Welp nothing the Axis have in the region or can spare in general for that matter is able to stop this level of force assuming it can be fully landed and supplied quickly enough
Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2
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Notes on force generation here:
1st Greek Corps is a butterfly of the timeline
21st Indian Corps + 56th UK Infantry Division were in OTL part of 10th Army in Persia/Iraq.
2nd NZ was tabbed for Italian operations
The two South African armoured divisions are based on the this post and the manpower is coming from the lack of a surrender and destruction of the 2nd South African Division at Tobruk in TTL https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...uisers-volume-2.451883/page-131#post-18533544
And that is 9 allied divisions... the sane Axis action would be to run away from the Peloponnese right now and before allied the allies cut them off. Are all three allied corps landing in the east coast? Or did they make landings in the gulf of Megara as well?
M+0 landings forces are:
1st Greek Corps + 2nd NZ division
The landings are all east of Athens
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Errolwi
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That's a big SA Corps, and Freyberg strongly advised the NZ Govt to not allow the Division to be under non-UK command (as it would add another complicated relationship to manage). Brits also not keen on colonials commanding UK troops. So a separate Corps for 2nd NZ and 56th?
"Tough old gut." It's such mountainous terrain leading to the rest of the Balkans the Germans won't need to deploy more then a few divisions to prevent the Allies from pushing North from the Attic plain without very heavy losses. Could be quite similar to the OTL Italian campaign. But the Germans must keep those forces there to prevent the Allies from breaking out into the Balkans. And the Germans and their allies will face heavy air raids from the close proximity of the many airfields that can be built and supplied in the Southern Greek mainland. Complete fighter coverage to Ploesti and beyond to Poland.
And when the German army defenses begins to collapse in another year or so whose tanks will be rumbling into Romania, Albania, Bulgaria and Hungary?
formion
Banned
South African, Indian and British ones
However, in a year or so the Greek army will be swelled by veterans of the Greco-Italian war. The expansion of the greek army will be limited only by the provision of material by the Allies. So, the infantry divisions in a year or so can be replaced by greek ones. The Indian, British and NZ infantry can be freed for other fronts. Indeed, there are a lot of similarities with the OTL Italian campaign but that's the main difference: Greeks can provide more (and more reliable) frontline troops than the Italian Co-belligerent Army. With so much manpower (more British, Commonwealth, French, Greek, Polish and a more advanced US mobilization) the only bottlenecks for the 1944 would be LSTs and logistical support. Trully fascinating senario for a NW Europe Campaign!
I could see that happening.... the politics of this time are a bit different as there have been fewer fiascoes and far less combat so more time for relationship building and smoothing for the Kiwis.
ODIN will still have the same divisional allotment, but the corps arrangements may be altered.
Might depend upon the command and situation. British divisions were commanded by Canadian corps in Europe and UK corps level formations were attached to 1st Canadian Army at times. So it may come down to UK determination of the ability and quality of the leadership of said formation... as well as the ever present politics of coalition warfighting.
My thought process on this is that the Brits have not had a string of clusterfucks in the Levant (Crete, Tobruk etc) or the Far East (Fall of Malaya/8th Australian Division and III Indian Corps) that damaged or destroyed Dominion formations and made Dominion political constraints very binding and restrictive. This, I think, is playing out in a bit more collaborative relationships that have had time to be sand-tabled and exercised repeatedly so the comfort level is higher TTL vs OTL.
Still debating if I need to revise, but this is where I am.
Your problem is that the South African troops were raised specifically for use in Africa, and Africa only. I imagine that the SA parliament probably had like East Africa in mind, but the wording was Africa, so Smuts sent them north. He even fudged a few ops as being 'essentially Africa', iirc, although I don't remember details. Mediterranean islands maybe.
However, Greece is indisputably Europe, and if Smuts allowed it, his government would fall within the week.
Given that the 6th South African Armoured Division in OTL fought in Italy (which, like Greece is indisputably Europe), there is plausibility space IMO.
Hunh. You are, of course, quite right. After some googling, I find that on 27 January 1943, Smuts asked Parliament for permission to send troops to Europe (and presumably received it?). Before that the promise had been they'd stay in Africa.
(https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/wwii-sa-troops-fight-europe)
I am far more familiar with the Desert War, where they played a large role, and those rules were in effect.
I hadn't known he got the rules changed later.
You learn something every day.
Being Canadian, and painfully aware of the Conscription Controversies, I believed (and believe) that the South African political crisis was somewhat parallel.
(https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/wwii-sa-troops-fight-europe)
I am far more familiar with the Desert War, where they played a large role, and those rules were in effect.
I hadn't known he got the rules changed later.
You learn something every day.
Being Canadian, and painfully aware of the Conscription Controversies, I believed (and believe) that the South African political crisis was somewhat parallel.
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Definitely South African graves in the various Italian campaign Commonwealth War Cemeteries I've been to
Deployment of Canadian formations in WWII was very much a political and nationalist issue. McNaughton did not want to detach units to North Africa because he (and other senior officers) wanted the Canadian army to be as large and powerful as possible as he very much saw Canada as an equal and not a subordinate of the UK. When it went into action he wanted it to be as a whole. Mackenzie King on the other hand opposed sending units to North Africa because he was very casualty averse as he was scared that large numbers of casualties would force sending conscripts overseas (as did happen in 1945). He was always wary of the political effects this would have domestically. Sending units to the Far East was done under pressure from the UK.
Under these circumstances I would think that the brigade would be sent home and those not retained for training and cadre would be sent to join the existing overseas formations, probably as the core of a larger formed unit.
By the time of Husky, Mackenzie King was worried that the war was ending without Canadian participation so authorized the sending of a division, which McNaughton strongly objected to. The whole thing became a shitshow when Montgomery refused to let McNaughton (senior Canadian commander in Europe) visit the Canadian division in Sicily which pretty much played into nationalist paranoia. The further extension of Canadian troops into Italy contrary to agreements prior to Sicily totally destroyed the relationship between Ottawa and senior army command, notably McNaughton.
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