Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert
Whether a grenade stops where it lands or bounces depends on many things, such as whether it was thrown hard or lobbed, and what ground it lands on. If it's soft forest humus, it'll just stop, but on hard concrete it'll bounce and keep going. Perhaps unfortunately this is a GM's call.
As for the timer, for those 20th century grenades given as having 4-5s fuses, that's being generous - they actually had more like a 4-7s delay in service.
If flight time really matters, I'd rule that a throw of under half the thrower's maximum distance lands at the end of their current turn, and one over that lands at the beginning of their next. The fuse would 'tick' at the start of their turn, so a 1s fuse can't be safely 'cooked off' - it'll go off in your hand.
By the way, in my experience grenades are very slow weapons in GURPS and are of little use unless one or both sides of a firefight are in solid cover and can't be forced out or shot in place. It takes a long time to get the grenade out, prep it, and throw it, and accurate placement is hard without exposure to fire.
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...and not just in GURPS it must be said. As for unreliable fuses, according to Ian Hogg Japanese grenade fuses captured during WW2 were so variable that some of them were effectively on a 0 second delay … although other opinion thinks those may have been deliberately designed for booby trapping.
Even more fun have been the various impact detonating fuses for hand grenades - Breda made a particularly amusing type that would sometimes detonate on impact, sometimes a bit later, sometimes when the grenade was next moved and sometimes never. There was no realistic way of telling in advance what exactly would happen when you threw one...