Operation Marita - The Battle for Greece

 Operation Marita

The Battle for Greece

PLAYBILITY NOTES
Several non-historical adaptations have been made to this campaign to make it playable for 500+ players. First off the British only had 80 serviceable aircraft deployed to mainland Greece at the time of the invasion. The collapse of Greece was so swift that they did not have time to redeploy other assets to it from Palestine, Egypt, etc. The Germans deployed over 500 aircraft in their attack which quickly seized air superiority over both Yugoslavia and Greece.

For playability I am making the assumption that the British freed up and deployed a much stronger force of air assets to the theater. Basically that they stripped Palestine, sent more aircraft from Egypt, and actually prioritzed sending reinforces directly from Britain to Greece. This is why P40Bs are involved in this setup (historically several RAAF and SAAF squads in the Eastern Med. were equipped with P40Bs at this time period). In reality the Middle East commander General Wavell did everything he could not to deploy any air assets to Greece and even argued against the Greek campaign (Churchill finally over ruling him) since he believe it threatened his position in Egypt by draining him much needed forces.

Next the main heavy bomber in the Greek campaign for the British was the Wellington. Well actually medium but it was the heaviest the British had that was involved. Simply put AH planeset does not have any plane that is a close sub based on performance. However, the British need a twin engine bomber with a decent bomb capacity and the closest twin engine bomber I have based on peformance and bomb load is the B25C. So it is standing in for Wellington.

Finally the Italian airforce was involved in this campaign and deployed significant numbers of G.50s and M.200s for this campaign. I want to include them in the battle and after research have found that the I-16 is very similiar in performance to both of these planes. So the I-16 will be standing in for them in this setup.

 DESCRIPTION
After the fall of France Mussolini hoped to match the German success and re-assert his belief that Italy was an equal peer to Germany by invading Greece, a country he viewed as an easy target. The Italian offensive out of their colony of Albania initially made progress but the Greeks counterattacked and within 3 weeks droves the Italians off of Greek soil.

Britain, by treaty was obligated to come to the assistance of Greece, and by November had deployed a few Hurricane and Blenheim squadrons to mainland Greece. Also it had deployed ground forces to Crete, freeing up the 5th Cretan Division to deployed to the mainland.

The Greek counter offensive from November to March 1940, supported by British air power, which neutralized the Italian air superiority, allowed the Greeks to invade and hold southern Albania.

However, unknown to the Greeks or British, Hitler had decided to intervene to help out the hapless Italians and issued Directive No. 18 which planned an assault on Gibraltar and Greece by January 1941. This was dropped though when Spain's General Francisco Franco rejected plans for an attack on Gibraltar from Spanish territory.

Directive 20 was then drawn up by the German High Command for an attack on just Greece ("Operation Marita") with its troops crossing through a compliant Yugoslavia. However, the Germans demands for transit through Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav government's granting of this sparked off a coup d'etat and the new government repudiated this agreement with the Germans. The Yugoslavs did not do this because they were pro-British but more out of a last ditch attempt to stay out of the war altogether.

This resulted in Britain and Greece considering only the Bulgarian and Albania fronts to be avenues for a German attack and they deployed their forces to just cover those areas leaving the Yugoslav front undefended. Hitler furious at the Yugoslavs ordered his generals to come up with a plan to attack both Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941.

The British convinced the Greeks to allow them to fully take over the defense of Crete and to also deploy a British Expeditionary force of 62,000 troops to mainland Greece. However, the Greeks didn't want to antagonize the Germans and put severe restrictions on where the British force and would not let it be deployed to the Bulgarian front.

The Germans unleashed their attack on April 6th and drove deep into Yugoslavia capturing Strumica on April 7th, Prilep on April 8th, and were north of Monastir by April 9th. This positioned German forces to be able to attack the Greek town of Florina, outflanking the Metaxas line in the east (where the Greeks were holding their own against German attacks from Bulgaria), and threatened to encircle the Greek forces in Albania and the British W force in the west.
With the Yugoslav surrender the Greek and British forces were left in untenable positions which forced the Greek to abandoned the Metaxas line in the east. While the British force W started a fighting withdrawal back to southern Greece to avoid being encircled and cut off. The Western Greek forces refused to abandon Albania and were quickly cut off by the Germans. After several sharp battles the Greek First Army surrendered on April 20th.

British and Greek forces in the east fought several holding actions while they withdrew south. On April 21st it was decided to evacuate Greece and by April 30th the British had evacuated 50,000 soldiers from Greece to Crete.

AIRCRAFT
05 pts - Single Engine AC with 1 crew
10 pts - Single or double engine AC with 2 crew
15 pts - Double Engine AC with 3+ crew

BASES
288 - Small Airfield
396 - Medium Airfield
572 - Large Airfield
219 - Vehicle Base

SHIPS
CA - 120 points
CA - 60 points
DD - 30 points

NOTE: When a base is attacked the attacker gets the points for objects destroyed at the base while the defender gets the points for all objects not destroyed at the base.

 
 
ARENA SETTINGS
- Greece
- Fuel 1.00
- Icons short
- .5 Ack
- Radar (Bar only) : 60 mile range,10 minute update, altitude 500 ft and up
- Fighter and Bomber warning range 26,000 (about 5 miles)
- Tower range set to 26,000 (for display only to match the above setting)
- Clouds / visibility
  Frame 1, 9 miles
  Frame 2, 11 miles
  Frame 3, 8 miles
- Radar off
- Friendly collisions off
- Enemy collisions on
- Kill shooter off
- Calm winds
- Time: 11 AM
 
 
SPECIAL RULES
 
NOTE: special rules sent out with the objectives trump these special rules.


1. Nobody on the Greco/British/Yugoslav and Italian/German side gets a second life flying a plane.

2. Bomber formations are disabled / not available.

3. A minimum and maximum number will be assigned to each aircraft type. The CiC of each side must deploy the designated minimum per aircraft type and can not more than the maximum per aircraft type. Outside of that the CiCs can deploy the aircraft types anyway the want (i.e. can have squads fly 2 aircraft types and in split they wish as long as squads are assigned same objective).

4. If both CiCs agree they may have the setup CM end the frame early. This is usually done if one side wipes out the other side (i.e. 60 versus 5).

5. Dead pilots may gun bombers. They may not man the guns of airfields or ships.

6. Ships can maneuver by the their side during the frame as long as they stay in their containment area. Ships must stay in containment area defined in the objective orders. If they go outside of the containment area a penalty will be assessed.

7. All targets must be attacked within the first hour of the event. Both CiCs should include sending their battle plans to me so that I have proof that they planned to attack their targets by T+60.

8. All attack targets assigned must be attacked by a credible force. I define a credible force to be at the very least 3 x 4-6 squads (so 12-16 planes) or 1 7x10 squad and 1 4x6 squad or 1 11x15 squad. Obviously CiCs can deploy a larger force per target as their plan dictates but no defending or attacking with just 1 x 4-6 squad.

9. All defense targets must be defended by a credible force. I define a credible force to be at the very least I define a credible force to be at the very least 3 x 4-6 squads (so 12-16 planes) or 1 7x10 squad and 1 4x6 squad or 1 11x15 squad.Obviously CiCs can deploy a larger force per target as their plan dictates but no defending or attacking with just 1 x 4-6 squad.

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