Tactical Shield

The tactical shield is an equipment exclusive to the Counter-Terrorists. It was only included in Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike (Xbox) and Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. The shield provides mobile cover for its user.

Overview

The tactical shield costs $2200. When deployed, the user is invulnerable to attacks from the front (except for shots to the legs and 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. It is often used by players and bots to become almost invulnerable when hiding in hard-to-reach spaces.

The tactical shield was added in Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and 1.6 but removed in Counter Strike: Source and has not reappeared since.

Advantages

Completely invulnerable to frontal damage
Excellent for breaching rooms along with teammates
Great for protecting team members, including the VIP.
- Friendly team members can seek cover behind Tactical Shield users.
Useful against enemy snipers.
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
Users can defuse the bomb or interact with the hostages from a distance (in Condition Zero) while the shield is deployed

Disadvantages

Expensive
Hampers vision at all times
When deployed, viewport is small and hard to see through
If the Tactical Shield is deployed right in front of your team members, it may hamper their aiming.
Reloading any of the handguns takes slightly more time, also you cannot reload while the shield is deployed.
If the shield is deployed, the speed of the user is greatly reduced
When not deployed, users are vulnerable to frontal damage
Doesn't protect against grenades, especially flashbangs
Flanking is pretty dangerous to shield users, especially if they are caught off guard or attacked from multiple directions.
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 is not functional when the shield is in use.
Legs are vulnerable even when the shield is deployed.
When wielding the shield with the knife, inflicting damage is reduced and player cannot perform an instant kill with a backstab.
Ineffective against large groups of opposing players.

Tactics

Use the shield to push through enemy lines.
Teammates can get behind you while you are using the shield.
- Crouching is a good idea as it can give you maximum protection (including the legs) and allow your teammates more room to fire their weapons.
The Desert Eagle is a good sidearm for shield users, due to the high damage and good accuracy, as long as users can score multiple headshots.
- CT bots will often use the Five-SeveN as a sidearm when using this pistol.
If the enemy does not notice you or they are reloading, open fire. 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.
Do not run alone with the shield even if you are a veteran; enemies can easily hit you from the side or behind. Instead, work with your team by distracting/protecting allies from enemy snipers or machine gunners.
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 upon knowing someone is firing on the shield.
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, bots never target your legs so this equipment is more effective when playing with bots.
- Run away if the enemies decide to use explosives, tactical shield provides almost no protection to HE grenade or C4, Flashbang still can blind the shield user as well.
If you are playing with bots, the shield has some unique advantages:
- The shield can sometimes allow you to run away from enemy bots since the AI will usually stand still rather than strafe and flank you.
- If the player has stayed long enough in front of bots, they may retreat. This can be useful if you are in an area like a Bombsite while the CT bots attempt to stop you from planting the C-4. In hostage rescue maps, this tactic can prevent them from interacting or rescuing the hostages. Bots will also ignore enemies from behind so you can report to your teammates and they can easily eliminate distracted enemies.
- When an enemy bot sees you with a deployed shield alongside with a teammate without a shield, the bot may completely ignore the you and engage your teammate, making him easy to eliminate.
- Another good strategy is try to run up close to an enemy bot while shield is deployed, and then aim your weapon somewhat to the right (not on that bot) and undeploy the shield. Bots will open fire but all their rounds will only hit the shield. As soon as they are forced to reload, quickly open fire and kill them. This is useful on any difficulty (although expert bots tend to strafe so try to pin them into a corner by pushing or stand in front for a sufficient and then implementing the aforementioned method. Bots on easy will never switch to a secondary weapon when they need to reload a primary weapon. Bots on normal or higher difficulties will switch to a pistol so wait until they need to reload and then open fire.)
- As a CT, a human player can defuse the C4 without killing Terrorist bots by deploying the shield in front of them.
- In Condition Zero, this is also useful when you need to rescue the hostages from a distance if the enemy has caught sight of you. However, caution is needed when a hostage is between a Tactical Shield user and in the Terrorist's aim. Often times, bots will shoot through the hostages which can kill them. In multiple situations, Terrorist players may pursue you for a while thus exercise discretion and memorize the route behind you so you can run backwards while fighting back at the Terrorists.

Counter-tactics

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.
- Smoke grenades are also good to hamper users (although this may not always be effective).

While the shield does cover most of the user's 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. Remember, the shield cannot deflect bullets from two sides.
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.
If you are try to escape from a bot who is armed with the shield, shoot the shield constantly while running away. This can prevent the bot from firing although this may be a waste of bullets.

Trivia

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 the Counter-Strike: Source closed beta, but it was not usable. It was also seen in several Counter-Strike: Source previews.
- Although the tactical shield is not included in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the game files include a property, CanEquipWithShield, for weapons, suggesting the item has at least been considered.
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.
In Counter-Strike 1.6, the shield has the same height as the user. In Condition Zero, 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 available) 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 pick up and 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.
Bots will never target the legs of a Tactical Shield user as they will prefer to attack the chest or head of that user.
- Often, Counter-Terrorist bots will use the shield along with the Five-seveN in close-ranged combat orientated maps such as Office and cs_747, as long as sufficient money is available.
- 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.
- Because bots on higher difficulty will always spray bullets, bots rarely use this equipment on hard and expert difficulties and the tactical shield is only seen on easy and normal difficulties.
If a Terrorist tries to pick up the C-4 bomb with a deployed shield, the bomb will not be picked up. The bomb will be dropped once you picked up the shield.
If a server is modded with a free weapon buy list/or a bug happened that allow players to carry multiple weapons, it is possible to use the tactical shield and the Dual Elites/primary weapons at the same time. However, it cannot deploy and some players may notice the user is half-bulletproof. Furthermore, it is very rare to see this occur although some bots may doing this. If this glitch happened with primary weapons, the weapons they wield will become left handed until the user discards the shield.
There is a glitch in which spectators may observe Tactical Shield (click here to see) where users continuously 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 the player even if 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.
In the early versions of Counter-Strike, it is possible shoot through the shield's view port.
While machine pistols like MAC-10 and TMP can be fired with one hand in real life, this is not seen in-game for obvious balance reasons. Besides, weapons held in one hand are very inaccurate when fired.

Gallery

Main article: Tactical shield/Gallery

External links

Tactical shield at Wikipedia

Template:Equipment