No Fire: What it represents in Crossfire

Some musing on what ‘No Fire’ represents in Crossfire. I asked the Crossfire discussion forum …

What is NO FIRE? I know what the rule says, I know what effect it has in the game, and I know tactics for exploiting it. You could even say I’m a fan of the rule, but none of that is what I’m looking for. What I’m looking for is a description of what it represents in real combat. Anybody want to have a go at describing what it simulates?

Weasel Fierce

Probably a mix of things.. the squad being silenced through opposing
suppressing fire, ammo running low (the “hey bob.. go get some more MG
belts!” rule), the squad continuing to pump lead into empty ground, being
caught with their pants down, etc

John Moher

I think you need to not get too tied up with it – it’s a game mechanism to represent failure to interfere with the enemy and/or wrestle the initiative…

You need to look at it as a “big picture” – what is the ‘effect’ of multiple “No Fires” – i.e. the total loss of initiative because you have no way left to interfere with he enemy’s activity… etc…

Tim Marshall

NO FIRE can represent any number of things. The following is my own
views, your mileage may vary (YMMV)

It helps me to think of Crossfire as an event driven game and not time
based. The actions that occur in a Crossfire game represent critical
events and the order in which they occur on the table is not necessarily
the time sequence in which the events actually occur. The focus is
on events and situations occurring. From a conceptualization point of
view, it is therefore important to not try and explain what is happening
on the table strictly by time packets. For example, if everything
“freezes” while you sort out a situation on a left flank, you shouldn’t
think of it as everything being suspended in time as you resolve the
situation. When you turn your attention to the centre or right flank
situations, these now “catch up” time wise to what has been happening on
the left.

With that interpretation in mind, NO FIRE can represent the affected
squad hammering away at a particular target while your other squads
manouver around it at the same time.

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