Smoke Grenade

“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. When thrown, it creates a thick, medium-sized smoke screen that lasts for 18 seconds. ( 288 units diameter, or 144 units radius )

Overview

It was added to Counter-Strike in BETA 6.5.

When held, the player's movement speed is 250 units per second in Counter-Strike, meaning they suffer no speed reduction. However, in Counter-Strike: Source and Global Offensive, the player's movement speed is 245 units per second.

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.
- 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 shoot 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.

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.

Gallery

Main article: Smoke grenade/Gallery

Trivia

In the GoldSrc games, the smoke grenade was widely considered to be useless as players could still see through the smoke (unless they were far away).
- 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 is changed to black and the players cannot see through the smoke. If the player rushes through the smoke, the screen will fade a bit and it will be hard to see. Even walls in front that are blocking you cannot be discerned.
Before Counter-Strike 1.6, the smoke grenade spreads slower and takes several seconds to create a cloud of smoke, similar to the early versions of Counter-Strike: Source, also it will sometimes erupt from the ground to release smoke.
- In Counter-Strike: Source, there was an update on August 30, 2010 which made smoke grenades bloom faster, have more opaque, and fixed one-way smoke.
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.
If you kill somebody with a smoke grenade in Counter-Strike: Source, the kill icon is the same the suicide symbol.
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.
The game file name for this item is "smokegrenade".
Bots cannot attack in a cloud of smoke and will not detect enemies within the smoke, giving an advantage to human players.
- 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.
This is the only existing grenade in the Counter-Strike series to use gas and is harmless to players (unless it is thrown at someone in Counter-Strike Source and Global Offensive).
- Although, there was a cut gas grenade that had nearly the same properties but the gas could inflict damage.
If the smoke grenade is thrown into the water, it will create bubbles instead. This feature is in newer installments only.
In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, if an enemy or teammate is within the smoke, aiming your gun at the other player within the smoke will not display the name nor their location of that player on the radar.
Players can kill by throwing this grenade, as the grenade deals 1 damage. This is available in Source version and CS:GO.
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).
The smoke grenade will instantly release smoke when it makes contact with flames from the Molotov cocktail or the Incendiary grenade.
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.
- A little known feature is on maps where the Counter Terrorists are the British SAS (who have gasmasks), CT players who enter the smoke as the SAS will not cough loudly.
  - Furthermore, if you boost the audio, a faint sound of someone breathing through a gas mask can be heard.

External links

Smoke grenade at Wikipedia

Template:Equipment