Sir John Valentine Carden survives.
- Thread starter allanpcameron
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Regarding Crete there are two major butterflies so far:
- Piraeus is intact, so at least part of Commonwealth's heavy equipment can be properly shipped. There is no point embarking from beaches if you have a major port at your disposal. Hell, even a few tanks could be saved, although to sacrifice a few dozen A13s in order to delay the Germans an additional day would be more beneficial in my opinion.
- The V "Cretan" Division is being sent to Athens. They are a veteran unit with excellent record. In OTL the Cretan civilians fought with determination and without equipment. If the actual Cretan soldiers are in the island, you can bet they will fight as mad wolverines. Even if they just have rifles, machine guns and grenades they will be ferocious light infantry.
Basically all Crete needs are 3 Commonwealth brigades with heavy equipment and the V Division. A fourth Commonwealth brigade will constitute a very powerful reserve. Food for thought: the V Division as most Albanian Front formations had experience using captured italian equipment. The even more successful Compass has produced a large booty of italian materiel. Therefore, the men of the V division can be re-equipped very quickly and with hardware that is already familiar.
- Piraeus is intact, so at least part of Commonwealth's heavy equipment can be properly shipped. There is no point embarking from beaches if you have a major port at your disposal. Hell, even a few tanks could be saved, although to sacrifice a few dozen A13s in order to delay the Germans an additional day would be more beneficial in my opinion.
- The V "Cretan" Division is being sent to Athens. They are a veteran unit with excellent record. In OTL the Cretan civilians fought with determination and without equipment. If the actual Cretan soldiers are in the island, you can bet they will fight as mad wolverines. Even if they just have rifles, machine guns and grenades they will be ferocious light infantry.
Basically all Crete needs are 3 Commonwealth brigades with heavy equipment and the V Division. A fourth Commonwealth brigade will constitute a very powerful reserve. Food for thought: the V Division as most Albanian Front formations had experience using captured italian equipment. The even more successful Compass has produced a large booty of italian materiel. Therefore, the men of the V division can be re-equipped very quickly and with hardware that is already familiar.
All the troops that Crete is going to probably get means its possibly not a viable target for the German airbourne planners......maybe they will switch targets and this Commonwealth success leads to an assault on and loss of Malta ....... butterflies flap in mysterious ways !
You want to airdrop onto Malta!!
Are you mad!
The size would mean you'd essentially be dropping on top of allied positions and you really wouldn't have anywhere to regroup before being found and shot.
If there are more than 4 allied tanks there I really can't see it going well for them
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Please , Malta is a totally different target to Crete. Too small for Para troops to land safely ( they either have to land on rock with defenders converging quickly or right on top of the defenders ) , all the landing sites are covered, no hope of taking a port quickly and the airfields are again heavily defended with reserves that can quickly reinforce if needed. No one tried it OTL because it was pure suicide, when Avalon Hill put it out as out a bonus game, the hoops to make it playable so were stupid ( and the win conditions slanted even more ) . Malta falls it you can starve it out, no other way
Why though?
Malta is not yet a thing for the North Africa Campaign and the forces operating from it Sub Squadron 10 and Force K etc as well as airpower was not yet stood up to the levels that it would.
And it makes me laugh how many times a change in the Med = "and so Malta falls instead" on this forum
I pity the poor fools who tried to parachute into Malta - it isn't Maleme and is significantly better defended and prepared than Crete.
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So was Operation SealionYet Herkuleswas a thin
Operation Herkules - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Edit: But like Sealion Herkules planners decided that there was better ways to kill their troops.....
Sure, both would have done far more damage to the Nazis than the Allies. But they were real plans they intended to carry out.
But were not carried out because the planners knew in both cases the operation would be a disaster
Sufficient explosives would be turning Greece into another Atlantis, and using excessive explosives would take the rest of the Balkans with it.
There is no problem on earth that cannot be solved with the proper application of High Explosives.
To quote myself in character back in shwi-isot days "All military problems have a proper engineering solution"
I so miss alt.history.whatifTo quote myself in character back in shwi-isot days "All military problems have a proper engineering solution"
22 April 1941. Trikkala, Greece
allanpcameron
Donor
22 April 1941. Trikkala, Greece
9th Panzer Division, with the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, had found the going much easier than the 2nd Panzer and 6th Mountain Divisions. Staying north of the River Pineos they were attempting to prevent the flight of the Greek army. Their arrival in the afternoon of the previous day had been held up briefly by a Greek rear-guard, but when the reconnaissance elements of the 9th Panzer Division reached the railway, they found little more that piles of abandoned equipment.
Much of the Greek Army’s 2nd, 3rd, and 9th Divisions had managed to move by rail back behind the Thermopylae Line. 8th Division, to all intents and purposes, had simply disappeared, heading to their homes in the Epirus region. General Tsolakoglau had reported to General Papagos, that while most the men had been saved, they had arrived with only the equipment they were carrying and not capable of further operations, at least in the short term. 1st and 11th Divisions had bought the time needed for their comrades to be withdrawn and these two divisions were now withdrawing primarily by foot and mule down the western coast road, via Ioannina, aiming to re-join the main forces via the Delphi Pass. General Wilson, when notified of this, asked the RASC if they could spare some transport to help these Greek Divisions. The 1st Division were weakened but still able to fight, and having them defend the Delphi Pass would provide the Anzacs with flank protection.
The much more mobile German Divisions, having missed the majority of the Greek Divisions, had been ordered to cross the Metsovon Pass, link up with the Italian army, and pursue any remaining Greek forces down the western coast. It would now be something of a race to see who could reach the Greek troops first, to either evacuate them, or capture them. The Greek engineers had been using whatever explosives they had to hand to attempt to slow any pursuit, and the Metsovon Pass had been particularly chosen for demolitions, frustrating the SS troops who had taken the lead.
NB this is the same date as the previous update.
9th Panzer Division, with the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, had found the going much easier than the 2nd Panzer and 6th Mountain Divisions. Staying north of the River Pineos they were attempting to prevent the flight of the Greek army. Their arrival in the afternoon of the previous day had been held up briefly by a Greek rear-guard, but when the reconnaissance elements of the 9th Panzer Division reached the railway, they found little more that piles of abandoned equipment.
Much of the Greek Army’s 2nd, 3rd, and 9th Divisions had managed to move by rail back behind the Thermopylae Line. 8th Division, to all intents and purposes, had simply disappeared, heading to their homes in the Epirus region. General Tsolakoglau had reported to General Papagos, that while most the men had been saved, they had arrived with only the equipment they were carrying and not capable of further operations, at least in the short term. 1st and 11th Divisions had bought the time needed for their comrades to be withdrawn and these two divisions were now withdrawing primarily by foot and mule down the western coast road, via Ioannina, aiming to re-join the main forces via the Delphi Pass. General Wilson, when notified of this, asked the RASC if they could spare some transport to help these Greek Divisions. The 1st Division were weakened but still able to fight, and having them defend the Delphi Pass would provide the Anzacs with flank protection.
The much more mobile German Divisions, having missed the majority of the Greek Divisions, had been ordered to cross the Metsovon Pass, link up with the Italian army, and pursue any remaining Greek forces down the western coast. It would now be something of a race to see who could reach the Greek troops first, to either evacuate them, or capture them. The Greek engineers had been using whatever explosives they had to hand to attempt to slow any pursuit, and the Metsovon Pass had been particularly chosen for demolitions, frustrating the SS troops who had taken the lead.
NB this is the same date as the previous update.
If I may make an observation here. Gjirokaster (as the base near the front of the Epirus Army) to Ioannina and then Delphi is 406 km. To cover this distance on foot over (more or less) a week and then being able to fight is beyond human endurance. Especially since they are frontline formations, not well rested troops. If I may suggest an alternative, the port of Preveza is 100 km from Ioannina. From there and nearby small ports, coastal shipping can lift these troops to the Peloponnese or directly to Crete. In any case, if they try to reach Delphi, they will melt out of sheer exhaustion without being able to serve any purpose. One can ask only so much even from hardy veterans.
The good thing about Epirus (other than the Metsovon Pass) is that it is very mountainous with snake-like mountainous roads and dozens of bridges. Give engineers explosives and they can delay any pursuer who doesn't have transport helicopters.
The Delphi Pass can be VERY thoroughly sabotaged by... local explosives. At that point there was a thriving bauxite mining industry in Mount Parnassus. The Royal Engineers can have several tons of explosives to play with. *Enter mad cackle*
The Royal Engineers can literally bring the mountain of Apollo down with the explosives at hand. Check how steep the mountainside is.
From a very practical viewpoint, it would be better to post the remnants of the XII and XX divisions to cover the blown-up mountain sides and bridges. And basically left there to be destroyed. Better to save two excellent veteran divisions than what is left of two third-rate formations. Not to mention that since they were retreating alongside the Commonwealth, they are already at Thermopylae, a few dozen km away.
So, the II, III and IX divisions have been saved. These divisions were marching behind the XIII and Cavalry, while an older post mentioned the retreat of the V even earlier. Is it fair to assume that the aforementioned formations have passed behind friendly lines as well?
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