Flash Grenades – Have a one second fuse that will go off even if the grenade is in midair. This is a disadvantage for long tossing the grenade because it is totally ineffective if it explodes in mid air. The flash grenade has a longer range than the stun grenade, 200-800. It will only damage the enemy if it explodes right next to the target.

When it does explode the flash grenade emits a high piercing noise completely blinds the target for up to of 6 seconds depending on how close the the enemy was to the blast. Screenshot of flash grenades effects at right. The effected player still has full movement and weapon functions, they just can’t hear or see anything. This means the target can wildly spray fire until the hit indicator lights up, and use that hit indicator information to get a kill. The flashed target also retains full movement capabilities so they can move out of the way of any incoming grenades. This means a flashed enemy still poses a significant threat and can often escape unharmed.

Stun Grenades – Have a  minimum one second fuse with the requirement that the grenade must hit the ground before it explodes. Unlike the flash grenade effective long tosses with the stun grenade are possible because it only explodes after hitting the ground. The stun grenade has a slightly lower range than the flash grenade, 0-512 but much higher damage 1-40. The damage can not only get you kills but gives you valuable information; using the hit indicator you can tell whether or not a room is clear or has an enemy in it. This is impossible to do with the flash grenade unless it lands right next to the target.

The stun grenade emits a high piercing know and partially blinds the enemy just like a flash grenade. The blinding is much less severe though, such that you can still see well enough to identify targets. Screenshot of stun grenades effects above. More importantly the stun grenade significantly slows both your aiming and movement making it very difficult to run away from grenades or swing your weapon towards an enemy. This is crucial because it totally incapacitates your target. All you have to do to finish the kill is toss a grenade in there or do a quick strafe prone jump and open fire. The stunned enemy will be unable to move fast enough to aim at you or run away from the grenade. Combine this with the information gained from the hit indicator and it’s long tossing capabilities and the stun grenade is generally better than the flash grenade.

The bottom line: In general the stun grenade is superior to the flash grenade in Call of Duty 4 because it restricts enemy movement and provides valuable information via the hit indicator.

I think it is an issue of poor game design that makes maps like Wet Work inherently unfun because of nade spam. Individual servers can try to regulate abilities like nade spam that are so overpowered that they make the game unfun but they often fail. One reason is because regulating that sort of thing is incredibly difficult because you have to do it manually on a player by player basis, which on a server that is open 24/7 is nearly impossible. The other reason for failure is that servers regulate too much and ban every single perk and ability that has ever upset them, without any real consideration. This turns into games where the only two weapons allowed are the Scorpion and direct impact from Flash grenades. This is why game developers are basically the sole controllers over whether multiplayer game play is amazing or tiresome. Foruntunatly nade spam is one of the few gameplay issues with multiplayer COD4. Maybe we will even see this issue fixed in the future with a Patch or by the introduction of new perks or weapons.