Crete

[Los]

Being that we're fighting right now on Retimo the closest I'm getting to these babies are the mortar rounds they are dropping on my head...

[John Kettler]

permanent666,

It's more than straight FJ infantry. There are recoilless artillery pieces (75 and 105mm), 37mm ATGs with (can't resist) motorcycles to tow them! Now, of course, I can't find the motorcycle citation I read earlier!

Airborne Operations: A German Appraisal

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/104-13/104-13.htm

"The greatest headache for the German paratroop command was the lack of artillery in support of infantry fighting. The German paratroops were equipped with the excellent 75-mm. and 105-mm. airborne recoilless guns; both had short barrels and carriages made of light metal alloy. In suitable terrain the 75-mm. gun could be easily drawn by two men, and its elevation was the same as that of the 37-mm. antitank gun of the Army. The maximum range was 3,850 yards for the 75-mm. gun and 9,000 yards for the 105-mm. gun. Both had the following disadvantages:

a. A large amount of smoke and fumes was generated, and the flash toward the rear was visible at night for a great distance.

b. They could be used only as flat-trajectory weapons. Attempts to use the airborne recoilless guns as high-angle weapons were not satisfactory. Moreover, in an airborne operation it was seldom possible to carry along the necessary amount of ammunition or have it brought up later. Thus, as a rule, only important point targets could be attacked with single rounds, generally from an exposed fighting position.

Besides these weapons, 150-mm. rocket projectiles were used in the Crete operation. They were fired from wooden carrying crates, which also served as aerial delivery containers. These rockets did not prove successful; because of their high degree of dispersion they were suitable only for use against area targets and in salvo fire. However, the quantity of projectiles needed for such a purpose could not be transported on an airborne operation, and a JU-52 (German troop carrier) could carry and drop only four projectiles at a time."

See Appendix by Freiherr von der Heydte Were this CMBO, you'd have the RRs, but probably not the 37s as towed weapons (in CMBB for sure). There are also ATRs. All handy to have, considering the British have 16 Mark VI light tanks and 9 Matilda II! Not sure what could be used to represent them.

In any event, the reports over at All World Wars under the heading AIRBORNE INVASION OF CRETE, 1941 should prove most useful to those doing Crete scenarios. They give a real sense of what was happening and where on the island. What's clear is that the Luftwaffe wreaked havoc on the defenders, in some cases, forcing back those who'd seized a position from the Germans at bayonet point.

The Armorama site has a short, but useful, discussion of the Matilda II in Crete. See Matilda Tanks In Crete for details. Something else I found was that armed Cretans (not cretins) gave the FJ fits in the mountains, so how to make guerillas?

The gebirgjeger4mg site has a whole Crete section, as well as info on what weapons the GJ used and the typical ammo loads for the GJ trooper, right down to rifle round count! And, yes, the Stummel 81 was used there.

Am going to stop now, but I hope this material helps the modeling combat on Crete war effort.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Broadsword56]

Lol, he already has. I did it for him, but come to think of it, I don't know if he or I ever followed through...

No, mj, I never got them. You keep tantalizing me with screenshots but I thought you'd put that mod on the back burner. It would be great to have it if you feel ready to share it with the world....pretty please?

[Broadsword56]

@ kettler: The recoilless 75mm is in GL already and I am happily firing it in Crete as we speak. CM lets it be fired indirectly from offmap too. So do you think it's unrealistic that it can be used this way? Thanks for the historical references.

[Apocal]

dont believe everything you read http://www.mourningtheancient.com/truth.htm

"Recently declassified United States documents reveal that the president of the United States knew about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor and did nothing about it. In fact, he and his administration took measures to hide it. Not only did they know about it in advance, but they also instigated it. They would do anything to bring America into WW2, and since Japan was a friend and ally of Germany, they knew that by instigating a war with Japan, Germany would have to follow. They violated Japan's waters. They even strafed her boats with machine gun fire. The information is out there, take the time to find it."

This sounds like it dude, the inside, reliable source.

[Michael Emrys]

I notice that two of the men, including the gunner, are carrying Stens.

Michael

[mjkerner]

Yes, that's because they are a Brit mortar team gussied up as Fallschirms through a model swap. Broadsword wanted the 2in mortar teams to double as FJ 50mm mortars, which are not integral to the FJ platoon TO&E, IIRC. By changing the models and switching from Axis vs Allied to Axis vs Axis as needed in the scenario editor, you can get the above effect. I have a mod that switches out the Stens for the MP40. The problem with model swapping,

though, is that once switched, ALL of them in game are. So, for example, all British would be armed with MP40s. As it is, all British Paratroopers would look like the above, but at Crete, there were no Brit Paras, so it's not a problem.

[mjkerner]

Broadsword, you didn't get it?!? Man, my bad. I need to find it (I had to uninstall FI/GL in order to install MG--need new comp), but I'll get it to you.

[John Kettler]

Broadsword56,

Obviously, this German RR in GL bit proves I don't have GL. No surprise there, since I don't have CMFI, either.

I don't know why the Germans had the problems they did at Crete with RRs doing Indirect Fire, but I suspect it may've had something to to with the intersection of very rocky, discontinuous soil, backblast going in unexpected directions and very unhappy crews in consequence. The study doesn't say this, but I believe a reasonable case can be made for exactly that scenario. What would be helpful in this regard are reports of how the German RRs were used in combat elsewhere.

Speaking of RRs, this very nice page from the combat reform folks has some great stuff on FJ and gear in Crete, to include a shot of a 75mm LG 40 sited in what appears to be the rubble of a stone house and a stone wall junction. Would certainly not want to attempt Indirect Fire from this position. Also, the vexed missing motorcycle issue is resolved. The tow vehicles for the RRs and the GJ's mountain guns were Kettenkrads!

Crete: Jumping Combat Equipment

http://www.combatreform.org/hptll.htm

Short vid (some period color) of FJ, mostly in action

Timewatch--Fallschirmjaeger (Beeb prog, not best technical quality) Numerous interviews with FJ veterans. Crete coverage begins at 8:20, with a real bombshell I never knew. Bletchley Park had the full details of the German attack plan before the Germans has their forces massed in preparation! The excerpts shown on camera are hair-raising if you're the attacker, right down to the specific named antitank units.

The last three minutes of this six minute vid have some great Crete combat footage, to include action in towns, flamethrower assaults and swiftly moving the ATR from the landing zone.

You may need institutionalization after this. Gobs of FJ vids. Hope your German's good.

Happy to assist your war effort, but am so far bust on footage of the German RRs, despite wading through many vids on FJ and, separately, German artillery, including one nearly an hour.

Regards,

John Kettler

[permanent666]

Just finished the chapter about Crete in the book and I think Crete would be a great CM campaign.

I am wondering about two things how could the CW forces loose despite their overwhelming manpower and how could they manage to retreat southwards without being discovered by german planes.

[Erwin]

Did someone say "flamethrowers"? What are they?

[Los]

Just to fantasize about something that won't happen...

Imagine if under the reinforcement tab in the scenario editor one of the options for reinforcement was airborne drop. In this function a reinforcing unit appears as a paradrop. Two factors would affect the placement of the reinforcement:

Enemy AA or small arms within range of the drop could cause casualties.

Weather determines drift error and squad scatter. Perhaps a simple effect (like explosions) has the parachute dropping and then the squad appearing.

Any airborne unit loaded into a glider forgoes para drop but some similar such glider landing.

Drop targets are selected at the company level, or perhaps purchased like TRPs.

Now you would be cooking with gas....

[John Kettler]

Broadsword56,

Just finished the Time Watch FJ episode which, while it doesn't go much into the tactical side at all, it does portray things quite well at the macro (overall plan and higher levels clear up to Hitler and Churchill) and micro (direct experience) levels.

The interviews are first rate, some just awful in terms of what's described. Talking killing at the most intimate levels, looking a hapless foe right in the eye, a foe begging for his life. Bang! POW situation ugly on both sides.

Had no idea the Germans took so many casualties before hitting the ground. All that Enfield practice paid off handsomely, with many FJ dead before arrival. The scale of German unit losses beggars description. One veteran says his unit arrived in 11 Ju-52s, carrying 14 FJs per. 12 men survived!

Los,

A fine idea, with many delightful possibilities for elaboration.

Back when I played Tractics, there was a clever representation of an airborne drop. Each unit name went on a 1 inch square of notebook paper, the slips were then cupped in the judge's hand and dropped from a specified height. While moving? Don't recall. The fluttering during the descent did an admirable job of unhinging the jump plan, after which the judge added in casualties from landing in jumper unfriendly zones, plus some factor if the LZ was actively defended.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Los]

"Had no idea the Germans took so many casualties before hitting the ground. All that Enfield practice paid off handsomely, with many FJ dead before arrival. The scale of German unit losses beggars description."

Yet somehow they won through!

[John Kettler]

Los,

They were shot to pieces on Day 1. What made the absolute difference between overall success and utter failure was that the FJ, aided immensely by the Luftwaffe, drove off the defenders and seized the vital Hill 107 overlooking Maleme Airfield. With Maleme now in German control, the Germans then had an airhead, into which they could pour the men and supplies which would ultimately yield victory. Even with the airhead in hand, the Germans took terrible losses, since the airfield was under continual artillery fire, causing not only direct casualties, but also those when tires met craters and planes were suddenly gearless or one-legged, or planes careened into other planes already there and exploded. To me, it was an eerie foreshadowing of much the same at Khe Sanh, though on a much larger scale.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Michael Emrys]

Had no idea the Germans took so many casualties before hitting the ground. All that Enfield practice paid off handsomely, with many FJ dead before arrival.

I have a hunch that most of those casualties were caused by Bofors and Brens.

Michael

[Los]

Just being sarcastic. I've been a lifelong student of this battle.

[kohlenklau]

Blowing the dust off this. A potential campaign factory project down the line...

[Sublime]

The FJ was destroyed at Crete.  Hastings wrote an excellent book on it.  Yes a great many FJ died before hitting ground and yes, without seizing Maleme airfield they would have lost. Its amazing so many Brits escaped.  The Germans would have been much better served seizing Malta IMO

[Melchior]

Crete served a purpose later on in at least preventing the Allies from using it as base to bomb Romania's oil fields. It was worth seizing, just not worth the expenditure of the FJ. 

 

Malta on the other hand was worth expending every damn ship in the Italian Navy + whatever Luftwaffe assets were deployed in the Mediterranean. 

 

I'm pretty much with others on the topic that about 90% of what you need to make Crete scenarios or even a mini campaign the game comes with already. I think I remember reading the British garrison had 12 tanks on all of Crete and most of them were immobilized. A lot of men didn't even have rifles, the island was such a backwater before the invasion of Greece. You could easily abstract this by simply setting units as under-strength. 

 

Greek partisans historically played a big role in the battle too, the best way I can think of using them would again be to have place-holder squads set under strength and given low training/leadership/motivation values. On this it would be nice to see the same logic used for Uncon forces in CMSF brought over to CMFI/BN/RT. I could imagine some pretty interesting scenarios using Uncon vs. Kriegsmarine or Italian forces as abstractions for garrison troops. 

[JonS]

The FJ was destroyed at Crete.  Hastings wrote an excellent book on it.

 

They were? He did?

 

Malta on the other hand was worth expending every damn ship in the Italian Navy

Ah, yes, the old tactic of 'we'll fight to your last ship and man.'

 

You know, the Italians did get a say. WWII wasn't really like a one-player game of Strategic Command, in which Italian resources can be freely expended in pursuit of German objectives.

Edited January 28, 2015 by JonS

[Trooper117]

The FJ was destroyed at Crete.  Hastings wrote an excellent book on it.

Title mate?... is this a new book? I like Hastings books, but I can't find this one.

[Melchior]

 

 

You know, the Italians did get a say. WWII wasn't really like a one-player game of Strategic Command, in which Italian resources can be freely expended in pursuit of German objectives.

 

Malta was an Italian objective, the Italians just didn't realize it. If Italy wanted to so much as survive the war than seizure of that island should've been a higher priority. Paramount even, since the Afrika Korp was pretty much the only thing keeping Italy in the war. But sure let's give the Italians a say again so they could go on more of Mussolini's Mediterranean Misadventures like Greece or Southern France. Hey no one's invaded the Turks since 1918, what could go wrong?!