Crossfire Pages

WWII Game Photos (Airfix M3 as 75mm GMC with scratch built drop in)

Tim's Crossfire Pages

Tim's Crossfire house rules This is a section at the bottom of this page that presents some of the approaches taken in the rules and links to the rules themselves.

Tim's Notes on Crossfire This is in my Rules Played section of my WWII game reports section.

Crossfire Rules Clarifications These are clarifications on rules queries by Arty Conliffe himself, quoted from the various Crossfire mail lists over the years. I no longer subscribe to any of these due to lackof time to go through all the emails!

Crossfire Multi-Player Suggestions These suggestions are documented in various game reports and are in addition to the suggested rules in the Crossfire rule book.

Universal/Bren Carriers This link to the Canadian forces in the first CF competition explains how I use these vehicles (on a 1:1 basis) in Crossfire. You may have to scroll down a bit. Dismounts from the carrier are not permitted.

Artillery Fire Plans An adaptation of my house rules, this is actually from my Torch battle report and may take some time to load as it has loads of pictures. You will have to click your BACK button to return here.

Crossfire Meeting Engagements This is a link to a game report between French and Italian troops in June, 1940. I include the link here as I think it provides an illustration of the Rob Wolsky method of conducting meeting engagements in Crossfire. It is slightly different than Rob's instructions found under the Scenario Generation section of the CF rules, but is quite similar. The first frame, with the picture of the game table, describes how the meeting engegment ws set up.

Stand Markings This is a diagram of my latest (Jan 2004) attempts at marking infantry stands. I've always disliked the idea of markings visible on the stand as I prefer the "moving diorama" approach to wargaming. However, after seeing some really well done stands by someone else on the web, I decided I should at least attempt to have some identification for my stands rather than have the players have to lift the stand up and look at the coloured sticker on the bottom of the stand.
I settled on a something based on that wonderfully colourful WWII Italian armour marking scheme. The markings shown in the picture are at the back border of the stand which helps players realize which is the front and back of a stand, another vexing problem I've run into from time to time. Note that I no longer bother with the white background described in this link. The company, platoon and squad markings display just fine without the white.

Crossfire Links From my Links page.

Officer Commanding
Armour, Artillery and Other House Rules for Crossfire (as of 16 Dec 2008): Return to Top of Tim's Crossfire Page"

The term "Officer Commanding" is what company level commanders are called (in the Canadian, and I think, British & Commonwealth, armies), ie, commader B squadron or B company is OC B Sqn or OC B Coy. Since Crossfire is a company level game involving decision making at the company commander level, I thought "Officer Commanding" was a most appropriate name for a set of house rules.
My house rules are laid out to follow the Crossfire rules layout in terms of section numbering; for example, section 11 in the house rules contains armour house rules. I've added more detailed rules for armour, essentially allowing them the same freedom of movement as infantry and applying the same command and control restrictions. I've completely rewritten the indirect artillery rules as I wasn't satisfied with the lack of area of effect. The house rules may seem long, but in my opinion, anyway, Crossfire remains essentially the same except the approach to infantry is applied to armour as well. I include Crossfire revised quick reference sheets to include my house rules and these alone should be more than enough to scare anyone off of these rules!

Officer Commanding (pdf format) This will open on a new browser window or tab. There are 17 pages of house rules (you can still run away! ) and 5 pages of design notes. Rather than flick back and forth in one copy of the rules, open two and have one set to the design notes which start on page 17 and when you hit an end note in the main rules, you can flick (alt-tab) over to the notes.

Officer Commanding AFV Stats (pdf format) As of 5 May 2009 This will open on a new browser window or tab. You can use these stats or drop in your own anti-armour rules. Mine use a garden variety method; roll 2d6 to hit and, if the hit is successful, roll 2d6, add the result to the attack value of the gun/ammo combo firing and if it equals the AFV's defence value, the AFV is suppressed (for some guns) and if the defence value is exceeded, the AFV is destroyed.
The statistics in here are based on my original research while I had access to the Canadian Army technical library in the late 80s for my home brew rules called Driver, Advance!. At that time, I was using an anti-armour mechanic based on that used in Zimmer & Myers, Angriff rules. I set up tables with AFVs and guns listed with armour thicknesses of various vehicle locations (turret front, side, rear, etc) and armour penetration by guns and ammunition type at various ranges. You'd roll percentile dice for a chance to hit the vehicle (the ones die would provide a plus or minus variation for armour penetration), and if successful, you'd roll a d10 for hit location. Then you'd compare the penetration in millimeters at that range, modified by the to hit ones die roll and if exceeded, the tank would be destroyed. That's all replaced now with a simple garden variety 2 d6 attack roll versus defence value mechanic. But I based the values that one finds on various conversions I did on the original millimeter and variation values. I drew up some complicated Excel sheets and database calculations to bring the probablities I had in the Driver, Advance! rules as close as I could get for a 2d6 probability curve.
Not all statsistics in here have been fully vetted. That is, when I did the probablity conversions described in the previous paragraph, there were a very small number of values that ended up not making sense and had to be tweaked. So I can't guarantee a super duper perfectly play tested set of stats! Please email me if you think I've got something grossly wrong! Note that I don't use this document when we are playing. All my AFV stats are on an MS Access database application which I use to generate a single sheet with the AFVs that one might expect for a particular game.

Revised QRS for OC Quick reference sheet, pdf format) which include items from the Officer Commanding house rules. Note: I'm not including these here as they include much of the QRS in the actual Crossfire rules. If you're interested, email me (note the munged email will need to be correctected) and I'll send you my revised QRS.

To read the above pdf files, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Tim's Crossfire house rules	This is a section at the bottom of this page that presents some of the approaches taken in the rules and links to the rules themselves.
Tim's Notes on Crossfire	This is in my Rules Played section of my WWII game reports section.
Crossfire Rules Clarifications	These are clarifications on rules queries by Arty Conliffe himself, quoted from the various Crossfire mail lists over the years. I no longer subscribe to any of these due to lackof time to go through all the emails!
Crossfire Multi-Player Suggestions	These suggestions are documented in various game reports and are in addition to the suggested rules in the Crossfire rule book.
Universal/Bren Carriers	This link to the Canadian forces in the first CF competition explains how I use these vehicles (on a 1:1 basis) in Crossfire. You may have to scroll down a bit. Dismounts from the carrier are not permitted.
Artillery Fire Plans	An adaptation of my house rules, this is actually from my Torch battle report and may take some time to load as it has loads of pictures. You will have to click your BACK button to return here.
Crossfire Meeting Engagements	This is a link to a game report between French and Italian troops in June, 1940. I include the link here as I think it provides an illustration of the Rob Wolsky method of conducting meeting engagements in Crossfire. It is slightly different than Rob's instructions found under the Scenario Generation section of the CF rules, but is quite similar. The first frame, with the picture of the game table, describes how the meeting engegment ws set up.
Stand Markings	This is a diagram of my latest (Jan 2004) attempts at marking infantry stands. I've always disliked the idea of markings visible on the stand as I prefer the "moving diorama" approach to wargaming. However, after seeing some really well done stands by someone else on the web, I decided I should at least attempt to have some identification for my stands rather than have the players have to lift the stand up and look at the coloured sticker on the bottom of the stand. I settled on a something based on that wonderfully colourful WWII Italian armour marking scheme. The markings shown in the picture are at the back border of the stand which helps players realize which is the front and back of a stand, another vexing problem I've run into from time to time. Note that I no longer bother with the white background described in this link. The company, platoon and squad markings display just fine without the white.
Crossfire Links	From my Links page.

Officer Commanding (pdf format)	This will open on a new browser window or tab. There are 17 pages of house rules (you can still run away! ) and 5 pages of design notes. Rather than flick back and forth in one copy of the rules, open two and have one set to the design notes which start on page 17 and when you hit an end note in the main rules, you can flick (alt-tab) over to the notes.
Officer Commanding AFV Stats (pdf format) As of 5 May 2009	This will open on a new browser window or tab. You can use these stats or drop in your own anti-armour rules. Mine use a garden variety method; roll 2d6 to hit and, if the hit is successful, roll 2d6, add the result to the attack value of the gun/ammo combo firing and if it equals the AFV's defence value, the AFV is suppressed (for some guns) and if the defence value is exceeded, the AFV is destroyed. The statistics in here are based on my original research while I had access to the Canadian Army technical library in the late 80s for my home brew rules called Driver, Advance!. At that time, I was using an anti-armour mechanic based on that used in Zimmer & Myers, Angriff rules. I set up tables with AFVs and guns listed with armour thicknesses of various vehicle locations (turret front, side, rear, etc) and armour penetration by guns and ammunition type at various ranges. You'd roll percentile dice for a chance to hit the vehicle (the ones die would provide a plus or minus variation for armour penetration), and if successful, you'd roll a d10 for hit location. Then you'd compare the penetration in millimeters at that range, modified by the to hit ones die roll and if exceeded, the tank would be destroyed. That's all replaced now with a simple garden variety 2 d6 attack roll versus defence value mechanic. But I based the values that one finds on various conversions I did on the original millimeter and variation values. I drew up some complicated Excel sheets and database calculations to bring the probablities I had in the Driver, Advance! rules as close as I could get for a 2d6 probability curve. Not all statsistics in here have been fully vetted. That is, when I did the probablity conversions described in the previous paragraph, there were a very small number of values that ended up not making sense and had to be tweaked. So I can't guarantee a super duper perfectly play tested set of stats! Please email me if you think I've got something grossly wrong! Note that I don't use this document when we are playing. All my AFV stats are on an MS Access database application which I use to generate a single sheet with the AFVs that one might expect for a particular game.
Revised QRS for OC	Quick reference sheet, pdf format) which include items from the Officer Commanding house rules. Note: I'm not including these here as they include much of the QRS in the actual Crossfire rules. If you're interested, email me (note the munged email will need to be correctected) and I'll send you my revised QRS.
	To read the above pdf files, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader.