<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">A few words about trying to silence grappling hooks</div><div class="spoiler_body">{Entering naval historian mode.}<br/>A grapple is, classically, a long shank of metal bar bent double around an eye with a second bar welded or lashed to it to make the third hook. Dropping it on a hard surface (like a jade/rock wall/floor) makes about as much noise as you'd expect if you threw a tempered metal bar weighing several kilograms onto the same surface: a very loud ringing.<br/><br/>There are ways to muffle a grapple, but they all take time and material. The classic method involves winding rope around the shank and all three tines so only the points and the eye of the grapple show, then the actual line is knotted around the eye enough to cover that part of the metal, and then you bundle fabric around it, like cloaks, to further pad it.<br/><br/>...All of which significantly increases the weight of the hook, reducing throwing or launching distance, and significantly lessens the chance of one of the tines catching. And it still doesn't make the grapple silent. Imagine bundling a triangle (the musical instrument) in rope and then throwing it onto a stone platform. Depending on just how it lands, it might make very little noise or it might still ring very loudly. Now imagine three triangles (each hook is basically one). The odds of getting a 'ringer' are much, much higher.<br/><br/>Historically, the Hollywood/gamer image of the grapple being used against walls or cliffs is pretty rare and limited to specialist infiltrators...Most of whom preferred to climb the hard way when necessary because it was guaranteed to be quieter (there are several historical examples of units like the 442nd Nisei U.S. Infantry who climbed cliffs to surprise the enemy and whose members did not scream if they fell to their deaths for fear it would endanger their still-climbing comrades) and there was zero chance of someone noticing your grapple and line and cutting it while you were halfway up. Where it was mostly used was at sea, to snarl enemy rigging, board enemy ships from the water (boarding hatchets were more common, with spike-backed heads which could be whacked into the soft wood of a keel), and to lock together ships which had rammed for mass boarding warfare (surprisingly common in certain ancient times...At Lepanto, Don Juan of Austria's flagship Real rammed the enemy commander, Kılıç Ali Pasha's flagship, creating a very nasty melee which was then joined by the Papal flagship under Colonna who rammed into the Real and added its own ranks to those under Don Juan, sweeping Ali Pasha's decks...These ships were mostly rowed galleys or galleases equipped with cannon). In such situations, grappling hooks were used to rope enemy ships to one's own, so they couldn't pull away.</div></div><br/>Just because it's a topic that rarely comes up. :)