Airborne operations planned for Operation Herkules, July 1942

I've just got back from Malta. :cool:

So they were going to drop two divisions of paratroopers and gliders on to the southern hills, and expect them to strike out to take an airfield so that a third division could be flown in.

Was this really the plan? Having seen the terrain in Malta, it sounds like absolute insanity. The hills are covered by dry stone walls, enclosing small fields. You can drop paratroopers there, albeit with a high accident rate, but the gliders will literally all crash. It's no use landing the gliders at the airfields either - they were all covered by plentiful artillery.

Plus the RAF regained air superiority over the island just ten days after the invasion plan was approved. Flying in hundreds of transports and gliders against five squadrons of Spitfires? No wonder it was cancelled.
 
Back in the 1970s a war-game designer, who's name I cant recall, looked at this question. The result was a game that destroyed the Axis airborne force, tho for game purposes it was still possible to win. I recall the designer commenting that a "Italian plan" of the previous year seem to have had the best opportunity for success.
 
I still hace a copy buried away. Could not remember the designers name, or if was affiliated with AH or some other company. I recall looking at three or four games on the subject back in the era.
 
Back in the 1970s a war-game designer, who's name I cant recall, looked at this question. The result was a game that destroyed the Axis airborne force, tho for game purposes it was still possible to win. I recall the designer commenting that a "Italian plan" of the previous year seem to have had the best opportunity for success.

I was wondering whether this was a scenario that you'd gamed!

Given that the airborne forces were due to be followed by a large amphibious assault, it may have worked. But a notable coincidence is that the attack would have coincided with Harpoon-Vigorous, the countering of which would then require the aircraft that would be needed to defend the invasion fleet and support the beach-head.
 
Never gamed that one. Looked at the map & OB was about it. Read a very brief review of someone who did. All I remember is the Axis lost severely from the assault forces.
 
Back in the 1970s a war-game designer, who's name I cant recall, looked at this question. The result was a game that destroyed the Axis airborne force, tho for game purposes it was still possible to win. I recall the designer commenting that a "Italian plan" of the previous year seem to have had the best opportunity for success.

There should be more games where your "win" condition is the least appalling loss plausibly conceivable.

yours,
Sam R.
 
There should be more games where your "win" condition is the least appalling loss plausibly conceivable.

yours,
Sam R.

There are a number of those in the “grog” wargaming community. It’s basically accepted for stuff like the Pacific Theatre and the Battle of the Bulge, for example, that the “win” conditions for playing Japan and Germany (respectively) isn’t so much victory but merely doing better then they did historically.
 
There are a number of those in the “grog” wargaming community. It’s basically accepted for stuff like the Pacific Theatre and the Battle of the Bulge, for example, that the “win” conditions for playing Japan and Germany (respectively) isn’t so much victory but merely doing better then they did historically.

Sad as it is, I feel a reason to proselytise the concept, "You didn't lose simply, or idiotically, or (within your competence) too rapidly), you have won. I feel a need to make more grognards.

To make play in whatever game it is to not be about win/lose but about comparison to value in expected win/lose.

yours,
Sam, R.
 
I'm not a game designer, but spent some time contemplating a stratigic game based on Italy surviving into 1943. The object was to achieve better surrender terms than OTL.

If you want a depressing game play Poland in 1939.
 
I feel a need to make more grognards.

yours,
Sam, R.

Beware----There are more of us lurking here than you realize. We have existed in the shadows and dark alleys for years, just waiting for the digital apocalypse and then emerge to set up our hex covered boards again. My original editions of PanzerBlitz and Jutland are hibernating in my basement awaiting the Resurrection!

Avalon Hill Will Rise Again!
 

Ian_W

Banned
Beware----There are more of us lurking here than you realize. We have existed in the shadows and dark alleys for years, just waiting for the digital apocalypse and then emerge to set up our hex covered boards again. My original editions of PanzerBlitz and Jutland are hibernating in my basement awaiting the Resurrection!

Avalon Hill Will Rise Again!

It's SPI that I miss ...
 
I may have had the Avalon Hill game at one time. If I did have it, I either later sold it or lost it in a flood. Avalanche Press also has an invasion of Malta game which I do have. Haven't played it yet.

Didn't the airborne invasion plan also call for amphibious forces? Am I thinking about the earlier Italian plan?

Speaking of gaming, I'll be at Origins next week. :)
 
Beware----There are more of us lurking here than you realize. We have existed in the shadows and dark alleys for years, just waiting for the digital apocalypse and then emerge to set up our hex covered boards again. My original editions of PanzerBlitz and Jutland are hibernating in my basement awaiting the Resurrection!

Avalon Hill Will Rise Again!

Preach it brother...
 
I've just got back from Malta. :cool:

So they were going to drop two divisions of paratroopers and gliders on to the southern hills, and expect them to strike out to take an airfield so that a third division could be flown in.

Was this really the plan? Having seen the terrain in Malta, it sounds like absolute insanity. The hills are covered by dry stone walls, enclosing small fields. You can drop paratroopers there, albeit with a high accident rate, but the gliders will literally all crash. It's no use landing the gliders at the airfields either - they were all covered by plentiful artillery.

Plus the RAF regained air superiority over the island just ten days after the invasion plan was approved. Flying in hundreds of transports and gliders against five squadrons of Spitfires? No wonder it was cancelled.

A lot of Malta is very similar to Crete, for either island the plan has to be capture an airfield and quick. and that is only stage one, there has to be an amphibious landing to follow it up. The difference I have read, and the little I have seen of Malta, is the lack of suitable beaches to land on. And as to air superiority, that has to be a given! Creating a game, its all to easy to avoid these barriers to create good game play, or you create so many rules to legislate for the difficulties that the game becomes unplayable. Games generally work if its a land campaign, or a sea campaign. uniting both is a more challenging affair.
 
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