Abstract: Based on the background of S1206 fully mechanized coal mining face in Yuwu Coal Group, in order to study the strata behaviors and the overlying strata movement law of the fully mechanized caving face in soft and thick coal seam, the field monitoring, theoretical analysis and numerical simulation were conducted. The applicability of hydraulic support were analyzed from four aspects, the setting force, the support resistance, the working resistance frequency and the structure of the support. The results shows that the stress of the front column is generally larger than that of the posterior column, and the pressure of the two ends of the working face is less than that of the middle part. The first weighting interval of main roof is 35.2m, the periodic weighting is 11.7m, the dynamic factor is 1.55 and the periodic weighting is intense. Monitoring data analysis shows that the selection of ZF10000/21/38 caving coal hydraulic support in S1206 working face is reasonable. The support has good applicability and fully meets the production need.