Tactical shield
Alternate name(s)	Ballistic Shield
Price	$2200
Usage	Mobile cover

 

The tactical shield is an item featured exclusively to the Counter-Terrorists. It was only included in Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. The shield provides mobile cover for its user. 

OverviewEdit

The tactical shield costs $2200. When deployed, the user is invulnerable to attacks from the front (except for shots to the feet), but suffers a movement penalty and cannot shoot. When not deployed, it hangs off to the side offering less protection, but allows users to shoot. This item can be used with pistols (except for the dual Berettas), the knife and grenades. The tactical shield was added in Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and 1.6 but removed in Counter Strike: Source. It is often used by players and bots to become almost invulnerable when hiding in hard-to-reach spaces.

AdvantagesEdit

• Completely invulnerable to frontal damage
• Excellent for breaching rooms along with teammates
• Great for protecting team members, including the VIP.
• Useful aganist enemy snipers.
• Friendly team members can seek cover behind Tactical Shield users.
• If deployed at the right moment, it may save users from lethal shots to the head.
• Can distract enemy players until your team can eliminate them

DisadvantagesEdit

• When deployed, viewport is small and hard to see through
• Hampers vision at all times
• The player cannot fire, reload, use the knife, or throw a grenade when deploying the shield
• Reloading any of the handguns takes slightly more time
• If the shield is deployed, the speed of the user is greatly reduced
• When not deployed, player is vulnerable to frontal damage
• Doesn't protect against grenades, especially flashbangs, or flanking
• Cannot be used with the Elites
• When wielding the tactical shield, your pistol's secondary fire cannot be used, even if switched on before picking up the shield. For example, if you attached a silencer to the USP before picking up the shield, the silencer will be removed and not be functional when the shield is in use.
• Legs are vulnerable even when the shield is deployed.
• If the Tactical Shield is deployed right in front of your team members, it may hamper their aiming.
• When wielding the shield with the knife, inflicting damage is reduced and player cannot perform an instant kill with a backstab.
• Cannot be used aganist large groups of opposing players.

TacticsEdit

• Use the shield to push through enemy lines.
• Teammates can get behind you while you are using the shield.
• The Desert Eagle is a good sidearm for shield users, due to the high damage, as long as users can score multiple headshots.
• If the enemy does not notice you, open fire and deploy the shield and retreat once after you have been spotted.
• You can deploy the shield when encountering snipers, while you are distracting them, teammates can take them down.
• The shield can provide good defense for players who are planting or defusing the C-4 bomb.
• Not only the tactical shield is good for breaching enemy lines and corners, it can alert your team members of any nearby enemies. For example, if a player has a shield and approaches an enemy player around a corner, the user can deploy his shield. In return, nearby allies will see the user deploying his shield and can quickly take down enemy players.
• Watch out for incoming bullets! The more bullets hit the shield, the harder it will be for the user to see and shoot properly. Practice aiming and become accustomed to this as inexperienced users may die suddenly if they cannot control their aiming abilities.
• Don't think that the tactical shield can save your life. Always crouch while it is deployed to prevent the enemy from attacking your legs.
  • However, if you are playing with bots, the shield can sometimes allow you to run away from enemy bots since the AI will usually stand still rather than strafe.

Counter-tacticsEdit

• Lob grenades at its users:
  • HE grenades can damage them while they have their shields deployed
  • Flashbangs will disorient them, giving the opportunity to finish them

• While the shield does cover most of their body from the front:
  • Legs are not protected. (Use rifles or sniper rifles)
  • Flanks are not protected. (Any weapon should do)
  • The back is not protected. (A stab with the knife if they are unaware, or with any other weapons)
  • Run around them to make them open their shield. (Aim a bit to the side)
  • Their RIGHT (your left) is the vulnerable side; if they lower their shield it goes to their left (your right).
• Have a team member to flank the Tactical Shield user while you distract him.
• Be sure to keep an eye on Tactical Shield users as they will seize the opportunity to inflict damage in any moment when you aim your weapon elsewhere at another direction.
• Remember that users will use this item mainly for defense strategies as their firepower will be greatly limited (as they can only wield this equipment with a pistol, grenade, or the knife). Due to this, as long as you have sufficient amounts of team members and offensive capabilities, Tactical Shield users will no longer deter you from eliminating them.

TriviaEdit

• Unused HUD icons for the shield can be found in the game files, suggesting that the player was originally able to choose to use their pistol with or without the shield.
  • In addition, a seperate "v_shield.mdl" suggests that the Five-seveN and the shield were both one unique weapon. The HUD icon having the Five-seveN in it, further supports this. There is a possibility that this HUD icon is from the mission Fastline of Counter-Strike: Deleted Scenes where the player wields a tactical shield and Five-seveN.
• In the files of Counter-Strike: Source some references to the shield can be seen. It could be that the shield was supposed to be in the game or it was just left over from Counter-Strike 1.6. The shield was also spawnable in Counter-Strike: Source closed beta, but it was not usable. It was also seen in several Counter-Strike: Source previews.
• In the Deleted Scenes mission Fastline, if the player reloads their Five-Seven and deploys the shield (right click) and resumes firing, the player will have a full magazine of ammo.
• The tactical shield does not work with the console command "cl_righthand". Even though the weapon switches to the left-handed view model, the tactical shield still uses the right-handed view model.
• The overall size of the tactical shield has been downgraded in Counter Strike: Condition Zero. Back in Counter-Strike 1.6, the shield has the same height as the user.. Eventually, the size of the shield was reduced thus exposing the legs of the user and making the tactical shield nearly useless in providing adequate defense (although the user can now withstand at least two sniper shots if sufficient health is avaliable) unless the player's legs is in front of an impenetrable object.
• Despite that human players rarely ever use the tactical shield, bots can use it effectively (if allowed to). In fact, bots will never target, let alone, shoot a shield user's legs as they always aim for the torso or head.
• Terrorists can utilize the tactical shield if they do not have a primary weapon, ammunition for the primary weapon, or are unable to find better weapons. Regardless of these reasons, this is a very rare sight to observe unless the tactical shield has been dropped right in front of a Terrorist without a primary weapon.                
• Terrorists (not bots) can also buy the Tatical Shield by pressing the equipment hotkey (default "o")
• Bots will never target the legs of a Tactical Shield user as they will prefer to attack the chest or head of that user.
• If a Terrorist tries to pick up the C-4 bomb with a deployed shield, the bomb will not be picked up.
• Some bots will often use the shield in close-ranged combat orientated maps, such as cs_office and cs_747 and will purchase the Five-seveN, as a Counter-Terrorist, if sufficient money is avaliable.
• If a server is modded with a free weapon buy list, it possible to use the Tactical shield and the Dual Elites at the same time. However, it cannot deploy and some players may notice the user is half-bulletproof. Furthermore, it very rare to see this occur although some bots may doing this.
• If a bot is wielding the knife while being armed with the tactical shield, that bot will prefer to rush and attack at enemies instead of deploying it like other bots that have a firearm.
• Bots armed with Tactical shield will often aim the enemies head if the user has deployed his shield and his enemy is stand still.
• There is a glitch in which spectators may observe Tactical Shield users continously reload their sidearm, even though that user has already reloaded. This is done by viewing from first-person perspective and switching back and forth to another player's view.
• The Machete can still hurt player even the shield has been deployed, it can be proven in the mission Fastline
• When reloading a pistol (except the Desert Eagle) with the Tactical Shield, the Five-SeveN's reload sounds are used instead.

GalleryEdit

Main page: Tactical shield/Gallery

External linksEdit

• Tactical shield at Wikipedia