For Crossfire, I’ve got several battalions spread across several periods, so I needed a way to distinguish the battalions on my Stand Labels as part of Unit Identification in Crossfire. Every battalion has a code.
In general I’ve given units that I use a lot codes that are unique across nations within a period (e.g. G = WW2 German Grenadier; R = WW2 Russian Rifle).
Specialist troops have a code that is common across nations and/or periods (e.g. A = Army level Artillery; X = Reconnaissance). The reason for this is so that opponents are unlikely to have troops on table with the same battalion code.
I gave army level artillery for all nations and periods the code A so that the FO stand out and to distinguish them from FO embedded in battalions.
Here are the battalion codes:
| Code | WW2 | Spanish Civil War | Rif Wars | Arab Israeli | Portuguese Colonial War | Vietnam War |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Artillery | Artillery | Artillery | Artillery | Artillery | |
| B | British in 14th Army | Berber Tribes, i.e. Riffi, Djebalan, Gomaran | Bedouin, Arab Irregulars (use Rif Wars) | Commandos with Brown berets | ||
| C | Carlist Requetes and Navarese Brigades | Cazadores with Camo cap | ||||
| D | Deutsche (i.e. German) in Italy | |||||
| E | Engineer | Engineer | Engineers, signallers, and supply | Engineer | Engineer | Engineer |
| F | Fallschirmjaeger | Falange | French | |||
| G | German Grenadier and Spanish “Guripas” | Paramilitary, i.e. Civil Guard and Assault Guards | ||||
| H | Horse, Cavalry | Horse, Cavalry | Horse, Cavalry | Horse, Cavalry | ||
| I | Italian | Italian Infantry Battalion or Cohort | Israeli | Insurgents | ||
| J | Gerbirgsjaeger | Jordanian Arab Legion | Insurgents | |||
| K | Kiwi | Abd-el-Krim’s Beni Urriaguel Regulars | British or Egyptian (use WW2 Kiwi) | Insurgents | Anzacs (Kiwi & Digger) | |
| L | Late War German Grenadier | 4th Bandera of the Legion | 4th Bandera of the Legion (use SCW) | Lebanese | ||
| M | Russian Motorised Rifle (i.e. SMG) | Militia | Militia | |||
| N | Russian Naval Infantry | Portuguese Marines (Fuzileiros) | US Marines | |||
| P | Soviet Partisans | Republican Popular Army; 56th/2nd/42nd (Commune de Paris) | Portuguese Paratroops (Pára-quedistas) | PAVN/NVA | ||
| O | ||||||
| Q | Gurkha in 14th Army | |||||
| R | Russian Rifle | Regular Army | Later Conscripts (use SCW) | ARVN | ||
| S | Waffen SS Panzer Grenadier | Early Conscripts in Solar Helmet | Syrian | PAVN/NVA Sappers | ||
| T | Tabor of Goumier in French Expeditionary Corps in Italy | 2nd Tabor of Regulares of Tetuán | 2nd Tabor of Regulares of Tetuán (use SCW) | |||
| U | Unarmed men, women and children | Unarmed men, women and children | Unarmed men, women and children | Unarmed men, women and children | Unarmed men, women and children | Unarmed men, women and children |
| V | VDV for Vozdushno-desantnye voyska SSSR (Soviet Airborne Forces) | Viet Cong | ||||
| W | ||||||
| Y | Yanks = US Army | GE and GEP with yellow berets | Yanks = US Army | |||
| Z |
Note:
I was using “X” for all recon / scout troops. Because there are never a lot of them, I have since changed that. I now include recon troops as a platoon or company with an “R” code. For example, “R-R-1” is the 1st Platoon of the Recon Company (middle R) of my Russian Rifle Battalion (left hand R).