65 replies to this topic

[Sacha]

We are about to embark on a Campaign of Operation Mercury. The German Paratroop assault on Crete. First up is the assault on the Maleme Airfield. For now, here's the map, the drop starts tomorrow morning.Revised Map!!!!!!

[Trotsky]

Cool! Looking forward to this one!

[gregoryk]

The glider landing went surprisingly well, despite one shot down. No real difficulties. The game was played at 1"=25yds, and was a total infantry game. Lots of maneuver, tough decisions, back and forth results with morale problems thrown in. Sacha will certainly provide a great AAR, as usual.Cheers,Gregory

[Sacha]

Here's the battlefield......

[Sacha]

[Sacha]

First Gliders come in, relatively smooth operation. Minimal deviation.....but under heavy fire....one glider lost its wings to Maori HMG fire at LZ "Schwarzkopf"

[Sacha]

over at LZ "Juel"...south of the bridge. Landings are smooth except for constant machine gun fire from the hill. I believe the Germans had kevlar in the canvas of the gliders.

[Sacha]

back over at LZ Schwarzkopf.....Flieger "Sturm" units disembark and begin to charge the northern line of the trenches under Maori fire.

[Sacha]

another view of the action. The covering fire helped a bit in terms of their accuracy, but that was it....

[Sacha]

[Sacha]

sorry for the fuzzyness, I used someone elses camera and wasn't used to it...KG Juel completes his landing and pushes for the Olive Grove directly south of the east landing of the Tavronitis Bridge.

[Sacha]

First "break" of the day! and there will be plenty more....

[Sacha]

same scene....another view.

[Sacha]

Switching over to KG Juel, south of the bridge and west of the hill. Hauptman Juel has taken "The Grove," is beginning to engage the trenches, and lays down an excellent smoke barrage covering their advance from the machine guns on the hill.

[Sacha]

On the west side of the bridge, a well-placed glider landing puts some light infantry guns on the ground for support fire. A platoon of flieger troopers set up behind a stone wall.... note the gunners are "inspired"!!!!

[Sacha]

In a bold move, with command action in hand....KG Juel's troops push to take two trench positions. Aided by smoke from the mortars hindering fire from the Maori MGs and a quick barrage by the infantry guns which initially pinned the Maori's in trench #2. Trench #1 was unoccupied. In the face of of elite flieger units, the Maori chose to run rather fight.

[Sacha]

From the skies above....is it a bird?...NO! is it a plane?.....OH YEAH BABY!Stuka attack from the blind spot places a 700kg bomb right down their throats...one Maori HMG...waxed!

[Sacha]

after the ground stopped shaking.....Maori troops found themselves in open ground receiving fire from Flieger units in the trenches.....feeling some pain!

[Sacha]

Back over at the north end of the trench line...KG Schwarzkopf engages its first trench of continually being pinned down. More difficult to take the trenches without adequate smoke or barrage fire.

[Sacha]

Just after the Maori player suffered a personal morale failure, the smoke started to lift. The smoke screen was stoked a second time with great accuracy, but now it is lifting. Pop shots are taken between the remaining Maori troops and machine guns. Behind the scenes, at the west end of the bridge, a flieger unit broke on a morale check, then rolled a critical failure '20' on their recovery.They stripped off their uniforms and headed for the beach.