Keynes' Cruisers

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David Flin

David Flin

Gone Fishin'
fester said:
They landed within 200 yards of target
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That doesn't quite mesh with the 25% landing casualties. Both are possible, although both are pushing the envelope quite hard in different directions. The landing casualty level is at the high end, and would imply poor dropping conditions. The landing accuracy is at the successful end, and would imply good dropping conditions. Both together is stretching things in my opinion. I'd suggest pick one, and go with the implications. If you want a successful, accurate drop, then your drop conditions are probably such that the landing casualty rate would be no higher than 10%. If you want heavy casualties on landing, that suggests marginal dropping conditions (possibly with wind picking up during the drop. It happens), with the troops scattered randomly up to a mile and more from the target.
 

Peg Leg Pom

Crete's pretty rocky so it seems fair enough to me. It doesn't take much of a rock to break a parachutist's ankle, especially in the dark.
 
David Flin

David Flin

Gone Fishin'
Peg Leg Pom said:
Crete's pretty rocky so it seems fair enough to me. It doesn't take much of a rock to break a parachutist's ankle, especially in the dark.
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25% is high. 5% would be typical for good conditions, and as a rule of thumb, you'd add 5% for every complicating factor. Rocky gets you to 10%. Very rocky to 15%. Dark to 20%. Add in wind, and you're there. Wind, however, would scatter landings.

It can be done, but it is pushing the envelope, and that 200 yard variation is awfully tight for a night drop.
 

fester

David Flin said:
25% is high. 5% would be typical for good conditions, and as a rule of thumb, you'd add 5% for every complicating factor. Rocky gets you to 10%. Very rocky to 15%. Dark to 20%. Add in wind, and you're there. Wind, however, would scatter landings.

It can be done, but it is pushing the envelope, and that 200 yard variation is awfully tight for a night drop.
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You guys are all making a lot of assumptions... to be revealed in a moment

For this particular private and story sub-line, there were only 12 guys jumping. 3 of them having bad luck landing is unusual but not bizarre bad luck.
 
Story 0606 Crete extraction
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    May 24, 1941 0049 Crete

    A single red light flashed. Two more blue lights flashed. The private pointed his machine pistol at the beach west of the airfield. Eight minutes later, three Italian coastal torpedo boats edged closed to the beach and rubber rafts were paddled ashore. The German paratroopers placed the two men with broken legs aboard first. They had left the body of their comrade who landed in rocks, breaking his neck, behind. They had his tags to return to his family. A minute later, the last man, the lieutenant in charge of the mission hopped on board and every one helped paddle back to their rescuers.

    By mid-morning, the patrol had landed and the leaders had been whisked to a transport to take them to Athens. His lieutenant and sergeant saw the other two teams. The team that dropped near Hereklion had run into trouble with an Australian patrol while the third patrol got in and out cleanly. Their message was straightforward. Small groups could get in and out, but a major landing operation against any of the airfields scouted would make Bodo look like an easy mission. Each airfield was ringed by anti-aircraft guns and at least half a dozen tanks available as a reaction force. Heavy artillery and mortars existed to deny any clean landing to follow-on forces even as numerous obstacles were held in readiness near the runways.

    Crete could not be taken on the bounce.
     
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    May 24, 1941 0522 GMT North Atlantic

    Captain Elliott Buckmaster braced himself against the steady pounding of waves. He was the master of the Yorktown and proud of his men as they had supported one hundred sorties per day for the past three days. The seas were rough, and more than once he had feared he would lose a man overboard but the combination of luck, long safety lines and teamwork had kept everyone safe.

    This journey would soon be over he hoped. He looked again at the message in his hands. HMS Hood, Prince of Wales, Norfolk and Suffolk had firm visual contact on Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. Eighteen heavy guns against eight, the tradition of the Royal Navy against the brief history of high losses for the Kriegsmarine, the issue was not in doubt.
     
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    Perky50 said:
    ... so I'm wondering just where those German paras landed?From your prose, it would appear that they are close to target, however, the lack of a response makes me wonder if they are anywhere near where they are supposed to be.

    Keep up the great work!
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    they were exactly where they wanted to be ... just nowhere close to the Commonwealth defensive zones
     

    fester

    RyderWest said:
    They're lost?
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    Nope, an area where they could observe the airfield and its defenses without running into regular, local patrols. Their threat model was villagers seeing them and/or very aggressive Commonwealth commanders who had the manpower to devote to either training or patrolling all of the island instead of using that manpower for a construction force.
     

    sonofpegasus

    Having one of the recon parties discovered is a disaster, the area around all the airfields will now be searched and evidence of the other parties found. A corpse even without tags is a bit of a give away as will be all the chutes and other detritus.
    It will give the defenders an indication of what the assault force are intending.
     
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    May 24, 1941 Athens

    The last tri-motor transport plane took off from the airfield outside of the Greek capital. Two dozen planes were already heading north. The ground echelons that had flooded into Greece to support the transports would take a few more days to arrange for train transport back to the flying schools in southern Germany and Austria. Flight training for the Luftwaffe's bomber force had slowed to a crawl in the past few weeks as every single transport and far more importantly, every single large, multi-engine instructor pilot was allocated to urgent operational tasks. The last task would have been a combat drop of two regiments of paratroopers onto Crete. The few men who had survived the assault on Bodo had trembled with fear. Crete promised fewer fighters but even more anti-aircraft fire.

    Aerial reconnaissance had shown two fully formed Commonwealth brigades in garrison along with two divisions that had managed to evacuate from the Greek mainland building extraordinarily tough field positions. Panzers with plentiful air and artillery support could help infantry take those positions but panzers could not fall from the sky. It would have been a light infantry only assault. Bodo had shown the cost of an expected assault against organized defenders without good field fortifications. The last ditch effort to send a handful of patrols to Crete to verify that the photos were capturing reality had confirmed the bad news.

    Crete was an island too far. It would be starved and bombarded into submission. It would not be taken by assault.

    By the end of the first week of June, any man attached to a transport group would have left Greece except for a single squadron for local duties.
     
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