Generic Order of Battle for Fuego Cruzado

Generic orders of battle for Fuego Cruzado – my variant of Crossfire for the Spanish Civil War.

• Generic Infantry Battalion
• Generic Cavalry Regiment
• Support units

Note, a Crossfire Platoon corresponds to a Section in a real Company of the Spanish Civil War. I’ve adopted the Crossfire terminology here to avoid confusion.

Generic Infantry Battalion

The Infantry generally had the following organisation.

* Some battalions, notably Nationalist units later in the war, had a mortar assigned to the headquarters.

** The official organisation for an infantry battalion was four rifle companies and a machine gun company. Few ever achieved this organisation, and most real battalions dropped either a rifle company or the machine gun company.

*** Unlike their WWII counterparts Spanish Civil War Companies lacked integral heavy weapons. Normal companies of the period are assumed to have only one LMG per platoon; such “normal” companies don’t have a LMG stand. Certain units (the Foreign Legion, the International Brigades, Communist units, dismounted Cavalry, Assault Guards) are given a LMG stand at the company level to reflect the fact these units typically had a full complement of LMG (2 per platoon = 6 per company). This LMG stand operates like a HMG stand for all game purposes reflecting the high firepower of these units.

Generic Cavalry Regiment

Cavalry normally fought dismounted as infantry. When dismounted a Cavalry regiment has this organisation:

* Cavalry, like certain other types of unit, had a higher complement of light machine guns (three per troop). This is represented by a LMG stand at the company level; this stand operates like a HMG for all purposes once dismounted.

Support Units

All units, except Militia, can call upon elements of their higher level organisation, which typically means they have access to:

For both Republicans and Nationalists

• HMG squad or even a whole company
• Mortars (all off table with a FO on table)
  • 50 mm
  • 51 mm (2 inch)
  • 81 mm
• Artillery (all off table with a FO on table)
  • Italian made 65 mm Infantry Guns
  • 70 mm Mountain Gun (the 70 mm Schneider M08 was the main Mountain gun in use before the war).
  • 75 mm Field Artillery (if on table it is optionally horse artillery; the 75 mm Schneider M06 Field gun was the main field artillery in use before the war – for both field and horse artillery)
  • 105 mm Field or Mountain Howitzer (the 105 mm Vickers M22 and the 105 mm Schneider M19 were most common instances before the war)
  • 122, 150, 152 and/or 155 mm Heavy Artillery
• Anti-tank guns
  • Italian made 37/45
• Tanks / Armoured Cars
  • Renault FT-17 (both machine gun only, and cannon equipped versions)
• Engineers (but not Assault Engineers)

For Republicans only

• Dinamiteros squads (max of 1 attached to any non-Dinamitros platoon) or complete Dinamiteros platoons.
• Anti-tank rifles for rifle squads
• Mortars (all off table with a FO on table)
  • 82 mm
• Artillery
  • 45 mm Infantry Guns
  • 76.2 mm Field Guns
  • 107 mm Field Guns
• Anti-tank guns
  • 37 mm
  • 45 mm
• Tanks / Armoured Cars
  • BT-5
  • T-26
  • FAI Armoured Cars
  • BA6 Armoured Cars

For Nationalists only

• Mortars (all off table with a FO on table)
  • 45 mm with Italian crews to support Italians only
  • 80 mm
• Artillery
  • 65 mm Infantry Guns – with Italian crews?
• Anti-tank guns
  • 37 mm PaK 35/36 with German crews
  • 88 mm Flak 18 with German crews
• Tanks / Armoured Cars
  • Panzer I A and B – with either German or Spanish crews
  • CV-33 and CV-35 with Italian or Spanish crews
  • CV-33 Flame Thrower version
  • Autoblinda IZ Armoured Car
  • Captured T-26