Turn 1 – 6 April 1941
Weather: clear and dry
Overall situation:
Without getting into the details of the complex and to some extent also interdependent historic Balkans Campaign and the Battle of Greece (incl. the preceding Greco-Italian War) as well as the North African Campaign (with focus on the Western Desert Campaign), I just want to mention that we have to capture the Balkans and mainland Greece before we can initiate the attack on Crete.
For this Operation Mercury, we will “only” have two Fallschirmjäger units and might have to bring additional (mountain) infantry to the island once Maleme Airfield has been seized.
In reality, the Balkans Campaign and the Battle of Greece were more or less completed once Crete had been occupied by 1 June 1941 (while Yugoslavia surrendered on 18 April and all of mainland Greece was already under Axis control by 30 April). So let’s see if we can get close to these dates (or at least the final date) somehow!
The North African campaign can be looked at separately for game play dynamics for the most part, although in reality the Brits had relocated troops from North Africa to Greece.
In North Africa, the main objective is to establish the Siege of Tobruk, i.e. after the Italian invasion of Egypt, the British Operation Compass to push back the Italians and the German Operation Sonnenblume to land troops in North Africa. In reality, the siege "began" on 10 April, although we won’t be able to match this date.
In addition to the Siege of Tobruk, we might be able to reach Halfaya Pass before the end of May 1941 as well (Operation Skorpion). However, it might also be interesting to note that the sequence of events in North Africa was less linear than in some other theaters/areas of operations, e.g. Fort Capuzzo (east of Tobruk) changed hands several times from 1940 to 1943.
Anyways, in reality, the Siege of Tobruk triggered three British/Allied relief attempts during the rest of 1941.
Furthermore, I expect initial Royal Air Force air operations over mainland Europe/Germany.
Regarding the five core units, I decided to bring the tank and the two fighters from France. I then added another fighter as well as a more mobile recon unit (instead of another tank or AT) to enable an earlier breakthrough into Greece... although I doubt the recon will survive very long… Not to mention, I am still (or again) short on prestige…
The strategic maps at the start of turn 1:
(right click and open in new tab for larger picture, same applies to all others)
- BE_Turn_01_004_Strategic Map.jpg (162.33 KiB) Viewed 4961 times
- BE_Turn_01_005_Strategic Map Air.jpg (160.25 KiB) Viewed 4961 times
Incoming casualties (from France):
- BE_Turn_01_006_Incoming Casualties.jpg (47.01 KiB) Viewed 4961 times
