I’ve been musing about Japanese HMG under Crossfire. The official rules make them expensive rifle squads. Personally I challenge both the reduced firepower and increased close combat ability of these heavy machine guns.
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Category: Crossfire MusingI’ve collected together some interesting Crossfireideas from other people. I’ve reproduced them here mainly so I don’t have to go hunting for them again. Most rule variations are untried. Some items – Base Sizes for example – are there because people ask about them a lot, so in some ways this section is a FAQ, but not quite. See also my real FAQ. 
In World War II the Japanese issued three 5cm Mortars to every Rifle Platoon. Standard Crossfire makes the Knee Mortar rather useless. John Moher reinstates them as an effective piece of combat kit. And I do the same, but in a much simpler fashion. 
Brett Simpson has been busy building up terrain and troops for North Africa using Crossfire. He is also experimenting with my ideas on Crossfire in the Western Desert. Brett has been sharing photos with me as he went along so I thought I’d share them more widely. 
A couple of guys on the Crossfire Yahoo forum mentioned they have house rules for blocking LOS across two terrain features, when normally this would be unrestricted. Increasingly I think this is a good idea. 
A discussion on the Crossfire Yahoo Forum got me thinking about the protective cover offered by wall features in Crossfire. I think I had it wrong. The difference of interpretation relates to whether or not a wall provides protective cover in direct fire between two squads, neither of which is touching the wall. 
I have found myself looking at the Portuguese Colonial War again recently. Last night I was reading “The Chopper Boys: Helicopter Warfare in Africa” by Al J Venter again and thought I’d share something on Helicopter Landing Zone Requirements and Procedures. 
Dick Bryant tried to respond to my post on Custom Fire Mission (FM) Markers for Crossfire. He wanted to share a photo of his own customer FM markers but couldn’t do that in a comment. So, in lieu of a comment, I’ve posted his ideas here. 
I’ve been experimenting with How to Track Fire Missions (FM) in Crossfire for years. In my latest experiment I’ve made some custom FM markers. 
Standard Crossfire doesn’t restrict the stands on the side initiating the close combat. So more than one platoon can be involved. Somehow this always upsets me. I squirm every time new players ask “can I add in stands from other platoons to this close combat?” 
I am toying with a house rule that a stand can, in a single initiative, either conduct Retreat Moves or initiate offensive actions (Direct Fire, Close Combat) but not both. All part of fighting the 1000 Foot General. 
Last week I posted Eye of the Tiger – A Crossfire Scenario. My mate Chris had suggested I convert this scenario from ASL to Crossfire and, although I had written up some notes on Converting Advanced Squad Leader to Crossfire, I’d never actually done it. So off I went. I found it wasn’t a straightforward conversion and I suspect any move from ASL to Crossfire will have similar challenges. To help those going down the same route I thought I’d share of the thinking that went into the process for this scenario – scenario design notes if you will. 
Many games of Crossfire end with a close combat rampage as the (almost) winner cleans up enough of the enemy to take the game. I’m okay with this but some people object to it. So I thought I’d share some musing on ways to slow or prevent these rampages. “This is a cracking scenario”. Mark Bretherton played my SU-152s Up Close and Personal scenario for Crossfire. The words below are Mark’s unless indicated otherwise. Aside from the after action report itself, Mark explains the house rules he used for this scenario and muses on potential house rules for attacking buildings and bunkers. 
I was talking to Dick Bryant about my SU-76i in 1902nd SAP – A Crossfire Scenario. He’d noticed that is was quite hard to defend this terrain because the fields of fire were limited by the in-season fields. Dick suggested making the fields out-of-season. The question is, would Soviet fields actually be in-season or out-of-season in Aug-Sep? 
Being hidden helps a lot in Crossfire. But if the attacker knows the defender’s order of battle they also know how many enemy stands are still hidden on table. With few remaining hidden defenders the attacker can be more aggressive. With lots the attacker will be more cautious. But real attackers could never be certain of the size of the defending force so couldn’t number crunch their way to victory. The question is, how to introduce that uncertainty into a game without an umpire? |
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