Shoot and Scoot

[PoorOldSpike]

The shoot/scoot order tells your tank to move fast forward to a point ahead; then stop for a few seconds and fire at anything he sees, before finally reversing back to safety.

1- In this test my Pz IIIH (short 50mm gun) is sitting behind a wood out of sight of 3x T-34/76's, he can't see them and they can't see him.
They're buttoned, moving right to left, and their turrets are facing forward, so with any luck he'll be able to do a shoot and scoot on them and fire before they can see him and react.
So in the order phase (below) I set his armour-arc to point at them and order a shoot-scoot, placing the 'shoot' waypoint a few metres ahead so he can peep around the corner of the wood, and placing the 'scoot' waypoint back at his start point-
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/Competitons/scootA.jpg




2- I start the turn and he rolls forward, stops and shoots. His first shot missed, but his second one hits-
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/Competitons/scootB.jpg




3- And about 10 seconds later (note clock) he's reversed safely back to his start point, the T-34's never even had time to spot him.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/Competitons/scootC.jpg

Tactical summary- Shoot-scoot is best used if you think you can get away with squeezing off a shot or two before the enemy sees you and returns fire, so weigh up the odds; for example he should preferably be side or rear-on to you, or buttoned or moving, or low quality crew, or poor visibility to hamper his spotting, and have a slow turret traverse.
If he's a turretless SP gun you've got an excellent chance of hurting him because no way would he have time to pivot to face you before you scoot.
You can of course use shoot-scoot to peep around any sort of terrain, or even peep over hills into forbidden zones.
What will we find there Dr.Zaius?

"Your destiny"
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/DrZaius.jpg

[PoorOldSpike]

This example of shoot and scoot is from an actual game..

1- Rico's PzIVH hasn't got LOS on my 2x Churchills which are trundling down the green arrow..
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/Competitons/ric1.gif


2- So he issues a shoot/scoot order which takes the panzer into firing position from where it knocks out one of the Churchills..
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/Competitons/ric2.gif


3- The other Churchill fires back but the panzers luck holds..
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/Competitons/ric3.gif


4- And it completes the shoot/scoot by reversing back to safety..
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/Competitons/ric4b.gif

[mTk]

Very interesting. When I first started playing CM I issued S&S orders a few times and found it not to work all that well and abandoned the tactic. May need to revisit.

[Keissi]

IMO it's good to point out the necessity of placing your shoot and scoot- markers, Fast and Reverse, properly. That is to say, try and have your firing position in hull down and the reverse spot straight behind your vehicle, so that it's doesn't start turning itself while in the firing position.

[Rico]

Keissi - good point -- nothing worse than having your tank wasting time turning on the spot after he's taken the shot.

[[hirr]Leto]

Also realise that standard cower rules apply. Thus if you have a T-34 flanking a Tiger with scoot and shoot, you will inevitably begin backing up almost as fast as you had arrived, as the 10 second shot clock - reverse will be moderated by this effect. It's good to know cower rules in these circumstances to better understand the results of your attempts and to better plan for tactics that work.

Cheers!

Leto

[Bert Blitzkrieg]

In the CMBB manual there are two trainings missions described. In the second one the usefulnes of the S&S command is very well illustrated. As Russian you're up against a bunch of Panthers and Tigers, but you have (more) JS2's. Downside of these is their low ROF and their poor(er) marksmanship. From behind a crest you can oreder your JS2's to S&S independently from each other so you target the German tanks from slightly different angles on different time intervals. When I played this scenario some years it worked well enough and took out almost all German tanks of course losing a bunsch of JS2's as well.
But place your "shoot" point well ! That is the most difficult part of the order.