Vietnam Crossfire - re learning an old favourite

 I was chatting to Pete at one of our Friday f2f games and it transpired we are both fans of Crossfire. He hadn't played it since before lockdown, and I haven't played it for years, not since we were at the Polish Club in Sheffield, probably 15 years ago, maybe longer.

I still reckon it is one of the best tactical infantry games I've every played. Although I've only ever played at soldiers, it is the closest I've ever come to recreating the experience of being outflanked or surprised or those sudden, rapid movements which take advantage of an opportunity. As Rommel observed, the infantrymen requires supreme caution, but supreme dash at the correct moment.

Anyway, we arranged for me to go up to Huddersfield and push some toys around. I had a dig around for some scenarios and came across Dick Bryants six introductory Crossfire scenarios. They are small, designed to be played fast, but cover most of the significant aspects of the infantry rules including indirect fire, snipers, minefields, hidden deployment, bunkers etc.  

I took my WW2 stuff along but Pete had a pile of Vietnam figures and terrain which were suitable, so we used those (the original scenarios are based on the 250th Spanish 'Blue' Division in the Volkhov Pocket in 1942). 

The first scenario we played was 'The Hill'. The US have to take the big hill in the middle and hold it for two initiatives within one hour (real time) to win. The VC set up hidden (left half of table) and have to stop them.

Experienced CF players will no doubt be horrified by the long lines of sight, but in fact it worked very well.

All the scenarios use the same forces. The defenders (VC) in this case have one Platoon Commander (PC), three rifle squads, an MG squad, a sniper, an onboard 60mm mortar, an offboard 82mm mortar and a minefield.

I set up a single squad on the hill to hold it, then put the PC, MG, another squad and the 82mm FO in the bottom left wood, with the 60mm and another squad in the top left wood. Between them they covered most of the table with interlocked arcs of fire. I completely forgot about the sniper, which we both forgot in ensuing games...

The attackers (US) have two rifle platoons each of three squads and a PC, an MG squad, engineer squad, onboard 60mm mortar and offboard 75mm gun.

The US put one platoon in each of two woods on the baseline, the MG off to one side to act as a base of fire with the 75mm observer and the 60mm off with the second platoon.

The US started with Recon by Fire (RBF) to try and spot the VC positions. While they did this I dropped mortar fire on their start positions. Lots of mortar fire, which killed one squad, suppressed another and pinned a third.

Eventually they spotted the lone VC squad on the hill, who by now were ground hugging as protection from mortar fire. They were first pinned then finally suppressed by a Firegroup from 1st Platoon.

The 75mms laid a smoke screen to shield them from my top left position and the platoon charged. Reactive fire from the covering positions pinned two US squads on the way in (they could only be fired at in the cover of the hill), but the third made it and easily overran the suppressed VC squad.

My covering group blazed away to little effect. My plan was to drop 82mm mortar fire all over the hill then charge to suppressed US troops.

Sadly the MG managed to miss completely and the Americans plastered my positions with HE. The MG was destroyed and the other squad suppressed.

By now the US platoon on the hill was dug in and I was unable to assault, so the US won, having held the hill for two complete initiatives.

It took us nearly a full hour to get to that point, with a lot of thumbing through the rules, and 45 minutes of it was the US firing without achieving much. The winning assault happened in the last few minutes of the hour. 

Having done that, we swapped sides and did it again, having got something of a better grasp of the rules again.

I took the US this time. I attached the MG to one of the platoons to act as a base of fire (a four base Firegroup is quite nasty) and massed on the left. The plan was to move the firebase up the woods on the left, RBF the enemy positions and then assault with the other platoon having suppressed the enemy. 

That didn't quite work out as plan. 1st Platoon made it onto the hill behind a smoke screen (defended by a VC squad and the HMG), but were all suppressed or pinned by flanking fire so their assault failed.

I then sent in the 2nd platoon minus the MG, which made it onto the hill and all of the remaining defenders missed, so went 'no fire'. That led to a complete mop up. My assaulting platoon overran the suppressed units on the hill. 

Then they just ran around the table assaulting the 'no fire' defending units and wiping out the FOOs etc as they went. Each assault had a chance of failure of course, but at +2, I was in with a good shot to win on opposed D6, and after charging around a bit I destroyed every VC unit. One of those Crossfire things that some players don't like, but tbh, with every defender suppressed or ineffective, the game was over at that point.

Onto the next scenario, 'The Farm'. The VC have to defend the farm building (the old Airfix bamboo hut). The terrain layout is a bit different for this, with a hedge running down the middle of the battlefield and a couple of paddy fields.

Terrain, US right, VC left. The paddy fields block LOS and give cover from direct fire, but not indirect fire. 

The US set up in terrain on the baseline, and I dropped mortar fire on them while they tried to RBF the VC positions. Moving past or assaulting concealed defenders might expose them to the horror of ambush fire (+1 dice, which makes a big difference).

Eventually I realised that all the VC could fire as one huge Crossfire as they were all in LOS of their commander, and coupled with mortar fire, they proceeded to kill or suppress most of the US forces.

Time for a counterattack. Covered by smoke, two VC squads and the PC ran around the US positions assaulting the suppressed US units until they were all wiped out. A decisive victory to the VC.

US casualties. Ouch! The VC didn't lose a squad.

We swapped sides and ran it again. This time I took the US.

I set up a huge firebase with the MG attached to one platoon and both mortars in there as well.

The other platoon waited to assault while the Firebase plastered the VC positions. My prep fire was very successful and a number of VC squads were identified and suppressed. The MG wasn't suppressed, but we knew where it was....

Sadly the MG  flank protection squad was one of the suppressed units, so my assault platoon ran around out of the arc for fire of the MG and under cover of a smokescreen against another covering squad, and then assaulted the building from behind.

Close combat in buildings is handled a bit differently to elsewhere in that every squad has to fight every other squad until only one side is left. This required some reading of the rules and then multiple rounds of combat. Even though the MG was outflanked, with infantry support it fought as normal and I lost one of the pair combats, losing two squads, but the remaining squad+PC finally managed to overcome the defenders, leaving the US in sole possession.

That was pretty quick so we set it up again.

The US went right flanking in a big way.

Whereas I'd gone for an indirect approach with most of my platoon in the woods to the northwest, covering the house from there. The building only had one squad and the 82mm FOO in it. That will fool him I thought.

Sadly not. My guys were revealed by RBF, and then both the infantry squads were suppressed by a torrent of US mortar and artillery fire. Pete pulled the same trick that I had, and ran his assault platoon in behind the arc of fire of the MG. My one covering squad in the building pinned one of the attackers, but then missed and went 'no fire'.

The two unpinned US squads easily overran the suppressed VC, then took out the MG from behind.

Then kept on going and stormed the building. The defending squad had already blown its defensive fire, and went down to a +2 close combat. Another US victory, well within 30 minutes.

After those five games, we were definitely getting the hang of it again. The scenarios were extremely small so one bit of bad luck (like a missed defensive shot) could effectively decide the game, otoh they were very quick to play so we could just pick it up and start again. In all there are six of the 2x2 scenarios and they make an excellent revision set as they cover a number of tactical situations, and they are also useful as a guide to CF scenario design.

Just reflecting more broadly on infantry tactics, in the game we tended to operate as platoons and not run individual squads around, and also put a lot of effort into large fire bases with small assault teams, so rather like Squad Leader.  This was because winning the firefight was crucial, or at least suppressing or masking enough of the defence to pick it apart, as otherwise even a single defender had the potential shoot down large numbers of attackers. 

Once a crucial breach in the defence had been made, it was quite easy to mop the whole thing up, in the absence of meaningful reserves or defence in depth, which was a feature of these small games. One thing which was notable was that the only VC victory came when they counterattacked, which implies that the usual wargames approach of a static 'sit and shoot' defence doesn't work here, the defender needs to move around, or they will be picked apart. This chimes far more with both my reading on the subject, and running around the woods, where defenders positively benefit from both changing firing positions and also mounting counterattacks. This particularly applies in BUAs, where holding unfortified buildings is quite hard, but counterattacking them is quite easy as there are so many covered approach routes and so much terrain.

That was very enjoyable and worth doing again, perhaps a larger scenario and with more terrain so it isn't quite so unforgiving.