Any tips on crossing open/clear terrain

[Rigafan]

I'm struggling with this on the Soviet Afghan campaigns. 

The area is all clear/field and I get spotted straight away and pinned down! Ends up in a stand off unless I meat grind my way forward

[Warhorse]

I'm struggling with this on the Soviet Afghan campaigns. 

The area is all clear/field and I get spotted straight away and pinned down! Ends up in a stand off unless I meat grind my way forward

Are you making sure to go to ground, or, to stay on ground and creep forward? Do you have smoke, or no? Sometimes I take units further back from my first line, and shoot at the enemy to hopefully suppress, and exhaus the opp fire, then move the closest units. If against an opponent they might have the hold order on, so they won't fire.

[Mowgli]

I'm struggling with this on the Soviet Afghan campaigns. 

The area is all clear/field and I get spotted straight away and pinned down! Ends up in a stand off unless I meat grind my way forward

Are you making sure to go to ground, or, to stay on ground and creep forward? Do you have smoke, or no? Sometimes I take units further back from my first line, and shoot at the enemy to hopefully suppress, and exhaus the opp fire, then move the closest units. If against an opponent they might have the hold order on, so they won't fire.

1. If you have to move over open terrain, chose a hex that can be seen by as few enemy positions as possible. Make plenty use of the line of sight overlay (hotkey S). Terrain analysis is key. (It is the safest approach to simply assume that there will be an enemy position in any hex that offers protection and good fields of fire)
   
2. Make sure that all enemy units who can see the clear hex are suppressed (either disrupted, pinned, demoralized - in all cases, their fire effectiveness is reduced by 50% which is crucial if you need to manoeuvre). This is what long range/fire support weapons (MGs, mortars) are for.
   
3. If you need to cross open terrain, try not to END your movement/turn in open terrain. Move across it and end your turn in cover, if possible. This is especially true if the enemies who can fire on the hex are only disrupted: Disrupted units can recover at the start of their turn, so they might get 100% fire power on you if you end your turn in the open. Against pinned units, it's much safer (as they cannot get back to 100% firepower in a single turn). Check the parameter data in advance to see if your units can make it across the open area in one turn (and also remember the weapon-overload rules, which might slow units down! I wished I could turn that off!).
   
4. If you cannot suppress all enemies or "jump" across clear terrain in a single turn, make sure you go to ground mode at the end of the move and use smoke on the clear hex. It will decrease incoming fire effectiveness by 50% (so it has the same effect as suppressing the enemy positions). You might also chose to crawl forward (move in "ground mode"), which of course is slow and might extend the time of exposure.
   
5. Make sure that the unit's commanders are close by so that if units get disrupted by fire in the enemy turn, they have a good chance to recover immediately at the start of your turn. This is very essential as disrupted units have their movement costs doubled which can be fatal if you have a lot of open ground to cover.
   
6. If you have tanks, you might want to stack them with the infantry, as the infantry gets some protection from it ("infantry protection" parameter).
   
7. Think twice if you want your manoeuver elements to fire at the enemy. Their main task should be to manoeuver and assault, not waste time/movement points on firing. Firing should be the task of fire support elements. If the enemy has better cover and is not suppressed, it's often wise to hold your fire. (If you want to preserve your weapons' effectiveness, you can also chose to hold your units' opportunity fire - select the weapons and press "F").
   
8. Don't bunch up. Fire in Squad Battles always affects ALL units in the hex. By stacking various units in a hex, you're basically multiplying your opponent's fire. Only bunch up if you have excellent cover. (It's usually safe to stack leaders with units though as these are single man units and are thus very unlikely to get hit).
   

PS: Nice youtube channel! :) I also have some Squad Battles videos online, but the commentary is in german:
Afghan War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHCAWZUoFNI
Vietnam: https://youtu.be/s0BYEmVNM40
Spanish Civil War (not finised yet): https://youtu.be/ukAm4uZrq-c

[Rigafan]

I'm struggling with this on the Soviet Afghan campaigns. 

The area is all clear/field and I get spotted straight away and pinned down! Ends up in a stand off unless I meat grind my way forward

Are you making sure to go to ground, or, to stay on ground and creep forward? Do you have smoke, or no? Sometimes I take units further back from my first line, and shoot at the enemy to hopefully suppress, and exhaus the opp fire, then move the closest units. If against an opponent they might have the hold order on, so they won't fire.

I have read the SB grunt school write up and that covers what you have mentioned, so I will need to try and think more realistically than 'gamey' as I seem to have been doing. 

Coming mainly from Order of Battle (I love this game) but it's quite forgiving if you are not concentrating, SB isn't 

Thanks for all the MOD work you do!

[Rigafan]

I'm struggling with this on the Soviet Afghan campaigns. 

The area is all clear/field and I get spotted straight away and pinned down! Ends up in a stand off unless I meat grind my way forward

Are you making sure to go to ground, or, to stay on ground and creep forward? Do you have smoke, or no? Sometimes I take units further back from my first line, and shoot at the enemy to hopefully suppress, and exhaus the opp fire, then move the closest units. If against an opponent they might have the hold order on, so they won't fire.

1. If you have to move over open terrain, chose a hex that can be seen by as few enemy positions as possible. Make plenty use of the line of sight overlay (hotkey S). Terrain analysis is key. (It is the safest approach to simply assume that there will be an enemy position in any hex that offers protection and good fields of fire)
   
2. Make sure that all enemy units who can see the clear hex are suppressed (either disrupted, pinned, demoralized - in all cases, their fire effectiveness is reduced by 50% which is crucial if you need to manoeuvre). This is what long range/fire support weapons (MGs, mortars) are for.
   
3. If you need to cross open terrain, try not to END your movement/turn in open terrain. Move across it and end your turn in cover, if possible. This is especially true if the enemies who can fire on the hex are only disrupted: Disrupted units can recover at the start of their turn, so they might get 100% fire power on you if you end your turn in the open. Against pinned units, it's much safer (as they cannot get back to 100% firepower in a single turn). Check the parameter data in advance to see if your units can make it across the open area in one turn (and also remember the weapon-overload rules, which might slow units down! I wished I could turn that off!).
   
4. If you cannot suppress all enemies or "jump" across clear terrain in a single turn, make sure you go to ground mode at the end of the move and use smoke on the clear hex. It will decrease incoming fire effectiveness by 50% (so it has the same effect as suppressing the enemy positions). You might also chose to crawl forward (move in "ground mode"), which of course is slow and might extend the time of exposure.
   
5. Make sure that the unit's commanders are close by so that if units get disrupted by fire in the enemy turn, they have a good chance to recover immediately at the start of your turn. This is very essential as disrupted units have their movement costs doubled which can be fatal if you have a lot of open ground to cover.
   
6. If you have tanks, you might want to stack them with the infantry, as the infantry gets some protection from it ("infantry protection" parameter).
   
7. Think twice if you want your manoeuver elements to fire at the enemy. Their main task should be to manoeuver and assault, not waste time/movement points on firing. Firing should be the task of fire support elements. If the enemy has better cover and is not suppressed, it's often wise to hold your fire. (If you want to preserve your weapons' effectiveness, you can also chose to hold your units' opportunity fire - select the weapons and press "F").
   
8. Don't bunch up. Fire in Squad Battles always affects ALL units in the hex. By stacking various units in a hex, you're basically multiplying your opponent's fire. Only bunch up if you have excellent cover. (It's usually safe to stack leaders with units though as these are single man units and are thus very unlikely to get hit).
   

PS: Nice youtube channel! :) I also have some Squad Battles videos online, but the commentary is in german:
Afghan War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHCAWZUoFNI
Vietnam: https://youtu.be/s0BYEmVNM40
Spanish Civil War (not finised yet): https://youtu.be/ukAm4uZrq-c

I appreciate you taking the time to write up such a detailed post! I'll load up the game later and put things in play, see how it goes. 

Your point 8. I didn't realise and that is something I was doing thinking more in the hex = more powerful or something like this, ha! Also point 7. I am bad for constantly firing back, but again you and the grunt school post advise otherwise! 

I guess this is the beauty of the game its so in depth if you want it to be, addictive too! 

Also, thank you for you YouTube! Upto date SB WW1 is great, I have been thinking to buy this title for ages now. Sure you are speaking German but I can follow along a little bit.

Same as you, the YouTube is just my thing, I'm not aiming to be full time or anything, just put out some coverage of games I think get overlooked or that I really enjoy.

[Warhorse]

I'm struggling with this on the Soviet Afghan campaigns. 

The area is all clear/field and I get spotted straight away and pinned down! Ends up in a stand off unless I meat grind my way forward

Are you making sure to go to ground, or, to stay on ground and creep forward? Do you have smoke, or no? Sometimes I take units further back from my first line, and shoot at the enemy to hopefully suppress, and exhaus the opp fire, then move the closest units. If against an opponent they might have the hold order on, so they won't fire.

I have read the SB grunt school write up and that covers what you have mentioned, so I will need to try and think more realistically than 'gamey' as I seem to have been doing. 

Coming mainly from Order of Battle (I love this game) but it's quite forgiving if you are not concentrating, SB isn't 

Thanks for all the MOD work you do!

You're very welcome, it's my pleasure!

[Sean]

You might want to go into the Parameter Data editor and look at Infantry Movement Costs and Movement Costs(separate heading bit further down) as well.

You can change these values if you want,make "Clear terrain" a smaller cost and also look at Movement Costs a bit further down in the data lists and make "From Ground Cost" smaller.

I did this in Dien Bien Phu for example because in some Infantry Battles it was almost impossible to have fun since the Assault was just a crawl,also noting Dispersed units pay double Movement cost i think which creates an extra slow burden.If you do these changes back up the original .pdt and later on you may want to play vanilla again without changes and swap it back.

[Mowgli]

You might want to go into the Parameter Data editor and look at Infantry Movement Costs and Movement Costs(separate heading bit further down) as well.

You can change these values if you want,make "Clear terrain" a smaller cost and also look at Movement Costs a bit further down in the data lists and make "From Ground Cost" smaller.

I did this in Dien Bien Phu for example because in some Infantry Battles it was almost impossible to have fun since the Assault was just a crawl,also noting Dispersed units pay double Movement cost i think which creates an extra slow burden.If you do these changes back up the original .pdt and later on you may want to play vanilla again without changes and swap it back.

But that's cheating! 

[Rigafan]

I'm struggling with this on the Soviet Afghan campaigns. 

The area is all clear/field and I get spotted straight away and pinned down! Ends up in a stand off unless I meat grind my way forward

Are you making sure to go to ground, or, to stay on ground and creep forward? Do you have smoke, or no? Sometimes I take units further back from my first line, and shoot at the enemy to hopefully suppress, and exhaus the opp fire, then move the closest units. If against an opponent they might have the hold order on, so they won't fire.

1. If you have to move over open terrain, chose a hex that can be seen by as few enemy positions as possible. Make plenty use of the line of sight overlay (hotkey S). Terrain analysis is key. (It is the safest approach to simply assume that there will be an enemy position in any hex that offers protection and good fields of fire)
   
2. Make sure that all enemy units who can see the clear hex are suppressed (either disrupted, pinned, demoralized - in all cases, their fire effectiveness is reduced by 50% which is crucial if you need to manoeuvre). This is what long range/fire support weapons (MGs, mortars) are for.
   
3. If you need to cross open terrain, try not to END your movement/turn in open terrain. Move across it and end your turn in cover, if possible. This is especially true if the enemies who can fire on the hex are only disrupted: Disrupted units can recover at the start of their turn, so they might get 100% fire power on you if you end your turn in the open. Against pinned units, it's much safer (as they cannot get back to 100% firepower in a single turn). Check the parameter data in advance to see if your units can make it across the open area in one turn (and also remember the weapon-overload rules, which might slow units down! I wished I could turn that off!).
   
4. If you cannot suppress all enemies or "jump" across clear terrain in a single turn, make sure you go to ground mode at the end of the move and use smoke on the clear hex. It will decrease incoming fire effectiveness by 50% (so it has the same effect as suppressing the enemy positions). You might also chose to crawl forward (move in "ground mode"), which of course is slow and might extend the time of exposure.
   
5. Make sure that the unit's commanders are close by so that if units get disrupted by fire in the enemy turn, they have a good chance to recover immediately at the start of your turn. This is very essential as disrupted units have their movement costs doubled which can be fatal if you have a lot of open ground to cover.
   
6. If you have tanks, you might want to stack them with the infantry, as the infantry gets some protection from it ("infantry protection" parameter).
   
7. Think twice if you want your manoeuver elements to fire at the enemy. Their main task should be to manoeuver and assault, not waste time/movement points on firing. Firing should be the task of fire support elements. If the enemy has better cover and is not suppressed, it's often wise to hold your fire. (If you want to preserve your weapons' effectiveness, you can also chose to hold your units' opportunity fire - select the weapons and press "F").
   
8. Don't bunch up. Fire in Squad Battles always affects ALL units in the hex. By stacking various units in a hex, you're basically multiplying your opponent's fire. Only bunch up if you have excellent cover. (It's usually safe to stack leaders with units though as these are single man units and are thus very unlikely to get hit).
   

PS: Nice youtube channel! :) I also have some Squad Battles videos online, but the commentary is in german:
Afghan War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHCAWZUoFNI
Vietnam: https://youtu.be/s0BYEmVNM40
Spanish Civil War (not finised yet): https://youtu.be/ukAm4uZrq-c

Do you mind if I ask another question?

On my Grenada campaign, the second mission I think it is, there is a bridge with has some barbed wire infront of it. 

During the game I get a bulldozer reinforcement. I assume this is to clear the obstruction, the wire? But I cannot figure out how! I've looked in the manual and don't see the bulldozer!

[Mowgli]

Do you mind if I ask another question?

On my Grenada campaign, the second mission I think it is, there is a bridge with has some barbed wire infront of it. 

During the game I get a bulldozer reinforcement. I assume this is to clear the obstruction, the wire? But I cannot figure out how! I've looked in the manual and don't see the bulldozer!

You need to fire the bulldozer's weapon ("cat blade") at the wire-hex. It has a range of 1 and is an "in-line" weapon, so you can only target the front hex of the bulldozer with it (depending on the bulldozer's facing).