1977 Traveller and grenades

Whooboy… Now I know why I like the 1977 LBBs – simple, quick and not a lot of thought, unless you wanted to deep dive into things.

CT77 doesn’t have rules for grenades. That’s kind of funny, considering Marc Miller was an Army grunt like me, but… :shrug:

One my players in my Battlestar Galactica game is very fond of grenades. Their character is often loaded down with several on their person, and always considering if the answer to a problem is a grenade. Sometimes it has been!

The question is always, how far can Marie throw these things? And that’s where I do a bit of a deep dive into early CT.

Classic Traveller went through a few revisions and editions – 1977 (1e), 1981 (2e), 1982 (Traveller Book), 1983 (Starter Traveller). Plus we had the Snapshot game, which are rules for shipboard personal combat. It’s in Snapshot79 that we first find grenade rules:

A grenade may be thrown up to 10 squares; the thrower must roll his own dexterity or less for the grenade to hit the intended square. If this throw is not successful, the grenade will land short by the number of squares the dexterity throw was missed by. A grenade does 4D damage to the individual in the square it lands in, and can cause additional hits using the Group Hits By HE rule.

But what is a “square” in Snapshot79 as opposed to the “bands” in CT77?

Well… Marc left the concept of squares, hexes and distances as an exercise to the reader, in CT77:

Note that this system specifically does not take into account tactical maneuver. Players (and the referee) may choose to adapt this to a square or hexagonal grid.

Which is Marc’s gentle way of saying “I’m not dealing with this crap, you deal with it, referee, that’s your job!”

Two years later, in Snapshot79, Marc reversed course and said:

The width of one square equals a distance of 1.5 meters.

So a grenade can be thrown about 15m in Snapshot. Roughly 15 yards. That’s a ridiculously short range. I could toss a grenade at least 25m bitd for the Army and was … mostly … accurate. BUT… Snapshot is written for indoors. Which now that makes sense, tossing grenades in tight, enclosed spaceships probably would limit ranges. Not to mention if you’re in weightlessness… but I digress.

How do we make Marie happy when she’s on the surface of a planet?

CT81 attempts to start correlating bands with actual distances:

For movement, distances are measured in range bands, each representing approximately 25 meters. … Close and short range are each less than a complete range band in size.  RANGE BANDS Close, Short: 0; Medium: 1 to 2

So this all gives me something to work with, within the way CT77 still works. I think I’m adopting the CT81 band structure, just because it makes more sense. (and trying to translate back to CT77 with the number of rounds to move across a band category does NOT translate into even math…)

So… Marie’s grenade rule:

Grenades
May be thrown into the next band accurately. Roll 8+ to hit. If throwing more than 1 band distant, -2 DM per band. If DEX is 6-, -2 DM. If the throw fails, throw 1D, 1-3: grenade lands short 1 band (or in same band as attacker!), 4-6: grenade lands long 1 band. 4D damage to target and anyone in close range to target. Individuals at short range to target take 2D damage.

Whew!