Quote Originally Posted by Markus View Post
Has anyone here experienced incoming suppressive fire? Did it work?
Yes and yes... but only for as long as the initial tempo of fire is maintained.

Meaning that what suppresses is a high volume of accurate fire that forces those on the receiving end to get their heads down. Such an initial high volume of suppressive fire is seldom maintained and it petters out into what is called a "lull in the battle". This lull will come for sure and when it does the commander must have a plan to maneuver his men out of their current position (in anticipation that the enemy will shortly attempt to close with and kill you) and into a new position of improved tactical advantage. If you fire back you will just get more of the same.

We have discussed it somewhere here before and that is what is effective suppressive fire. For unblooded troops what they consider as effective fire in their (collective) first contact most likely won't be considered as such after some combat experience. It takes a little while for troops to become more discriminating about the quality of incoming fire. This problem is insurmountable under general mobilization conditions and there are many records from various wars where "raw" newly deployed units were specifically targeted as they are considered soft targets. Effective and realistic "battle inoculation" training (that which the health & safety nazis won't let you conduct) is what is required to prepare soldiers for battle and improve their ability to accurately read and interpret battle conditions from the get go.