Mk 2 Grenade

This article is about this is about the HECU Grenade. For the Half-Life 2 Grenade, see MK3A2 Grenade.

Mk 2 Grenade
Production information
Type	Fragmentation hand grenade
Affiliation	Hazardous Environment Combat Unit Black Ops Black Mesa
Technical specifications
Maximum ammunition	10 (25 in Half-Life: Day One)
Damage	100
Rate of fire	60 RPM
Range	Medium
Usage
Used by	Gordon Freeman Adrian Shephard Barney Calhoun Gina Cross Colette Green HECU Black Ops
Counterparts	Other grenades
Game information
Designed by	Stephen Bahl (HD version)
Entity name	weapon_handgrenade

The Mk 2 Grenade is a weapon featured in Half-Life and its expansions.

Overview

It is a timed fragmentation hand grenade with a 5-second fuse, with a medium AOE. Upon impact, the grenade does 1 damage and the explosion's effect scales on the target's distance to it within the proximity.

Enemies killed by it might explode into pieces, depending on how much damage they suffer. Weak enemies (such as the Bullsquid and smaller ones) will always be gibbed if they are in the epicenter of the blast.

Following the 25th anniversary update, the player now throws grenades noticeably farther than before, at more or less the same distance as in Half-Life: Day One.

The grenade is used by the HECU and the Black Ops to flush out enemies. There are a few grenades scattered throughout the Black Mesa Research Facility, mostly in locations untouched by the HECU.

In Half-Life, the player can first obtain grenades in a semi-secret cache during the chapter Unforeseen Consequences. If not obtained there, it can be found scattered throughout the chapter Office Complex and subsequent ones. However, after the chapter Apprehension, the Mk2 Grenade rarely appears and is partially replaced by the Satchel Charge.

Tactics

• Grenades can be used to flush out intelligent enemies from behind cover and make them vulnerable to other weapons.

• Upon hitting the ground, it ceases moving, so they must be deployed strategically.

• A grenade exploding right next to a Standard Zombie, Vortigaunt or HECU soldier will kill the target instantly, so they should be saved for those enemies. Even if they do survive the blast, they will be severely weakened and will easily die to a few bullets.

• Due to its delayed action, it might not be useful against stronger enemies that it cannot kill in one hit, such as the Bullsquid, or faster enemies, such as the Headcrab. Other weapons simply work better in these cases.

• Theoretically, the grenade can be used to perform a "Grenade Jump":

• To do this, the player must jump right before the grenade explodes - for example, jumping right before releasing a cooked grenade. However, this can be very difficult to do, as again lack of audible and visual timer make it very hard to time a jump correctly. In addition, a point-blank explosion does a significant amount of damage to the player and can kill them in one hit if they have little to no armor points.

• However, the height of this jump will be directly proportional to the damage done to the player's health, ignoring the amount absorbed by the HEV Suit. This means that if one wants to perform a very high "grenade boosted" jump, they generally would want to have as little armor as possible, which makes this trick even more dangerous.

"Cooking"

Female Black Op with grenades attached to her belt.

• While flushing out enemies with a grenade is easy, actually damaging them with it is harder. Enemies run as soon as a grenade is thrown, which usually puts them out of the damage radius before it explodes. To damage enemies with the grenade, the player must "cook" it by holding down the fire key instead of immediately releasing it. The grenade's timer will be ticking while the fire key is held down but not released.

• Cooking the grenade can be tricky, as it lacks an audible/visual timer, forcing the player to count down in their head as soon as the pin is pulled. The grenade should be released after three seconds have passed in order to give it time to fly to the target.

• The player can cancel the process of throwing a grenade by pressing the "quick switch" key. This will save the player if he doesn't have enough health, as a grenade will only explode in a player's hand when the "cook" button is released or if the player re-selects it.

• The grenade is one of the few weapons that can damage a Gargantua, so those who intend to kill one manually should practice cooking grenades.

Behind the scenes

Penguin with an Mk 2 attached to its back.

• As seen in the Half-Life SDK files, its original skin shows a brighter green.
• The grenade appears to be a Mk 2 grenade, which is anachronistic, as it was only fielded in WWII before being phased out around a decade later.
• Players were able to 'toss' the grenade in beta.

• The Team Fortress Classic’s Frag Grenade uses the grenade's ground model. The physics of the grenade are also improved, allowing it to bounce along the ground.

• In Half-Life: Day One, the player can hold up to 25 grenades, reduced to 10 in the final game. This explains why there are 15 grenades in certain areas, such as the weapons stash in the chapter Unforeseen Consequences.

• In Opposing Force’s CTF mode, the Snark is replaced by a penguin with the Mk 2 Grenade attached to its back.

Gallery

HUD icon.

Early worldmodel, with a brighter green.

Early texture.

Another early texture.

Worldmodel.

Viewmodel.

HD worldmodel.

HD viewmodel.

Playstation 2 viewmodel

List of appearances

• Half-Life: Day One (First appearance)
• Half-Life
• Half-Life: Uplink (Non-canonical appearance)
• Half-Life: Opposing Force
• Half-Life: Blue Shift
• Half-Life: Decay

External links

• Mk 2 grenade on Wikipedia