Where Allied doctrine spends more to get more from each soldier, Soviet doctrine simply fields more soldiers, and the Grenadier is that philosophy at its most literal. Armed with grenades rather than a rifle, the Grenadier trades range for raw destructive potential against anything short of heavy armour.
| Class | Basic infantry — anti-structure/anti-infantry |
|---|---|
| Armament | Fragmentation grenades |
| Armour | None |
| Trained at | Barracks |
Role
Grenadiers punch well above their cost against structures and clustered infantry — a small squad can bring down a lightly defended building far faster than an equivalent number of Riflemen could manage, and their splash damage makes them disproportionately effective against enemy soldiers bunched together in cover. Soviet commanders lean on them heavily in the campaign's siege-heavy missions for exactly this reason.
Limitations
Their short throwing range means Grenadiers must close distance to be effective, which exposes them to return fire far more than a Rifleman at range would suffer. They also do comparatively little against armoured vehicles, so a Grenadier squad caught in the open by a tank column is spent for nothing. Soviet doctrine treats them as a specialist tool, not a general-purpose replacement for Riflemen-equivalent infantry.
Field notes
Pair Grenadiers with Heavy Tanks when assaulting a fortified position — the tanks draw and absorb fire while the Grenadiers close the remaining distance to finish off structures the tanks alone would take longer to reduce. Used this way, they shorten sieges considerably; used alone in open ground, they rarely survive long enough to matter.
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