global Offensive is misspelt as "44952 Washinton Ave".
- In the Global Offensive beta, the smoke grenade had a higher resolution texture. The same applies for the HE grenade and C4.
References
External links
- Smoke grenade at Wikipedia
Template:Equipment