Wargaming | Crossfire | Musing
Morale and Training in Crossfire

Including:

Explaining troop Characteristics in Crossfire

I'd been puzzling over how to characterize various historical units and so asked the Crossfire discussion forum for guidance. This page paraphrases the responses from Steve Holmes, Nikolas Lloyd and Jeff with some of my own thoughts mixed in.

Officer / NCO quality

These are defined in the TO&E, but you don't have to stick to them. It is important to remember that commanders are rated separately in their ability to influence Close Combat and Rallying.

Command and Control

I think of the three levels as: Adventurous (e.g. German), Independent (e.g. Commonwealth), and Dependent (e.g. Soviet). Adventurous troops are superbly drilled and masters of fire and movement, whereas, Dependent troops must be shepherded around by their officers, and Independent troops sit in between.

Standard Crossfire makes all Germans adventurous, however, Tim Marshall suggests this is inappropriate - Volksgrenadiers should have a worse command and control, perhaps dependent.

Troop Quality

Despite the fact that the three levels of troop quality are called Veteran, Regular, and Green, a higher quality really indicates greater staying power, grit, and the ability to sit out the rough end of the firefight. If you want troops to stand their ground in a game better than any others, then make them veterans and the others regulars or green.

Specifically troop quality gives a modifier for:

  • Close combat
  • Rallying

The first of these means that a group of vets are more likely to succeed in close combat. So vets would be the types of troops who don't mind getting stuck in with cold steel, or taking combat to close quarters to achieve a decisive result.

The other benefit of veterans takes a little thinking about. It is as easy to suppress a stand whether green, regular or veteran, but the veterans have a far better chance to rally. In game turns this tends to feed into a simple equation where pinned or suppressed green stands are not worth the attempt to rally, and drop out of combat. Meanwhile a good NCO has a great chance to rally his veteran stands, making these the core of your troops who will hold up in defence (Keep their heads up and fight back instead of get overrun), or press on past the tough resistance in attack.

Troops might behave differently in different circumstances in the same way that some officers count for rallying but not close combat. For example:

  • Gurkhas might be vets in close combat, but regulars in other ways.
  • Spanish Civil War militia might be Regulars in towns, but Green elsewhere.

Elite versus Veteran

If you want a rules-distinction between "elite" and "veteran", then you could say that "elite" troops are adventurous in terms of command and control, and "veterans" get the +1 to rally and CC.

WWII Paratroopers: Moral and Training

Excerpt from Tim Marshall published in the Crossfire-WWII discussion forum.

The way I do paras is not so much veterans, but I give them German C&C characteristics. This makes sense when you think about it (I also give most late war Germans US/British C&C and for volksstrum, I give em Soviet C&C). I think with the German C&C and really good officers (most of my para PCs will be +2 and I even give the battalion CO a +3) you can then vary the green/regular/veteran. From my reading on US paras, mainly General Gavin's memoirs, I give the above characteristics and for Sicily I make them green, Normandy, regular (many of the Germans they fought would be classified as green at that time) and by Market Garden, veteran.

Variable Morale for Soviets

An idea from Rapid Fire

To add uncertainty for a Soviet player throw 1d6 to determine the quality of each battalion when it first time it needs to know (i.e. is involved in close combat or rallies). 1-3 Green; 4-6 Regular. Regardless of the die roll all support weapons, guns and mortars, are Regular.

Even "Regular" German Divisions could be Green

An excerpt from "Standing Fast: German Defensive Doctrine on the Russian Front During World War II. Prewar to March 1943" by major Timothy A.Wray, USA, 1988 [On line at http://www.stalingrad.com.ru/history/doctrine/charter_1.htm]

"By autumn, several newly raised German divisions, hastily consigned to Army Group B in June in order to flesh out its order of battle, were also causing some concern. For example, barely days before its preliminary June attack on Voronezh to secure the German flank, Second Army had received six brand-new German divisions. Though game enough in their initial attacks, these units quickly began to unravel due Tu poor training and inexperienced leadership. In one case, the 385th Infantry Division reportedly suffered "unnecessarily high losses" including half of its company commanders and five of six battalion commanders in just six weeks, due to deficient training. This fiery baptism ruined these divisions for later defensive use. The loss of so many personnel in such a short period of time left permanent scars, traumatizing the divisions before time and battle experience could produce new leaders and heal the units' psychological wounds. Second Army assessed the situation on I October 1942 and informed Army Group B that these once-new divisions were no longer fully reliable even for limited defensive purposes and that heavy defensive fighting might well stampede them. Unless they could be pulled out of the line for rest and rehabilitation, these divisions, which accounted for nearly half of Second Army's total infantry strength, could only be trusted in the defense of small, quiet sectors."

Alternative Rules for Morale and Training

First proposed by Rolf Grein in the Crossfire-WWII discussion forum.

The rule does seem to work well and adds nice flavour. Have a go and perhaps adjust your points slightly up or down for Reluctant Green and Determined Veterans to reflect their added weakness or strength. We tend to fight historical actions so this points thing doesn't play a huge part and it means in those actions where those veteran troops took on large numbers of green troops and won, now that have a more historical chance. The point is it feels right and whilst it may not make all troops equal in the game I'd suggest that all troops are not equal on the battlefield and that needs to be reflected in a more tangible way than simply better rally rolls and a CC bonus. Give it a try!!!

Troop Characteristics

Troops are no longer simply rated as Green, Regular or Veteran. Instead they are now rated for both training and morale. This will allow a more accurate reflection of troops battlefield capabilities. The following gives the ratings and rules that apply;

MORALE

TRAINING

Reluctant

Green

Eager

Regular

Determined

Veteran

Morale Effects:

Rallying:

Take rally tests using morale on the existing tables as follows;

Determined = Veteran

Eager = Regular

Reluctant = Green

Morale Test:

Platoons take a morale test immediately (even in another player's initiative) when their numbers drop to below half of their original strength. Simply roll on the rally table, requiring the number to pass as if suppressed. Failure by one on the die roll causes the unit to be considered permanently suppressed for the rest of the game, only retreating to withdraw of table. Failure by two or more requires the stand(s) to be removed from play.

Yes the word CONSIDERED is the important one here. The troops aren't suppressed per se, they just suffer the effects of being suppressed BUT are still able to get away ie they fight in CC as if suppressed and they may not fire. The idea is they are only interested in escaping and saving their own neck!!

The rule is for platoons that drop BELOW half. What this generally means is that 3 or 4 stand platoons test when one stand remains and 2 stand platoons fight to the "death". We've found these "lone" platoons running around after their comrades have been killed (over 50%)provides to much freedom of action. It is an idea to make a "clean" rule that decided their fate immediately and keeps the game moving.

Training Effect:

Firing:

When fired at the target player must adjust one dice of the firer as follows;

If rated Veteran the target (player) must subtract 1 on the pip (ie 5 to 4, etc) from one of the firer's die rolls.

If rated Green the firer must add 1 on the pip dice to one of his dice (ie a 4 to 5, etc).

In the game we played it had a noticable, but subtle effect. The odd kill became a suppression and suppression a pin. There is still ample opportunity to wipe out these vets as happened in our game. It means that really good quality troops can take on lesser mortals with very little combat experience and have some chance of success, which historically is right. Time and again the loss of combat effectiveness in a green platoon is greater than that of veterans (reflected by the removal of stands), because they simply do not know the dynamics of battlefield survivability. That is what makes troops veterans in the first place.

Close Combat:

Is affected as follows;

+1 if rated Veteran and/or Determined

-1 if rated Green and/or Reluctant

Note: if rated Reluctant Veteran or Determined Green then no modifier takes place.

Examples

So it was in our scenario that the 2nd company of Grossdeutschland were rated "Determined Veterans" and the 3rd company "Eager Veterans". The NKVD forces were rated "Eager Regulars". Such a system allows other troops to be graded more effectively and produces unit feel and national characteristics eg British Desert veterans would be rated as "Eager Veterans", some Japanese infantry as "Determined Regulars", Late PanzerGrenadiers or Panzer troops as "Eager Veterans", Early Russian Tank troops as "Eager Green" troops, etc, etc. The rules worked particularly well and put the focus of training and morale on the troops dependant upon their situation when testing. It allowed the Veteran troops of GD to be more effective, but still somewhat vulnerable, at attacking a defended position. Their slightly higher survivability in the open well reflects their level of combat experience ie they've done this more than a few times before. As it turned out they did attack very effectively (well done Nick!!!) and the game certainly "felt right" that these quality troops had an edge over their opponent. It was still a little touch-and-go, but they would've been hard pressed to achieve their objectives without this rules "twist". The rules definitely DID NOT unbalance the game in our opinion. We are quite happy with the rules and will be further playtesting to see their effects.