Foy – A Crossfire Battle Report

Adam and Chris had a go at my draft Foy scenario for Crossfire. This was a simulation of Easy Company’s attack on Foy (13 January 1945).

Summary: Tense game, but the scenario needs some work. German victory when Dike’s nerve breaks.

---

Table and deployment

The table has two main parts, the Bois Jacques woods where the paras deployed and the village of Foy occupied by the Germans.

The Germans had to defend the church on the crossroads, plus four other terrain objectives located at exit points on the table edge.

Easy company deployed in the Bois Jacques woods, with the two platoons positioned at attack up the flank and the HQ platoon on Winter’s hill.

I Company was deployed in the field on the far side of the road.

This is the moment when Winter’s sent Lt Dike into take Foy.

Chris, as German commander, looked pretty pleased with himself. Equal numbers of defenders, snipers that stayed hidden (“revealed on a 1”), and three panzers.

---

09:00 Hours

Adam went up the left flank with one platoon, which was semi-historical.

Chris smoked off Winter’s hill to block the LOS of the US HMG.

Between hidden snipers in the haystacks and hidden FOs in the buildings, the US 2nd Platoon took a hammering.

So it didn’t take long before 2nd platoon lost a squad.

The reduced platoon sneaked into the farm buildings in no mans land. 1st platoon came up behind them.

Then 1st platoon leap frogged ahead and successfully close assaulted a building on the road.

Then the red dot guy aimed his bazooka at a Panzer IV on the road. 6d6 at point blank range. Boom!

Then 2nd platoon sneaked around the flank and took to objectives. Adam was pretty pleased … until he realised he had to hold the objectives until the move clock finished.

So, in preparation for the counter-attack, 2nd platoon then cleared a nearby house of a German HMG team.

And then it came: the counter-attack. Chris brought up his second panzer IV, which promptly killed the US squad with the bazooka.

In support of the the Panzer, Chris tried to pull some of his infantry back across the road. But long range reactive fire from Winter’s hill caught them.

---

09:30 Hours

That just invited Chris to retaliate. He started hammering the hill.

That got his infantry out of line of sight and they pulled back across the road, behind the Panzer IV.

The panzer advanced along the road, and Adam tried to hit it from the flank with a close assault. But the odds were against him.

And then German mortars killed the US HMG on the hill.

That brought the US casualties to 4 stands and it was game over.

---

Observations and conclusions

The scenario has some merit but needs tweaking to improve the odds for the US side.

Adam felt pretty weak going in with only two understrength platoons. But they were veterans and veterans really show their metal when rallying and in close combat.

Adam chose to attack with Lt Dike in charge. That is why the US caved after only four casualties. If he’d waited for Speirs to take over, the paras would have kept going.

Chris liked his three Panzer IVs. In hindsight that was too generous as the panzer played little part in the actual combat. So next time I’d restrict it to one tank.

The “revealed on a 1” rule is pretty generous but seemed to give the right flavour to the early sniping.

The terrain objectives were the church plus four objectives on the table edge. That just encouraged the fight to be on the table edge. Next time I’ll go for the church plus two other buildings inside the village.

In the historical battle Major Winters and 2nd Battalion HQ were on the hill. In the scenario they would have activated later in the game, but it didn’t last long enough for them to turn up. I think I’d have the HQ be on the hill from the beginning, but both restrict them (can’t leave the hill) and protect them (deploy hidden with all the implications of that).

Looking forward to a second attempt.