Village P – A Crossfire Battle Report

Grant Floyd flew in from New Zealand to have a wargame, so Chris Harrod and I obliged with a game of my Crossfire at Position Four: The Village P Scenario. I picked this scenario because, after a prompt by Vaggelis, I recently drew the map and updated the victory conditions.

Summary: Great game that poses interesting choices for both sides. And despite being very, very unbalanced in force composition – the Germans are attacking into twice their numbers – the scenario seems balanced.


Introduction

Grant was new to Crossfire so we spent a bit of time explaining the scenario and rules to him. The table has a normal mix of terrain: woods, fields (in season), rough, crests, hills (contour line with rough), a depression, buildings, and hedges.

VillageP-167 Table
VillageP-167 Table
VillageP-166 Table
VillageP-166 Table

The basic premise is that the German 87th infantry division is cut off along the road to the north. The division has pulled together a scratch force to break through from the south. Chris is the commander of this force – two companies of cooks and office clerks supported by three StuG IIIs.

VillageP-169 North along the Road
VillageP-169 North along the Road

Obviously Village P itself would be a focus of some action. If the relief force can capture the village they just need to take one other sector off the Russians to win the game.

VillageP-168 Village P
VillageP-168 Village P

Chris knew the sector north of the village was defended and that the rest of the Soviet force was in the woods to the north-west.

VillageP-170 Across depression to woods
VillageP-170 Across depression to woods

Plans

Grant and I shared responsibility for the Russian defenders. I had the Battalion Commander and five platoons in the woods. Grant had four platoons and the majority of heavy weapons (HMG, ATG, FOs) in the fields north of Village P. We adopted this deployment on the assumption that Chris would concentrate his forces, take the Village and attempt to take the north-eastern sector off Grant. All of the red circle areas, with the exception of the ATG, are Soviet platoons. Grant’s platoons all had HMGs attached.

VillageP-166 Deployment and Plans
VillageP-166 Deployment and Plans

[Notice the “mysterious wood” in the photo. We only discovered the “mysterious wood” later in the game. This was an extra woods feature that didn’t appear on the map. This extra feature had a bad impact on me as it meant the platoon I had on the base line didn’t have visibility into the woods where my front line platoons were located. Although I was inconvenienced we all felt this was a good simulation of the vagaries of war.]

Our trouble was that Chris knew we’d assume he’d attack up the road and made other plans. He was indeed intending to take the village however he was then going to contest the woods and ignore Grant.

VillageP-171 Woods in the west
VillageP-171 Woods in the west

Attack on Village P

Not surprisingly the Germans took the village fairly easily.

VillageP-172 Germans enter Village P
VillageP-172 Germans enter Village P

There wasn’t much the defenders could do, as they couldn’t even see the initial German advance.

VillageP-173 German advance from Russian perspective
VillageP-173 German advance from Russian perspective
VillageP-174 German advance from Russian perspective
VillageP-174 German advance from Russian perspective

Then suddenly an opportunity opened up. A German platoon group moved across a small plaza in the village.

VillageP-181 Rash German platoon advances through village
VillageP-181 Rash German platoon advances through village

This area was in the line of fire of the front line of Soviets. The PC was pinned and two squads suppressed.

VillageP-183 Supressed Germans in Village P
VillageP-183 Supressed Germans in Village P

The first blood went to a Russian HMG and rifle squad entrenched in the field outside the village. [I put the entrenchment marker down after I took the photo.]

VillageP-182 Russian squad and MG stall the German advance
VillageP-182 Russian squad and MG stall the German advance

Not surprisingly Chris was worried about this and brought a StuG III to bear. As it happens this didn’t make a difference.

VillageP-184 StuG challenges Russians
VillageP-184 StuG challenges Russians

The Soviets in the field proceeded to mow down the German platoon in the building directly to their front then moved back to focus on the suppressed platoon in the little plaza. Quite a bloody harvest!

VillageP-186 Germans in Village P are cut down
VillageP-186 Germans in Village P are cut down

At that point things got quiet in and around the village. Not much happened there for the rest of the game. Chris didn’t try to come out. Grant didn’t try to go in. They both had a sector and they were content to keep what they had. Stalemate.


Attack on the woods

While the attack was unfolding in the village Chris had deployed his other company, and the StuGs in the south-western sector. He started by taking the depression. Which appealed to me given I’d made that depression feature the day before.

VillageP-175 German platoon enter depression
VillageP-175 German platoon enter depression

After the initial platoon more Germans, support troops, piled in.

VillageP-176 Germans concentrate in depression
VillageP-176 Germans concentrate in depression

And the three StuGs turned up in support.

VillageP-177 Germans attack in south-west
VillageP-177 Germans attack in south-west

Although that was a little surprising we we didn’t realise at the time was that Chris was intending to fight for the woods. He was busy taking the village and that is where we were all focussed. However, we got a hint of Chris’s intent when the last German platoon entered the table in the extreme south-west.

VillageP-180 Germans head for the woods
VillageP-180 Germans head for the woods

Chris started his south-western attack by lining the rim of the depression with a reinforced platoon.

VillageP-185 Germans line rim of the depression
VillageP-185 Germans line rim of the depression

Chris then pushed ahead with the platoon on his far flank. That is when I revealed my first platoon. They suppressed the moving Germans in the open.

VillageP-187 More Germans caught in the open
VillageP-187 More Germans caught in the open

Once again, when his infantry were in trouble, Chris brought up a StuG to help out. Those things pack quite a punch in my house rules for Guns and Machine Guns on Vehicles – 2 x 4d6 (3d6 into cover) as a fire group. Ouch.

VillageP-189 Again a Stug to the rescue
VillageP-189 Again a Stug to the rescue

With things a bit stalled on his western flank Chris brought another platoon into the depression to try his luck there.

VillageP-191 A second platoon concentrates in the depression
VillageP-191 A second platoon concentrates in the depression

But again he got caught crossing the open ground before the wood.

VillageP-192 Then gets supressed while advancing
VillageP-192 Then gets supressed while advancing

However, once I was revealed Chris could bring a lot of fire power to bear. In this case he basically took out a platoon.

VillageP-193 but the support poured fire into the Russians
VillageP-193 but the support poured fire into the Russians

The survivors of the mauled platoon pulled back.

VillageP-194 Mauled Russians withdraw
VillageP-194 Mauled Russians withdraw

Chris then pushed one of his StuGs into the woods. Strictly speaking this was into the unwooded avenue between Crossfire woods features. Chris avoided the actual woods features to avoid getting bogged. However, this gave him enough access to cause my infantry quite a lot of grief.

VillageP-195 Stug rakes woods with fire
VillageP-195 Stug rakes woods with fire

I was getting ground down so I had to do something, something dramatic. And in Crossfire “doing something dramatic” means close assaults. A bit of smoke gave me a covered route to some of Chris’s suppressed squads. Urraah! Dead Germans.

VillageP-196 Bit of smoke and Urraah
VillageP-196 Bit of smoke and Urraah

Then more dead Germans.

VillageP-197 Soviet heroes take two
VillageP-197 Soviet heroes take two

And finally a dead StuG. The best Russian anti-tank weapon is, in fact, Ivan himself.

VillageP-198 And three
VillageP-198 And three

At that point the luck of my heroic Russian squad ran out. A single distant rifle squad managed to suppress the squad in reactive fire.

VillageP-199 Ramaging Russians caught by reactive fire
VillageP-199 Ramaging Russians caught by reactive fire

Chris pushed forward his own attack. We found ourselves with a German squad in a woods feature with a suppressed Russian squad and some supporting assets. Looked bad for me, so I reveal the platoon behind to lend a hand. As often happened in this game my reserves couldn’t bring sufficient fire to bear because of the stragglers from the mauled platoons in front of them. In this case all I could do was get a single rifle stand to have line of fire on the offending German. That was just enough to cause a stalemate in that feature.

VillageP-101 Russians desperately deploy more reserves to stop the onslaught
VillageP-101 Russians desperately deploy more reserves to stop the onslaught

Chris took his revenge on my heroic StuG-killing Soviets. Ah, well.

VillageP-102 Heroic Soviets meet their match
VillageP-102 Heroic Soviets meet their match

However, for the fourth time in the game Chris didn’t spot a reactive fire opportunity and got one of his squads caught in the open. This time the shooter was a Russian HMG.

VillageP-103 Russian HMG catches German squad
VillageP-103 Russian HMG catches German squad

Chris quickly got his revenge. He brought forward one of his StuGs to suppress the HMG then sent a squad in for the kill. The Germans took out the HMG and the suppressed rifle squad next to it.

VillageP-104 Ramaging Germans sweep in
VillageP-104 Ramaging Germans sweep in

It, of course, wasn’t all one sided and I took out the German squad that had been causing me grief earlier.

VillageP-105 Russian reserves extinguish German probe
VillageP-105 Russian reserves extinguish German probe

All this action left my force in rather a jumble. I had bits of two companies all mixed up. And several of my platoons were down to a single squad.

VillageP-106 Jumble of Russian units
VillageP-106 Jumble of Russian units

Grant started to play a part in the battle again when he revealed the platoon on the hill outside Village P. This position had long fields of fire and he could influence the battle on the edge of the woods. Chris tried to smoke him off and brought a StuG up to threaten hill but Grant seemed impervious.

VillageP-107 Russians on hill outside Village P
VillageP-107 Russians on hill outside Village P

It was then that I experience the No Fire from hell. An entire platoon went No Fire and Chris charged in a platoon. My entire unit evaporated in quick succession. Ouch!

VillageP-108 Rampaging Germans exploit No Fire
VillageP-108 Rampaging Germans exploit No Fire
VillageP-109 Next one
VillageP-109 Next one
VillageP-110 Hat trick
VillageP-110 Hat trick

But again it was a bit tit-for-tat and I took out his platoon in turn.

VillageP-112 Russian revenge
VillageP-112 Russian revenge
VillageP-114 Last fight
VillageP-114 Last fight

Chris’s no longer believed he had sufficient force to take the victory so he conceded. Kind of convenient as Grant had to leave at that point anyway.


Conclusions and Observations

A great game. I hope Grant enjoyed it (and his flight home afterwards). Chris and I certainly did.

We like the fact the scenario gives both sides interesting choices and decisions:

  • Where should the Russians defend and with what?
  • Should the Russians go on the defensive or be aggressive and try to take the village?
  • Where should the Germans attack and with what?

Grant and I went for a conventional deployment. We assumed Chris would attack through the village and up the road. But he didn’t. Chris split his forces, took the village and with the remaining force tried to take the woods. He failed but it was a close thing.

The orders of battle mean the Russians outnumber the German attackers by two to one, are the same morale (Regular), and start hidden. In a normal game that would be really bad for the Germans. Play testing revealed more balance that there looked on the surface. A few factors balanced up the scenario despite the vast disparity in numbers:

  • Chris easily captured Village P so he just needed one other sector to win
  • The deployment rules split our Russians so we couldn’t bring our full numbers to bear on Chris’s attacking force.
  • My Russians in the woods were quite congested so often didn’t get a good shot – there were always stragglers from decimated platoons in front of the fresh reserves and the mauled platoons only had a single squad which was often suppressed anyway
  • Chris had three StuGs and in my Balagan house rules they are potent portable fire power
  • Our Russians didn’t have effective anti-tank weapons, just a single 45mm ATG and some anti-tank rifles – none of which took a shot in our game
  • Russian PCs can’t rally and this had a massive effect on the game. Chris used his good German officers to keep his men moving. Grant and I struggled to rally our guys and lost the initiative at critical moments in failed attempts. Damn Stalin for the military purges that decimated the officer ranks.

The wooded area was fairly open. The assumption in Crossfire is that the avenues between woods features are not empty but are very lightly wooded – so lightly wooded that armour is not inconvenienced. If I wanted to make the wooded area more armour unfriendly in this scenario I would butt the woods features up against each other to prevent the armour getting in without the risk of bogging down. We discussed this and didn’t see the need to do that.

On balance I wouldn’t change the scenario.

One final thing. An innovation in this battle report are the little skulls I used in the photos. They show where stands were killed or are about to be killed. I hope it clarifies the narrative given sometimes the affected stand is in the photo and sometimes we took the photo after killed stands were already removed.


Other material at Position Four

Don’t forget to have a look at the related scenarios:

If you want to play the whole battle then have a look at my Position Four Megablitz Scenario.

2 thoughts on “Village P – A Crossfire Battle Report”

  1. Steven
    Great battle report – makes me wish I had Russians so I could do it! WAIT A MINUTE! I have Chinese and N. Koreans which have the same command problems as the Russians. I may try this as a Korean War game. But I want to do the SU 76i scenario re-play first.
    The overall shot of the battlefield at the beginning of the piece was awesome. How high up did you have to get your camera to accomplish that? I have been trying to do this for some time with little success, as I like the idea of setting up the table and giving the side commanders photos to the terrain rather than a map for planning.

    Dick Bryant
    “No sceario survives first contact with a wargamer!”

    Reply
    • A Korean version seems a good fit.

      I took the first photo standing next to the table. I took the second photo – the one I think you mean – in the same spot but standing on a chair and holding the camera as high as I could but retaining visibility of the display at that back. It wasn’t taken from such a great height.

      Reply

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