This list was updated on 24 June 2011.

USA

Wargames LLC

• Crossfire & Hit The Dirt: 1 of each.
• Spearhead: Plentiful quantity.*
• Great War Spearhead: Reasonable quantity.
• Where The Iron Crosses Grow / Blaze Across The Sands / White Star Rising / Forgotten Battles: Plentiful quantities of each.*

* Baxter at Wargames LLC has said in the near future he hopes to be offering Spearhead with the rulebook and the 4 World War II scenario books bundled together at a discounted price.

On Military Matters

• Crossfire & Hit The Dirt: Plentiful quantity.**
• Spearhead: Not stocked by available on request.
• Modern Spearhead: Back In Print! Read the News at ModernSpearhead.net.
• Great War Spearhead: A few copies left.

** OMM are Selling these as a bundled pair, or you can just buy HTD separately (but Crossfire is only available in the bundle with HTD).

Noble Knight Games

• Spearhead: 1 Second-hand.

Noble Knight regularly buy and sell second hand and out of print titles, so they are always looking for more stock and at any given time may have picked up additional copies of any of these rules.

We have also contacted WarWeb.com USA to verify that they no longer have any stock but have not as yet had any response?

Crossfire

UK

Caliver Books

• Hit The Dirt: ~’half-a-dozen’.
• Great War Spearhead: ~’half-a-dozen’.

Keep Wargaming

• Hit The Dirt: Semi-reasonable quantity.
• Great War Spearhead: Reasonable quantities.
• Blaze Across The Sands & White Star Rising (for Spearhead): A few copies of each.
• Forgotten Battles (for Spearhead): Semi-reasonable quantity.

The above are all available from The Keep EBay Store. They also have a couple of (damaged/soiled) copies of Where The Iron Crosses Grow not listed if you contact them directly.

Miniature Wargames (Magazine) Shop

• Where The Iron Crosses Grow & White Star Rising (for Spearhead):   ~’half-a-dozen’ of each.

Spirit Games

• Blaze Across The Sands & Forgotten Battles (for Spearhead):  A couple of copies of each.

Further Information

Modern Spearhead: Now Back In Print – Read the News at ModernSpearhead.net.

If you know of any other retailers stocking any of these titles please drop us a line so we can add them to the above list.

German Infantry Platoon in Winter Colours.

Andrew Gorman in New Zealand painted up these 1/72nd scale (20mm) figures from Revell with vehicle kits from Airfix & Fujimi.

Part of a German (Heavy) Machine Gun Company - 40mm x 40mm bases.

German PC (Platoon Commander) - the base is 20mm x 40mm.

German Rifle Squad (Section) - the base is 40mm x 40mm.

German HMG Squad - this represents 2-3 real Tripod-MG42's.

The whole Infantry Company.

Infantry and (Fujimi) Jagdpanzer 38t Hetzer.

Another view of the Infantry & Hetzer.

Infantry & (Airfix) StuG IIIG.

(Fujimi) Kubelwagen.

Another view of the Kubelwagen.

The (Fujimi) Hetzer.

A closer side view of the Hetzer.

The (Airfix) StuG IIIG.

(Airfix) "88mm FlaK" deployed for action!

Another view of the '88'.

(Airfix) Sdkfz 7 Half-Track Gun Tractor.

The whole 88mm Gun kit.

I think you’ll agree it’s a fantastic effort my Andrew…

Soviet 7.62cm Anti-Tank Gun.

It’s 1943 and the Germans are realising there’s no easy victories! Behind German lines large numbers of Soviet Partisans are operating and the Germans are expecting the worst. The terrain is the ‘usual’ crossfire mix, with three, ‘one sector’ villages, several hills and fields, and many woods.

The Russians place the hidden supply dumps before they know the direction of the German advance. Once the direction is determined, (either randomly, or secretly predetermined by the umpire), then the Russian uses hidden deployment, leaving about12’’ for the German player to deploy in. The German then places all his forces, and commences the game with the initiative.

If an umpire is available, the Russian can move his forces ‘out of sight’ withouthaving to place them on the table.

The germans will ‘find’ the supply dumps if they enter the terrain feature they are hidden in. A squad has to spend one Russian initiative, unpinned, or unsuppressed in that feature to consider the dump destroyed.

Night falls at the end of the gaming session, about three hours of ‘real-time’ after Set-up, in our case.

So far the Partisans have not been eliminated in any of our games, though they are usually on their last legs by nightfall. If the German task is felt to be too hard, remove a few of the Russian support weapons.

German Players Briefing

Things are not going too well, the Untermensch are winning more than they used to,supplies are not what they were, the troops seem to have lost their enthusiasm for the‘1000 year Reich’.

On a more practical level, the Russians are getting bolder by the day. There has been a serious increase in Partisan activity lately, even very serious reprisals seem to have no effect. Rumours persist that regular Russian soldiers have also broken through the lines to join them. Another more serious rumour, backed up by intelligence, suggests that a Russian offensive is due to start any day now.

You know that they have established supply bases in your area. High command has issued you with the order to ‘search and destroy’ In answer to your request for heavy support, they have reluctantly allowed you a Tiger out of the local repair depot, though local supply problems mean it not as well equipped as it should be…….

Motorised Infantry Battalion:

Headquarters

1-BC (+2) & Truck

1-SMG squad

Heavy Company:

1-120mm Mortar (10 FM)

1-75mm IG (on table)

1st Company (Veteran morale):

1-CC (+2)

1-81mm Mortar (10 FM)

1-HMG

3x Rifle Platoons, each with:

1-PC (+1)

3-Rifle Squads

2nd Company:

1-CC (+2)

1-81mm Mortar (10 FM)

1-HMG

3x Rifle Platoons, each with:

1-PC (+1)

3-Rifle Squads

Support:

1-Tiger I tank (Veteran morale) – but with only 3 88mm shots; after that it can only use its MGs (treat as a standard HMG with 4D).

Morale: Regular unless otherwise noted.

Orders

You must find and destroy the enemy supply dumps.If a squad spends one ‘enemy’ iniative, unpinned and unsuppressed, with a dump,then the dump will be considered destroyed.

If you can destroy the Partisans also, then so much the better. You must withdraw at nightfall.

Good luck soldier.

Russian (Soviet) Players Briefing

The fascists are defeated!! Well, it is only a matter of time before mother Russia is free of the invader. It is 1943, you are a local Partisan commander. You have been giving the Germans a bloody nose lately, and have recently been reinforced by a detachment of regular army, who broke through the lines (they think they know everything!) The Fascists are still big on reprisals, but the peasants know their place,and have not given you up.

You have been building up supply dumps, and have been very active, in anticipation of the forthcoming Red Army offensive. However the troops approaching your headquarters now are most certainly not Russian….

Partisan HQ:

1-CC (+1)

Partisan Forces:

2-Rifle Platoons, each with:

1-PC (+1)

4-Rifle Squads

Attached Army Regulars:

2-Rifle Platoons, each with:

1-PC (+1)

3-Rifle Squads

Support:

2-HMG

1-81mm Mortar (10 FM)

1-50mm Mortar (10-FM)

1-Sniper

2-captured Panzerfaust (to assign to Rifle Squads)

1-Minefield (concealed)

Morale: Regular.

Orders

You have 4 small supply dumps, which must be spread, around the area – not closer than 1200 yards (10 Base Widths) to each other. These dumps will be placed before you know the direction of the Fascists attack… The Fascists must not be allowed to take them.

If you could destroy the opposition, then the order of Lenin will be yours….

Good luck comrade!

Scenario by Trev.

U.S. Paras - The "Band of Brothers"

In the centre of the board is a village. A road leads from one corner to the centre of the village. Either side of the road, at the table edge, is some good cover. As always, there’s lots of terrain/cover all around. The attacker’s objective is towards the edge of the village, thus reasonably near the centre of the board, but on the far side of the village from the road. For me, the objective was a V2 rocket on its launch pad. I also had a couple of large ponds, which were impassable areas which didn’t block line of sight, forcing troops and vehicles to circle around them, which worked quite well.

The defender has one company of green troops, which he may place on the board anywhere he likes. There is an on-table mortar or two, and machine-gun positions. The attacker has two companies of veterans (perhaps paras), with off-table mortar support, and some infantry anti-tank weapons.

He must get on the table and get some specialist troops next to the objective and leave them there for five of his phasing initiatives. He may come on the board from one or two positions of his choice (aerial photography has pin-pointed the position of the objective).

After an agreed number of initiatives, reinforcements arrive for the defender, coming along the road (vehicles) and alongside the road (infantry), having received an urgent request from the defenders. Die rolls should be involved for this, and the reinforcements should not all arrive at once. For instance, one might count a vehicle as one point and a platoon as one point. After, say, eight defender’s initiatives, a die can be rolled, to see if any reinforcements arrive next initiative, with a five or six indicating a yes. Every defender’s initiative thereafter, a die roll determines how many points arrive. I would suggest something like (1d6+1)-1d6, so a third of the time, no reinforcements show up, and possibly a lot show up. We diced randomly for what kind of reinforcement turned up: infantry or vehicles, or infantry in vehicles. You may allow the defender to choose. You may set a limit on the number of reinforcements, but we found this to be unnecessary. Reinforcements may be regular, but not veteran.

In the five initiatives that the attacker spends next to the objective, his specialist troops may photograph the technological marvel, or find the blueprints in the office, or find all the bits to the enigma machine, or destroy the mechanism which works the cable car, or plant the dead body with the fake plans on it, or set the charges on the pipeline junction, or break open the safe with the prototype device in it, or brief the double agent, or bury the homing beacon, or paint “Hitler has only got one ball” all over the staff HQ or do whatever it was which they had come to do. Once done, they get a major victory if they can get off table with most of their force.

Duane Warneke's Late WW2 German Infantry.

Other things to spice up this scenario are: all units next to the objective are killed after a certain time (the charges go off, the rocket launches); (some of) the specialist unit(s) must get away after spending five initiatives next to the objective. I played the scenario with several units having been trained to do the main task. If only one squad could carry out the objective, this would make the scenario very brittle for the attacking player.

Perhaps the main choice for the attacker is whether to come on near the road or not. In the play test, attackers who came on the far side from the road, to concentrate on getting to the objective quickly with as many troops as possible, then found that they had no way of stopping the reinforcements from getting on the table, whereas the advantages of defence (not having to move, incurring reactive fire; protected machine guns) were such that it could take even veterans a lot of time time to get on to the table and to the objective, if not substantially out-numbering the defenders.

Nikolas Lloyd

• You can find more scenario ideas at Nikolas’s Lloydian Aspects Website.

Pegasus Bridge? Normandy 1944.

The board is rectangular. Across the centre width-ways, is a canal or straight section of river, dividing the table into two “square” halves. In the centre of the board is a bridge crossing the water.

This a sort of Market Garden or Pegasus Bridge type scenario.

The defender has regular troops. He has two or three companies of these, depending on the strength of his vehicles. He may deploy BOTH sides of the water, and half his forces may be hidden. He has some decent anti-tank guns, which may be deployed hidden. He also has a number of other vehicles (SPGs, armoured cars, prime movers etc.) which are on his home side of the river. Ideally, these vehicles should not be turreted tanks. On his home side of the river, are the defender’s mortars, on-table. FOs may all be hidden.

As with near enough any Crossfire game, there should be LOTS of cover.

I had lots of buildings on both sides of the river, pillboxes protecting the bridge, and a fair amount of wire and anti-tank obstacles, as well as the usual scattering of woods, fields, walls, hills, and rough ground. The wire and obstacles should be mainly on the attacker’s home side of the table. The bridge and road are assumed to be used by the defending side, so may not be blocked solid with obstacles or mines.

The attacker has two companies of veteran troops (paras would be especially suitable), with no vehicles and few support weapons (one mortar per company max, one HEAT weapon per platoon max) which may come on from one or two (no more) places (perhaps one-foot sections, or defined by one or two terrain features) on the edge of the defender’s home side of the water. The attacker may find that simply getting all his forces on the board at this end of the table proves difficult (remember: the defender may have placed units, perhaps hidden, within sight of the edge of the board where the attackers are trying to come on). At first it may seem impossible, but eventually a breakthrough is made and the troops rush on, though early casualties may be high.

The attacker also has a company of regulars and a few light vehicles (scout cars, light tanks), and a significant number of decently heavy tanks (I was using Churchills). These may come on to the board from the end edge of the attacker’s home side. This edge should have a road leading from it to the bridge, preferably not straight, and perhaps with walls lining some of it. The heavy tanks arrive on the road, but may leave it once on the board. If there are many sections of wire and the like (you could add mines, but I did without them), then the attacker should also have some engineers with his regulars.

The attacker must get as many of his heavy tanks across the board as he can. The more of his tanks he gets across, the greater his victory. However, if he uses his tanks to smash through to the bridge, then he risks losing some of them, and thus risks failure or a lesser victory. If he keeps his tanks back too long, then the unsupported paras at the far end of the table may start to take too much of a beating, especially as the defender can reinforce that end of the table from the other. The one company of regulars must locate all the threats as far as the bridge as quickly as possible, but if all the initiative is used up in this endeavour, then the paras may again take a beating.

It is assumed that the commander of the paras has a flare pistol with a couple of different flare colours as ammo. With this he can signal “Far end of bridge secure – advance tanks now” and one other pre-arranged message.

Since the defending forces are not expecting the attack, they have not got front-line vehicles such as heavy tanks, but do have defensive tank-killing equipment. Also, the bridge has not been prepared for demolition.

Nikolas Lloyd

• You can find more scenario ideas at Nikolas’s Lloydian Aspects Website.

Rifle Squad in Winter Colours.

Joe Kelly provides details of the infantry (the non-Fallschirmjäger type) that proved the bulk of the manpower in the Luftwaffe Field Divisions. The “Jäger” Regiments were formed mostly from Ground Crew and rear area troops and a typical regiment as as follows:

Luftwaffe Field Regiment

Regimental Headquarters

3-4, later 2, Luftwaffe Field Battalions, with;

Headquarters

3 Light Companies

1 Heavy Company

CROSSFIRE German Luftwaffe Field Battalion 1942-45

Morale: Regulars*

Luftwaffe Field Battalion Headquarters

1-BC (+2) Truck

1-SMG Squad

1-Heavy Company:

2-20mm FlaK38 Dual Purpose Guns/Trucks

1-120mm Mortar/Truck

1-HMG

3 Luftwaffen-Feld-Jäger Light Companies, each with:

1/76th scale Airfix "FlaK 88" in winter Colours, by Andrew Gorman.

1-CC (+1)

Company Heavy Weapons:

1-120mm Mortar/Truck

1-81mm Mortar/Truck

2-HMGs

3-Rifle Platoons, each with:

1-PC (+1)

3-Rifle Squads

Notes: 1942 – 43 all Rifle Platoons have the above TO&E; for 1944 – 45 replace one squad in each Platoon with an SMG squad. When using Trucks with this organization, add three Trucks per Inf. Coy. (8 pt’s each) and one Kubelwagen for each of the CC HQs (8 pt’s each).

* Editors Note: The majority of Luftwaffe Battalions are probably really closer to Green (with all +1 Leaders and using British/US Command Control), with only selected units warranting Regular status, and one or two exceptions that might be rated a mix of Veteran & Regular.

Airfix German Infantry

Joe Kelly provides his take on the German Gebirgsjäger (Mountain Troops) organisation for the mid-war period. The TO&E had been reorganised from what was present early way, and in 1943 the Regiment was organised as follows:

Regimental HQ Group

1 Signal Platoon

1 Technical Company, with;

1 Signal Platoon

1 Engineer Platoon

1 Light Howitzer Platoon

1 Heavy Mountain Howitzer Battery

3 Jäger Battalions each with:

Battalion HQ

3 Rifle Companies

1 Machine Gun Company

1 Heavy Weapons Company

1 Anti-Tank Company

CROSSFIRE German Gebirgsjäger Battalion 1943

Morale: Veterans

Gebirgsjäger Battalion Headquarters

1-BC (+2)

1-SMG Squad

1-Heavy Company:

2-7.5 cm Infantry Howitzers/Mules*

2-HMGs

1-Machine Gun Company:

2-HMGs

2-120mm Mortars/Mules*

1-Anti-Tank Company:

1-Pak38 or Pak40 ATG/Truck

2-ATR/Mules*

3-Gebirgsjäger Companies each with:

1-CC (+2)

Company Heavy Weapons:

1-81mm Mortar/Mules*

2-HMGs

3-Rifle Platoons, each with:

1-PC (+2)

3-Rifle Squads

* Pack Mules can be used to haul weapons listed; add 2 points for each mule purchased.

Notes: These units were not created to utilize organic transport; therefore if using Trucks with this organization add 3 Trucks per Infantry Company (at a higher than normal cost of 10 points each, to reflect both unit doctrine and inaccessibility).

German Opel Blitz Trucks in a French Château.

In the rules, Arty suggests that each base have a couple of numbers written on it; one number would denote company membership, the other platoon membership. He also suggests the use of prone figures, wounded figures and rubble to mark whether a unit is Pinned, “No Fire”, Suppressed or Ground Hugging. I like the latter because it does not involve a nasty number or word written on a card, which would spoil the look of my battlefield. I dislike the former for the same reasons.

I have marked one company of 1940 French as follows:

• 1st Company, 1st Platoon: each base has a little bush made out of artificial pond weed made for putting in fish tanks.
• 1st Company, 2nd Platoon: each base has a patch of “wheat flock” on it.
• 1st Company, 3rd Platoon: each base has a small twig, cut to look like a log.
• 1st Company, Mortar and FO: both have a small twig, cut to look like a log.
• 1st Company Commander: base has two figures on it, plus a small bush, a patch of wheat flock, and a log.

So one can tell at a glance which stands belong to the same platoon, and by looking at the symbolic bits of terrain on the company commander, it is possible to see which platoons belong to him. One battalion of three companies of three platoons needs nine different symbolic bits of terrain.

Mine were: the above three, lumps of cat litter resembling rocks, green foam for another kind of small bush, three different colours (green, yellow, red) of artificial lichen, and tall reeds (made from old fashioned string).

For ground hugging squads I use a prone figure lying behind the stand. For pinned units I use a prone figure in front of the stand. For suppressed squads I use the same prone figure as before but turned belly-up (and I have painted gory glossy crimson on his belly – very clear to the eye). For “No Fire” I use an ammunition crate.

Nikolas Lloyd

15mm U.S. M8 75mm HMC.

You will need a large table and lots of terrain. The rules suggest covering a third of the table with terrain. I find that half is better and two thirds not too much. You need the large table to give room for manoeuvre.

You should put a few layers of terrain between starting positions and objectives, so that there is not too much open ground to cross. If you don’t do this, then the player starting with the initiative has it too easy advancing to objectives, while retaking objectives will be too hard, since it will be so easy to place defending troops in the right place to ward off an attack. You need lots of small pieces of terrain. Actually, I’d say that the amount of the table covered by terrain is less important than the number of terrain pieces, because big bits of terrain (you should have a few, though) are little more useful than small. The number of pieces of terrain between one place and another makes more difference than the amount of the table covered between one place and another. With lots of bits of terrain, defenders can not sweep large areas of open terrain with their fire, are more easily frustrated by smoke, and can less easily predict the direction of the attack.

Bear in mind that hidden deployment is a big advantage for the defender, so alter the sizes of the forces or the difficulty of the objectives accordingly.

Don’t get discouraged if the attacker gets hammered in the first game. Good play will make attack possible. The first game I played involved any attempt at forwards movement’s becoming doomed. This was partly because I didn’t have enough terrain on the board, but also because I was not a very good Crossfire player. Advancing in the open, across ground swept by machine guns, is a good way to lose lots of troops. It can seem impossible to advance at times, but, though you may lose many troops trying, you can get to grips with the enemy eventually.

Remember than close assault is likely to end large engagements of troops, rather than fire.

Give each side some 3″ mortars (81mm). Mortars help break deadlocks, but these mortars are not so huge that they take over the game.

I don’t find the victory conditions which involve numbers of initiatives to be very satisfying. If, for instance, one side has so many initiatives to achieve a goal, then these can whiz by very quickly, representing very little battle time, largely because of bad luck, with little happening on the table. If one side has to, say, hold something for five initiatives, then this encourages the other player, after four initiatives towards this count, to fling everything he’s got at the objective in a suicidal and unrealistic manner. This, and/or the defender of the objective “wins” holding the objective with one stand, having lost all other stands, and being surrounded by overwhelming forces.

Crossfire can get bogged down in a slogging match between two forces unwilling to move. One way to avoid this is to make the defender ignorant of the exact objective of the attacker. One might too even make the attacker ignorant of the defender’s objectives. This way, you don’t get a game where the defender clusters his forces around the attacker’s objective, and then just sits there, or one where the attacker just wanders around the board, knowing he is safe to do so, looking for a way in.

Classic 1/76th Airfix plastic German Infantry - perfect for Crossfire.

One scenario I have involves the attacker being told to go in and destroy target A. The defender is not told what target A is, but the defender does know everything which is on the board. The defender has orders to defend A, B, C, D, E, F and G, and may think that he has far too few forces to manage this. As the attacker moves around the board, he discovers B-G, and these are placed on the board. The attacker only wins if he has destroyed four of the targets. My thinking is 1. this makes the game far more interesting 2. Were I a senior officer deciding which commander to promote, I would favour the one who, when sent to destroy a fuel dump, returned saying that he discovered a telegraph line, railway line, V1 launch ramp, small tank hospital, radar site, AA emplacement, and accordion factory, and had destroyed them all as well as the fuel dump. The officer who just mentioned that he had seen them on his outing would be passed over for having such little initiative. Similarly, I would promote the defending officer who managed to hold six out of seven vital objectives, against a foe who might well have blown up the lot.

Parachutists are good for scenario design, as they give you an excuse for allowing troops to arrive from odd directions.

Crossfire is so very simple that pretty soon you’ll feel able to stage ambitious scenarios. Some people insist that you must never use many vehicles. Personally, I think that vehicles are fun and look good, and they do not take over a game of Crossfire, since they are so vulnerable if set upon by lots of troops, and troops are tricky things to shoot at when they have the power to move unlimited distances in one initiative, behind all that terrain.

Nikolas Lloyd

"The Band Of Brothers" U.S. 101st Airborne.

Rob Wolsky created the scenario generator in Crossfire, and was its most influential play tester. Rob is an experienced play tester and game developer whose credits include AH’s Squad Leader. His views on Crossfire are presented below.

Introduction

Crossfire is a very different wargame, by design. The lack of rulers, ranges, and artificially established turn durations creates a fluid battlefield without artificial restraint. Much as in life, troops can go where they please and do as they wish, until the enemy starts firing at them! The use of real-world tactics will produce winning results in this game as in no other, for the following reasons…

Duane Warneke's Late WW2 German Infantry.

Most games at the small-unit level drown themselves in empirical data. Every troop, vehicle, and weapon type is quantified by an assortment of factors, all painstakingly researched to be as “realistic” as possible. Each turn is represented as being a number of seconds or minutes, and ground scales are given as number yards to the inch. This mass of data is then collated to give us the archetypical move distances, range bands, rates of fire, and so on. Unfortunately, what we as gamers often find is that this results in a well researched, and sometimes fun-to-play, game that bears no resemblance at all to the actions we read about or the tactical manuals we have available for study.

The underlying problem, of course, is the empirical, deterministic model that has been the norm. We know the capabilities and performances of the troops represented in the game as rated against this model (move distance, range band, rate of fire, etc.). We can therefore easily predict not only what our own troops are capable of, but those of our opponent. The result is well known in the hobby as the “thousand foot general”, the existence of which renders many historical concerns – and associated tactics – useless. Who, for example, would weaken his available forces to provide security to the flanks of his main attack ? Why bother ? In a typical wargame, your troops can react to any attempt by your opponent to take advantage of your weakness at the same speed the attempt is made. In other words, the deterministic nature of the model gives the player a knowledge of the enemy’s capabilities, and a time to react that no battlefield commander was ever afforded. In Crossfire, these luxuries must be earned-tactically.

General Tactical Principles

Tactics in Crossfire model very closely the tactics of WWII. A player who pays attention to the basic tactical fundamentals of this period will be a formidable opponent.

One over-riding feature of small unit tactics throughout the WWII period is infiltration. The attacker would attempt to achieve, and the defender prevent, a general penetration of the “front”, in order to outflank and “crossfire” the defender’s strong points. In other games, this attempt to find and exploit the “holes” in a position is compromised by a model that allows the player the time to react to attacks as they unfold. In Crossfire, any void left in a position will probably make itself known by the appearance of the enemy forces in it! Troops not interdicted by friendly fire have a mobility in this game that makes fast infiltration tactics possible on the tabletop. Players must pay attention to their flanks and rear if they don’t want enemy moving to, and shooting at them, from those superior positions. This leads, quite naturally, into the genuine need for a reserve to react to unexpected enemy moves, fill gaps in the position, and exploit holes in the enemy’s position. If this is starting to sound like a WWII small-unit tactics primer, then you are catching on, and quickly.

Key Points

• Interdiction by Fire
• Flank Security
• Reserves

The use of terrain in Crossfire can not be underrated. Terrain not only provides protection from incoming fire, which might seem the primary benefit to be gained, it provides mobility. This is a fundamental truth in small unit tactics. When setting up, attacking, or defending, you should use fire to interdict the enemy’s movement, or fix him in place, while maximizing your own defensive use of the terrain to provide covered routes of manoeuvre. The use of smoke as “temporary” interdicting terrain is also crucial in achieving comparatively safe manoeuvre.

Key Points

• Isolation of Objective
• Dead Zones

Another often overlooked aspect of small unit tactics is the need for unit integrity. While this modelled in many other games, (board games and miniatures), it is emphasized in Crossfire due to the – you guessed it – Fire Group and Crossfire rules. This is a major design feature that cannot be over-emphasized. The proper use of unit integrity will provide a “combat multiplier”, while also having real benefits in Economy of Force. By using platoons as units, instead of moving squads around randomly, you will maximize your effective firepower with the fewest possible units, thereby freeing up squads for the other, crucial, duties.

Key Points

• Unit Integrity
• Economy of Force

Many sources confirm the belief that most of the damage done on WWII battlefields was done by the support weapons, and not by the riflemen. Crossfire reflects this belief in two ways – one for HMG sections, and another for “indirect” fire weapons (the mortars and artillery). Properly utilizing these assets is a necessary skill on the Crossfire table, as it was for our real-life counterparts. HMGs should always be firing, and the use of any and all other assets to get them in firing position is key to victory. A well deployed platoon with HMG and off-board support will eventually blow away any number of ill-coordinated enemy squads, as well they should.

Key Points

• Support Weapons

Soviet 7.62cm Anti-Tank Gun.

As an extreme example, lets consider a 1941 scenario, Russian defender who is not tactically proficient, German attacker who always obeys the “book”.

We find our erstwhile defender of the mother land strung out in a long, thin line. His heavy weapons are concentrated in a rather dangerous looking machine-gun nest, but with no consideration to covering avenues of approach, or building crossfires. His infantry is not set up in depth, is not in supporting groups by platoon, and does not have a reserve – all his killing potential is up front. While his flanks are seemingly secure (no less so than any other point on his line), they are not defended in any particular fashion, either. His platoon leaders are assigned randomly, and generally centralized, with the heavy weapons – likewise his forward observer.

Our German player, meanwhile, has set up his attacking forces in a typical, unglamorous, three platoon wedge. His two forward platoons each have an attached HMG, his forward observer accompanies the platoon he has designated for the attack. He has been careful to ensure that his PCs are placed where they can see all of their assigned squads and support weapons, and he has placed his third platoon in reserve, covering the flanks of his advance.

As the two forces come together – more than likely at a place the German player chooses – the superior organization and tactics of the Germans will become immediately apparent. It will be relatively easy for the German player to be concentrating maximum firepower each initiative, while the Russian will have an increasingly difficult time manoeuvring as the concentrated German firepower comes to bear. This will have the compound effect of both not allowing the Russian to retreat or rally his outnumbered units, and not allowing him to reinforce with fresh units. Because of the lack of depth in the Russian position, and the lack of a reserve, the German player will be able to quickly infiltrate into the rear of his opponent, further hastening the eventual piecemeal destruction of the Russians. What about that fearsome strongpoint in the middle? The German will of course outflank, smoke, and close assault it into oblivion. While this example may be simplistic, it illustrates just how bad it can be if all the rules are broken at once!! Bear in mind, that while the Russian Command control system is less flexible than the German, the German player can also fall victim to the above scenario if he ignores the key principles of combat.

Key Points – Attacking

• Concentration of Force
• Isolation of Objective
• Fire and Movement

Key Points – Defending

• Defence in Depth
• Interlocking Fields of Fire
• Use of Fortifications

Conclusion

Pegasus Bridge? Normandy 1944.

Crossfire is one of the few games I have had the opportunity to play that makes the knowledge and understanding of “real world” tactics more useful than memorizing esoteric rules, factors and ranges. While it has its own mechanics, as does any game, they are of minimal concern to the tabletop general. The emphasis is always on the inter-relationship of Fire, Movement and Terrain.

Rob Wolsky