Jamie and Adam played my Moroccan Knives scenario for Crossfire . However, rather than being set in the Spanish Civil War I transposed it to 1944 and the Italian Campaign. Really it was an excuse to get the Goumiers of my Moroccan Tabor on table.
Summary: Good tense game. Adam’s Goumier attacked strongly up both flanks using cover and the limited smoke available. They also probed in the centre to fix the Turcomen defenders. But the flank attacks stalled and Jamie took the victory.
Tweaks to Scenario
I took a Spanish Civil War scenario – Moroccan Knives – and moved it to 1944 and the Italian Campaign. That actually took surprisingly few changes.
Nationalist (Moroccan) Regulares became French (Moroccan) Goumier
Republican Militia became Soviet PoW “Turcomen” dressed in German uniforms.
I also made the terrain a bit more Italian, with rough hills and boulder fields replacing some of the woods. Functionally they are the same, they just look different.
That was probably it.
Deployment
This is a 4’x 3′ table with the Moroccans approaching from a short table edge. The Turcomen deployed hidden.
1200 Hours
Adam’s Moroccans arrived on the right.
Then more appeared on the left.
And he didn’t neglect the centre either. Pretty quickly Adam had a skirmish line of Goumier across the entire table.
1230 Hours
Eventually the advancing Moroccans encountered defenders.
Reactive fire was often effective.
But sometimes it wasn’t and the Moroccan knives flashed.
And then the pattern repeated itself elsewhere. Adam is fond of flank attacks. In this battle he tried both flanks, starting with the left.
1300 Hours
At times the defenders could bring overwhelming fire to bear. Jamie had set up his centre with good fields of fire.
1330 Hours
Adam piled in more troops on his left.
But numbers don’t always help as somebody has to go first … across the open patches.
The Moroccan attack on the left didn’t advance past that point.
On the right, Adam tried advancing under cover of smoke. He only had one 81mm mortar so his smoke capability was limited. But he used it well (after a few failed rolls)
With the smoke down Adam deliberately exposed his forward squad to draw fire.
He got the result he wanted, the Turcomen went No Fire, so the Moroccans charged.
But Jamie had good interlinking fields of fire and the Moroccan advance was stopped again.
1400 Hours
The firefight continued on the right.
But eventually the Moroccans got their opportunity and charged again.
And again.
This brought their right flank attack in towards the central hill. The core of Jamie’s defence.
But that core could bite. The killed a squad in the centre.
Then the Turcomen on the right scored another kill.
The Moroccan’s had reached their casualty limit. Game over.
Observations and conclusions
The guys enjoyed the game. It could have gone either way but Jamie managed to wear the Moroccans down before his Turcomen cracked.
I was very happy to get my Goumier on table. Yay. Another project well and truly completed. At some point I’ll have to knock up some other scenarios for them in the Italian Campaign.
Adam has a thing about Crossfire and flank attacks. He thinks Crossfire invites flank attacks. All I can say is … it didn’t work here.