Some areas for possible larger, longer SB scenarios

[TheBigRedOne]

Sounds great..but as you say it falls apart when it comes to the defender..maybe lots of fixed units..however ammo would be brought up to them which again can't really be done..once a squad drops a weapon it's effectiveness drops through the floor..so making that pointless.

The only time effectiveness is decreased is if the weapon was 'dropped' by a causality. If you have a fresh weapon that is accidentally dropped (we've all done it), nothing about that weapon changes. I've also seen plenty of weapons dropped by casualties, especially early in a battle, have 75% effectiveness, which when ammo is running low, isn't bad. In general, the effectiveness drop tries to simulate the fact that say a German picks up an M-1 Garand, chances are he doesn't have a whole lot of ammo to put that weapon to use. It also tries to abstract that the wounded or killed soldier was potentially removed from the battlefield, as they would normally.

The 'rest and refit' in the engine attempts to address a squad and it's weapons getting low on ammo. It does require that squad not fire, move, or being fired upon, but you can regain lost effectiveness over time in the SB engine. For longer scenarios this is a very useful thing to use. Pull a tired squad off the line to regroup for several turns, then plug them back when their effectiveness increases.

In general the abstraction of weapons is good. Not perfect, but good. Many SB veterans will comment that players tend to get trigger happy in general, firing full loads, every weapon each and every turn, never using the Hold Fire option to conserve on ammo when it comes to op fire. Grunts didn't have an unlimited supply of ammo in most situations, and re-supply was never a guarantee. Pick your shots carefully and conserve your ammunition is always a pretty sound rule.