Field Training Exercise: CROSSFIRE Practice!

 When I was in the Army, I hated field exercises.  Well - the lead up to them, anyways.  I always dreaded changing my routine (and the 36 hour days without sleep, discomfort, and MREs).    When we were out in the field, however, I usually had fun.  The old adage of "we do more things before 9am than most people do all day" certainly held true.  

So this morning around 530am, I found myself in the gaming bunker with a cup of strong black "Army" coffee and figured I could put some very basic forces on the table and practice some basic scenarios over and over again.  Basically these were "field problems" with a platoon attacking and a platoon defending.  These were "meeting engagements" with a force designated as the attacker and one as the defender.

The mission for today's training exercise?  Eliminate the enemy platoon!

Americans moving to contact.

Germans picking their way through towards their objective

And what were those objectives, anyways?  Well there is a basic setup for our field maneuvers today.  A farmstead with a ruined farmhouse, small cornfields, crops, and 2 hills.  The American and German platoons will take turns beating the hell out of each other and I played no less than 4 engagements in a short amount of time.

Both sides have 3 x squads, a +1 Platoon Leader, and a Medium Machine Gun section.  Textbook CROSSFIRE forces!  Note there are 6 terrain features on the map.  I diced for first movement.

The Americans move first and move up the MMG and a rifle squad into the cornfield.  The Germans have positioned a squad as "flank guard" and it opens fire on them.  Lucky shooting suppresses the US MMG and the initiative switches to the German force, who immediately move their force up the hill for overwatch of the position.

Good shooting!  US MMG section is suppressed across the field.

US Forces on the left, Germans on the right.  Note the German "flank guard" squad in lower right of pic.  The US squads are stacked up on the left to bound around the farmhouse and move through the northern cornfield and onto the hill.

Since the MMG is a centerpiece of the US plan, they have to attempt to rally the suppressed MMG in the cornfield.  THe US player moves the platoon leader south towards them, but they are pinned down by fire from the hill!  THe platoon command group, radio telephone operator and all hunker down in whatever cover they can find, trying to crawl up into their helmets, pinned.  Another German squad attempts to react and goes NO FIRE.

Out of ammo?  reloading?  This squad is NO FIRE and cannot shoot until their next initiative.

Platoon COmmand Group, facing left, gets pinned, rallies, gets pinned again, etc.  They're clawing their way towards safety but will they make it?

The German MMG opens up on them and eventually KO's the Platoon Leader and command group.

The Germans on the hilltop have a commanding view up to the cornfield and farmhouse.

German "firegroup" KO's the US MMG!  Nice shooting!

                              

The German "flank guard" squad, suppressed in the field, is KO'd by accurate rifle fire.

US Player rushes the farmhouse and seizes it.  The "newly appointed" platoon leader, per the replace PC/CC rules is behind them.

The US Player is pinned.  The Germans gather combat power on the hilltop to assault the farmhouse.

The German player and the remaining US units trade fire.  At one point, the Germans dash into the cornfield in an effort to get the US player to shoot - he does and misses - going NO FIRE.  This is it!  THe Germans rush the farmhouse!

This is how you take an objective!  The Germans and their PL (+1 for the PL, +1 for an additional squad) win the combat by 1.

Good job, men!  It's hefeweizen time!

I played the same scenario again, same forces and the US player wiped the Germans out due to bad German luck and a very bold US plan.  I eventually played this same scenario another 2 times (4 total) and the results were even 2-2.  Most of the results of the games came down to launching a timely assault against a NO FIRE enemy squad, or excellent shooting from a CROSSFIRE, and blasting a suppressed squad either off the hill or out of the farmhouse.  I had great fun "walking through" and exercising CROSSFIRE today.  I may introduce another platoon on each side, a bit more terrain, and possible some mortar fire missions for each side.  

I was thinking it would be fun to battle for this farm again with multiple rules sets, including Iron Cross, Norm's Tigers at Minsk, and the Neil Thomas "Wargaming: An Introduction" rules.  The Crossfire rules, once staples of mine, came back to me quickly and with no fussiness.  They really are a splendid set of rules that really work - and even more surprisingly - are decent for solo play with a manageable amount of forces.

Anyways thank you for joining me today on this little "Field Exercise".  More to come!