Steven’s growing collection of wrecks

Wreck-302 The junk yard - Banner

I have a growing junk yard comprising nicely painted, but wrecked, vehicles. Nominally these are potential objectives for Crossfire, but I’ve only ever used one wreck. That was the Fieseler Fi 156 Storch for Papa Eicke. The rest of my junk yard are, well, waiting for inspiration for a Crossfire Scenario. These are all 15mm scale.

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Musing on Terrain Density in Crossfire

Terrain Density in Crossfire 101 Woods - Open, Moderate,Dense, and Mixed - Banner

One of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for Crossfire is Are real terrain features represented 1:1 on the table? The answer is “no”. A single real-world terrain feature can be presented by more than one Crossfire terrain feature (e.g. woods) or several real-world features can be grouped together as one on the table (e.g. buildings). In this post I explore that answer a bit more at least for woods, fields, hills and rough ground.

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How big are Crossfire Terrain features

Standard Terrain Template Sizes in Crossfire - Banner

Sometimes people ask, how big should my Crossfire terrain be? It is really up to you. For myself, I started Crossfire using whatever terrain I had, but over the years I have standardised on the sizes. This is to make it easier to Draw Maps for Crossfire Scenarios. Check out the various Crossfire terrain type if you don’t recognise some of those I mention.

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Unlimited Vehicle Movement – Revising Crossfire Anti-tank Rules 8

Musing - Revising the Crossfire Anti-tank Rules - Corssfire - Banner

My recent musing on the anti-tank rules in Crossfire got me thinking about my current rules on vehicle actions. CF11.1 Vehicular Actions is massively restrictive as it only gives vehicles the option to move or shoot. So I for 20 years I’ve been giving vehicles multiple move actions (1-3 depending on speed) and unlimited shooting. Both of these rules are contrary to the unlimited actions of infantry in standard Crossfire. It would be great to give vehicles unlimited actions, like the infantry. So I look at the rules that have come before then look at options for unlimited vehicle movement.

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Japanese Roadblock – A Crossfire Experiment

roadblock-102 Table - Banner

With my Japanese all ready to go and my head full of roadblocks in Burma, I thought I’d knock together a Crossfire game. Chris took defending Japanese. Adam was the British trying to break through. I call this an experiment because very little thought went into it and we were just playing around with the concept of a Japanese ambush.

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Musing on Japanese house rules in Crossfire

Japanese-02 1st Company Banzai - Banner

My Japanese leg infantry battalion for Crossfire is now painted and based. All very exciting! The more I read about the Japanese, the more I realise they had a completely different mind set to western armies. I wonder how much of that difference should flow through into Crossfire. So I’ve looked at other rule sets to see how they have handled the Japanese in WW2 and, from that, possible implications for Crossfire.

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Almost Fosse Bridge – A Crossfire Battle Report

fosse-103 Sherman III on overwatch - Banner

Jamie was coming over and I quickly knocked up this Crossfire scenario to continue my experiments with the revised Anti-tank rules. This time I wanted tanks on both sides and we ended up with three Panzers attacking and two Shermans in defence.

The scenario is extremely loosely based on the Coldstream Guards and Scots Greys defence of the Fosse Bridge on 13 September 1943. One of the many small actions following the Salerno landings in the Italian Campaign. Emphasis on the “extremely loosely”. At the time I only knew the battalions/regiments present and the location of the bridge which gave me a modern google map of the modern site. Not much to go on historically, but it gave a good game. I’ll write up the scenario later although a real Fosse Bridge Scenario will be quite different.

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Bogging and Anti-tank Mines – Revising Crossfire Anti-tank Rules 7

Musing - Revising the Crossfire Anti-tank Rules - Corssfire - Banner

Both the Crossfire minefield rule and the Hit The Dirt bogging rule are special mechanisms using 1d6 and special outcomes. I think it is possible to align these with the normal infantry to hit dice, and without unduly affecting play. Since I’m revising the anti-tank rules to use the normal infantry to hit dice, this is a good time to tweak the bogging and anti-tank mine rules.

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Infantry Anti-tank Weapons – Revising Crossfire Anti-tank Rules 6

Musing - Revising the Crossfire Anti-tank Rules - Corssfire - Banner

While I mull over the feedback I got about my previous post to revise Crossfire’s tank rules (Anti-tank Rating – Revising Crossfire Anti-tank Rules 5), I thought I’d share my thinking on infantry anti-tank weapons. Bazookas, Panzerfausts, Panzerschrecks, PIATs, and their poor relation, the anti-tank rifle.

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Anti-personnel Rating – Revising Crossfire Anti-tank Rules 4

Musing - Revising the Crossfire Anti-tank Rules - Corssfire - Banner

I think tanks should be scary so my latest attempt at revising Crossfire’s tank rules does that … makes tanks grunty. You will see I’ve made tanks, much, much more punchy compared to the standard rules and other Gun vs ARM matrix house rules. While I’m about it I’d also like to fix up a few other weaknesses. For a start I would strengthen lighter guns – I’m very conscious that the Soviets continued to use the 45mm anti-tank gun through out the war and where other weapon systems were abandoned or improved, these stayed in use. Aside from the fact the Soviet had a lot of them, I can only assume the Soviets also saw these as having continued utility. As far as I can see the light anti-tank guns flipped to being used as anti-personnel weapons, something which standard Crossfire makes them unsuitable for. So far this is all terribly speculative and I’m just playing around with possibilities. But I do think it is good enough worth a try.

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