operation mercury

[the_zek]

Good morning all,

Long time player and I’m having a tough time with operation mercury. Have a good core force, but not sure of the “trick” here.
I’m using planes(fighter, stukas, and bombers)and a ton of inf with nomtrucks to airlift to Crete plus 3 paratroops to take an airfield.

Cans seem to get it don’t though. Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated

[Grondel]

i used 6 paratroopers with lots of heroes sqeezed into them. 2x 7.5cm art (those can be airlifted) and 2x AA gun(i think it was flak-vierling, but not sure if avail at that time. if not it was 2cm Flak 38).

i had 6x strat bombers to sink the british fleet 4x fighter planes to kill enemy airforce and 4x tac bombers to help with the island.

after taking the airfields i used the supply hex to give transports to the paratroopers and guns, change them to decent unit for taking the island. make sure u have enough free core slots to upgrade the units to what u want.

hope this will help u.

[Vorskl]

Good morning all,

Long time player and I’m having a tough time with operation mercury. Have a good core force, but not sure of the “trick” here.
I’m using planes(fighter, stukas, and bombers)and a ton of inf with nomtrucks to airlift to Crete plus 3 paratroops to take an airfield.

Cans seem to get it don’t though. Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated

I converted all my infantry to paras + bought more to fill all slots. Used solely Paras to occupy the island. You need to get supply zones asap otherwise your paras are doomed. I also deployed a few Me110 to deal with british tanks
Fleet... I let it go, once paras move inside the island the fleet is of no harm

[the_zek]

Thank you both. That helps. I’ll advise how it goes when I get home from work.

[IttoOgami]

I felt the only issue in this mission was the strong concentration of the British fleet. Initially, they may be able to kill one of your paras. I had 7 paras, 2 Strategic bombers, 2 tacs, and 4 fighters (some of the aircraft with overstrength.
Though the AI paras can have a hard time (and especially the center force can lose IMO, if they have bad luck), I think usually even they will make it.

What I don't like (and especially showed in this scenarios): couldn't bombers just be a little stronger against ships? I had a Twin Do17z with strength 14 and Lethal attack hero, and used "aim assistance" by fighters heavily. So the best you can get, only that that bomber had no experience. Even under this condition, I think the best I can get is 5 or 6 points with an attack. So, even my best unit needs to have 4 or 5 attacks to down such a overstrength ship. I know it was always a bit silly in PG or Panzer Corps were you could almost one shot any ship with a good strategic bomber.
But can't there be a middle ground? In the original battle of Crete, the British fleet operating around the island was heavily devastated mainly by air attacks. Maybe, give us one naval special hero, so this can be more even.

Another thing (maybe I get something wrong): I could not put overstrength on any Paras - is this always the case?
Anyways, the beginning in this scenario is a bit tedious, but once the Paras are away from the Western coast, there should be no problem.

With said fleet issue, I am asking myself if its not more worth it to have even more Paras (like 9 or so), move in relentlessly, and don't care if you lose 1 or 2.

[ledami]

At first I had a lot of problems with this mission, but after researching, I realized that a trick to improve the strategy was to add more parachutes in conjunction with the infantry, that's what helped me. Hope it works for you, greetings!

[the_zek]

Evening all,


Thanks for the all the good advice. Was able to pull it off after work and get the bonus objectives too!3 paras plus all my inf with no trucks to start and then added back at the supply point. Fighters and tac to support.


Thanks again for all the good help

[WolfOfWinter]

Worst AI performance I've seen to date:

An off topic rant. Good advice above, thanks.

General Student's leadership of Fliegerkorps XI remindes me of British Major-General William George Keith Elphinstone CB, the incompetent commander at Kabul 1842.

The fallshirmjager run around like headless chooks, no defensive formations, no use of terrain, fail to defend the supply hexes, making suicidal attacks from rivers, sitting in their Junkers for multiple turns whilst the allied fighters and tack bombers blew the heck out of them, what the heck Slytherine? I'm playing at Field Marshall difficulty, how about upping the competence of Student's Korps to reflect this difficulty level? These fallshirmjager are elite veteran troops; 4.5 stars, overstrength, why are they performing like lemons?

In turn 4 XI Korps abandondend the dirt airfield at 40,21 which was immediately recaptured by the allies. Naturally the fighter and two tack bombers I'd rebased there in turn 3 were evicted and unable to be used during turn 5. No improvement throughout the scenaril. Whilst this was another German victory and I managed to save a few of them the level of incompetance left a bad feeling.