Anybody else ever feel this way?

[Stejones82]

In SqB, when on the defensive, does it ever seem to anybody else that it gets to the point where it it is better NOT to fire?

It seems like this event has happened more than once in my games:

1. I'm defending and have fairly good terrain.
2. A decent sized squad rallied back to normal at turn-start.
3. So I says to myself, "I'll moiduh that no good so-and-so adjacent to me. hehehehehehehehehe this'll be great!"
4. So I carefully select the best weapon, hover the cursor over the next recipient of the posthumous purple heart, and BAM !!
5. I get the big Goose Egg (0)! and here comes the return defensive fire: "Disrupted"
6. "W H A A A A A T ? ? ?"
7. Well, the next'll kill 'em sure. BAM!
8. The dreaded yellow "P" - - - on MY guy!!


Is defensive fire always 100% or something? Now my tactic is to have the boys play cards in deep shelter and wait for the bad-boys to come and push 'em away. Might as well toss verbal barbs at 'em, since weponry never seems to have any effect!

Now this is more of a therapeutic spout than a true question - - - - and YOUR chance to add any anecotal reminiscences about games gone by.

Cheers Lads, and a toast to the next one - - - Then I'll REALLY moiduh the bum!

[Rabbit]

In general, I would say the answer to your question is actually the reverse of your question. That is, when is the point when you should START to fire? Once you have opened fire, you will often find yourself firing away until the bitter end. Your weapons lose effectiveness as you fire them, so you need to be purposeful when firing them rather than firing away at enemy units as they come into your line of sight. And I would go so far as to say that learning to effectively hold your fire is the number one way to improve how well you play Squad Battles.

I find it helpful to choose a very small number of squads (preferably mortar teams or machine gun crews) to fire at advancing troops just to slow them down, while holding fire with the rest of my troops. Then I will open fire with everything I’ve got when the enemy is within half the range of most of my weapons and preferably in vulnerable terrain. (I say half the range because a weapon’s firepower is usually halved when firing at targets that are further than half their maximum range.) This approach has several key benefits:

1.) Most of my squads remain concealed until they open fire, which means their effectiveness hasn’t been reduced by enemy suppressive fire.

2.) A sudden ambush using maximum firepower (e.g., firing all of your squads’ weapons at once and within half their range) is more likely to leave an enemy pinned in vulnerable positions. When you fire from a distance, you usually cannot bring all your firepower to bear so you are less likely to pin the enemy. And there is a vast difference in pinning an enemy as opposed to merely disrupting them.

3.) Information is power. Exposing your positions too soon allows your enemy to chart a more effective approach. The longer he’s left guessing where your units are located, the more cautious he will have to be.

By the way, hopefully I am not going too far off tangent from your discussion topic. I bring it up because it took me a long time to learn the tremendous value of holding fire … essentially it took a lot of major defeats to Oz and some of the other excellent veterans here before I finally understood some of their effective tactics.

Best,
Rabbit

[TheBigRedOne]

Everything that he just said it spot-on. The longer you can hold off from opening up, the better you are going to be, especially if you've got some really devastating short range weapons, like the CAN rounds on an M-79 or AK-47/74. Hit a squad with those when they don't know you're there and they are going to take some serious punishment.

As Bill said, use the longer range weapons to slow down the advance. Mortars, arty, sniper rifles. Let them come to you.

Placing your weapons on "Hold Fire" is the first thing to do before getting started, this way your troops won't open up on the first things they see. Wait, then wait a little longer.

A lot has to do with your weapon effectiveness as well as your troop morale. C or D moraled troops will not fire as effectively as A or B, when playing with Quality Loss Modifier, which I feel is a must if you want a bit more realism.

[Jeff Conner]

It sounds like you are firing your weapons one at a time, at least from your description. While there might be reasons to do this (such as firing an AT weapon at a tank while firing your other weapons at infantry), if all of a squad's (or stack for that matter) weapons are going to be fired at the same target hex, they should be fired together. The calculations are the same, but if you fire them all together, you only create one trigger for opportunity fire, you are more likely to receive a result that will reduce such opportunity fire and if your result reduces the morale of the target, you are less likely to receive opportunity fire.

One other thing that you should be aware of is the effectiveness of both the weapons and the squads in your defensive position. In your example, the unit has just rallied from disrupted to normal. This suggested that it has been in action already. If the effectiveness of either, or both types of units has been seriously degraded, it might be time to withdraw rather than stay and fight. Just because a unit has normal morale does not mean everything is right with the world.

Jeff

[Kritterpaw]

Does SB have an hot key for hold fire?

[Richie61]

Does SB have an hot key for hold fire?

Nope.
Maybe HPS will add them like the newer SB titles in an update.

Chad has their ear and he may know when

[Kritterpaw]

Be nice, thanks for the reply. Actually gives me an idea for a new post

[Wolfgang]

One thing I've always wondered: Do weapons regain effectiveness when not used for awhile in a scenario? Or once it goes down, it can only stay there or go lower?

[TheBigRedOne]

One thing I've always wondered: Do weapons regain effectiveness when not used for awhile in a scenario? Or once it goes down, it can only stay there or go lower?

Weapons and squads regain effectiveness over time 1) If they stay put and don't fire and 2) Are not fired upon. It is called 'rest and refit' and has been applied to all the games at this point, I believe.

It's the equivalent of heading to the rear to regroup.

[Kritterpaw]

Wow and thanks

That is something I never realised.
Did a small test in PW Allies with 10% and Jap with 8% (in para data).
After 2-3 turns saw 100%'s returned to allied units, from low 90's.

Some Jap one's which commenced from 70/80% took about 5 or so turns.

This was unit status and weapon effectiveness !
Hooray, there is a way to keep the E up, in L*S*E
Well it's a rethink for me.

Thanks