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From comments over the years and experience I have reached the following conclusions and list them for your comments please
GENERAL Many Blitzers think that Opfire is unreliable so it is better to keep the points for own use. Some OPfire is desirable to keep the opponent guessing. The OPfire global setting overrides individual settings so there is no point in setting different Opfire for some units
HARD VEHICLES Generally avoid using OPfire. If you want to set Global OPfire and you set an ambush (where you can hide from passing tanks and hit them from the rear) use up points by moving the ambusher so it will stay secret until it appears later.. Set OPFire range at Short for hard targets but set at never for soft vehicles and Infantry
ANTI-TANK Set Medium for hard vehicles & place unit near a tank pathway with a side obstruction to its view so that the gun will only fire at the side of an enemy tank. As it only has 2 shots it will be lost if there several enemy tanks. Set range at never for Other Firing U[/b]nits
OTHER FIRING UNITS Set at Medium so that Infantry will only fire one hex out

Medium will normally see infantry shoot two hexes out. But that's a pretty good number, still decent FP at that range (depending on the unit of course). German infantry can usually shoot 3 hexes with good effect, other nations not so much. Still, nothing worse than having wasted action points left over.

Op fire for AFVs...just generally not a good idea to reveal your location, except in situations perhaps when the enemy can only come at you one way and there is a lot of you or something else intervenes like the terrain will soak up their movement and render the enemy unable to fire back in that particular turn.

Global settings sets MAXIMUMS. They don't override individual lower settings. If you have a global AFV medium range setting vs infantry, you can individually set some AFVs to short or none, but you can't set to long...well, you can, but it won't work.

You're pretty much spot on in your post, I reckon.

Another op fire tip/trick - In low LOS hexes (1 deep city hexes), let some units op fire, but hold back one infantry unit (particularly one with a high assault and maybe low attack, like a SMG unit).

As long as your opponent triggers at least one op fire on his first move into LOS, he cannot spot the non-op-fire unit (barring elimination/retreat of all the op-firing units). Then if he gets disrupts on all the spotted units and tries an assault, the unspotted unit can throw a big wrench in the works.

Hello Jim,

here are some thoughts about OPFIRE which i collected from other players over the years:

Opp fire for nighttime- short
Recon unit-no fire in all categories. The unit does not want to fire at an enemy unit and be spotted.
AT gun-long range for soft and armor for 76mm, 85mm, and 88mm AT gun, no fire for infantry. Short to medium for 37-50mm AT guns. They have to be close to get any kind of hit on any armored vehicle after 1941. If the AT gun you are attacking is shooting you infantry, you know that you can make him take his shots are infantry instead of your armor. Infantry is much harder to kill with AT guns.
Infantry unit-long range for armor because long range is one hex with armor. Russian infantry perhaps short, because their fire is not all that effective. German infantry-med. Long range, or set according to how far one can see to shoot.
Armor Fire on Infantry- may be set to fire at infantry at short range only so as not to use opp fire needlessly , yet keep off the infantry. Russian infantry generally cannot harm a German tank. Vice versa is not true, esp. in 1944.


By Leto:
DO NOT USE OPFIRE!!
Why?
1) You do not have control over what you fire at (limited if you set range and target selection)
2) You never know if it will be triggered.
3) Opfire does not allow you to take advantage of retreats (AFV backsides) or disruptions.
4) Most often, you will be facing the enemy at his strength (such as 22 frontal armour defence on hetzers while they protect their vulnerable 3 strength backsides)
5) Smoke can always be used to soak up opfire with stronger units, and in many cases, extremely strong units can render a defense impotent (IE. King Tiger moves into hext with AT, Engineers and T-34's... Good chance not one of those is going to scratch the king of kitties)

When to use opfire:

1) When range is limited (infantry in a one LOS hex, such as behind a hill or in a town/city).
2) When covered arcs of LOS will not allow AFV's to be spun around by opportunistic opfire to be then shot in the bum.
3) When you have strong armour and much of it that covers all LOS points of enemy approach conjointly (this rarely happens)
4) When defending a hex that is out of LOS with 2-3 units so that other units that do not have opfire turned on will not be sighted and hex cannot be overrun.
5) When looking to ambush lorried (soft) units.



steffen