Appreciating Grenadiers

[Dayve]

I've never read or studied warfare from this period in history, but is throwing grenades into the flank of an enemy unit whilst one of your own is engaged with it not just a tad unrealistic?

[SpiritFox]

I've never read or studied warfare from this period in history, but is throwing grenades into the flank of an enemy unit whilst one of your own is engaged with it not just a tad unrealistic?

Meh - it works. I never studied the history of the period either, but from every account I've heard and tried out, standing around trading musket volleys under cannon fire results in excessive casualties. It's fine when I'm holding the line, but I prefer a little more elan on my offensives. Mostly because the AI is so damn stupid anyway.

[Khorak]

I find Grenadiers completely useless for my own use. The AI is more uncaringly suicidal and reckless, so it can annoy me with them, but they're still not truly effective. An army with a unit of grenadiers is an army that's short of a unit of howitzers.

[HKDDJulker]

on VH battle difficulty, i found that grenadiers were the only troops that even had a chance against enemy line infantry. To maximize casualties, wait till the enemy are bunched up, and exchanging fire with another of your units. you can easily cause massive casualties amongst the bad guys by charging up to nade range and letting loose some volleys back to back. grenadiers seem to die a little slower than regular line infantry as well. Not to mention they don't run away so easily.
IMO anyone that thinks grenadiers don't work are simply using them incorrectly. The battles I was using them in (and losing), the tall boys were inflicting 100+ casualties per 60 man unit, almost exclusively from grenades.

[Monsieur Louris]

They also do a marvelous job with units behind stone walls. I tend to mass four of them per stack and use them en masse either to punch a hole in enemy Line Infantry with melee charge or use their grenades.

[MrWhipple]

I've never read or studied warfare from this period in history, but is throwing grenades into the flank of an enemy unit whilst one of your own is engaged with it not just a tad unrealistic?

Yes it is quite period. Read up on the Ottoman assault on Malta. The Knights of St. John used grenades (and a lot more stuff thrown from the battlements) to fend off the Turks for three months. 700 knights won over some 30,000 turks with large assault guns.

Yes Grenadiers did evolve into just big hulking troops but for a long time they did use a lot of grenades just like we use them in the game.