Operation Mercury - Part 3

21 May

Luftwaffe interdictions were not so absolute over Maleme and Heraklion and a morning strike against the Royal Navy in Candia Bay was easily driven off.  The Germans attacked the retreating New Zelanders around Palatanus and vicious fighting occurred around Galatas as the Germans attempted to cut off the NZ retreat.

Fighting at Heraklion airfield saw the Royal Navy successfully bombard the Germans, but in the afternoon the Luftwaffe returned and sunk the Gloucester and damaged the Fiji.  The Germans renewed their attack and captured half of the Heraklion airfield.

The Germans made no progress at Retimo and their attack on Galatas was bloodily repulsed, but they did destroy the Maori battalion which was positioned close by.

The British launched a counterattack at Heraklion even using armour.  However their attack was uncoordinated.  The fighting was desperate and the Germans were very badly mauled, but just managed to hang on.

More bloody fighting at Galatas, but the New Zealanders were able to slip away to regroup at Suda Bay.  Meanwhile the Australians commenced to counterattack at Retimo. 

The plan for 22 May is for the German’s to reinforce Heraklion as the situation is dire.

25mm Metal Ancients - Javelinmen

This post was inspired by Tim Gow's post http://megablitzandmore.blogspot.com/2011/09/blood-sweat-tears-and-superglue.html

First up here is an old and sadly poor quality photo that I scanned in that shows what is a WRG Ancients 6th addition game (or possibly even 5th edition) from the early 1980s.

At a guess the bulk of the figures would be from my friend Myron's collection.  I never had enough 25mm figures to do more than a nunit of barbarian javelinmen ... and here they are:

All Hinchcliffe with one Minifig ring-in to make up the unit.  I was going for the "hairy chested" look.  I also did something I thought was a good idea at the time and had removed their bases.  Doh!

Here are some more 25mm Ancient Javelinmen from my collection:



From left to right they are Hinchcliffe and then Minifigs PB121, PB16, PB177 and PB163.  The basing style was to match in with my playing surface which was a table-tennis table.

Nearly all of them have had their spears redone.  In fact, in taking the unit photo, one of the guys dropped his spear so I need to go find the superglue and effect a repair.

Operation Mercury - Part 2

20 May PM and Night

On the afternoon of 20 May the Luftwaffe very successfully heavily interdicted all sectors.  The drop on Retimo saw the loss of three companies with the bulk of the rest of the paratroops dispersed.  The Germans captured the Maleme airfield after eliminating the supporting NZ troops in the vicinity.  Their attacks elsewhere in the sector were halted or ineffectual, while at Heraklion the Germans didn’t even try to attack.

The remaining NZ troops started to pull back towards Suda and during the night the Germans press home more attacks inflicting heavy casualties as on the NZ force around Galatas.  The Australians start to hurry towards Retimo, but too late to save the 11^th Australian Battalion which is wiped out in a vicious night attack by the Germans.

At Heraklion the Germans launch a night attack that captures a hill overlooking the airfield.  However the Allies fight back and wipe out two companies of paratroops that had been surrounded in the morning.

The Royal Navy had tried twice to bombard the Germans moving into engage them in all sectors but with no luck.

The maps are the situation as dawn breaks on 21 May, Maleme, Retimo and Hearklion sectors in that order and the naval situation map.

The Germans plan to drop some more paratroops around Retimo, air land troops at Maleme while trying to cut off the NZ forces from Suda, send the Luftwaffe after the Royal Navy and hang on around Heraklion.

Battle of Shiloh

These pictures are scans of photos taken during a refight of the Battle of Shiloh using Fire and Fury.  The only notes I have are that it was 31 December 1992 and that the players on the Union side were Myron, Bruce and Dale while on the Rebs were Brenton and I.  My recollection is that the Rebs did not have the historical success of their namesakes and most action was around the starting position.

The figures were 15mm, mainly Brenton's, but with a few of mine and maybe some more ...

50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division – Part 4

Apart from the now finished 6pdr all the other figures I have had for a long time and these photos are just showing their final basing for the 50^th Division I am slowly building based on the Megablitz scale.

Typical photo style from me with one obvious exception and it was purely accidental.  It was taken outdoors and I think the bright sunshine and semi gloss varnish caused the interesting effect.  The other photo I like form this series is basically the one I redid of what I originally thought was a ruined shot, but this one has the focus on the pointy or business end of the 6pdr.

I also have to remind myself that the 6pdr was effectively in my scrap box before I rescued it for what is effectively my first WW2 war game vignette basing attempt.

The mortar is scratch built and the crew converted (old) Airfix 8^th Army figures.

Operation Mercury - Part 1

I so enjoyed our game last week and having borrowed it from Richard to read the rules through in more detail, I couldn't resist the urge to set it up and play it solitaire.

This is the map and set up before the invasion.

20 May AM

Luftwaffe successfully flies interdiction mission over Maleme, but fails in the Heraklion area.  An air attack against a British task force in the Kythia Strait is driven off.  German air bombardment in Maleme sector meets with some success and the parachute drops go in without too much trouble although half the German artillery is lost and Sturm HQ is mauled.  A group of paratroops is surrounded outside Heraklion.  Fierce fighting took place around Galatas with the Germans starting to consolidate their position.  The heavy interdiction in the Maleme sector stopped the Allies from counterattacking.  The Australians were bloodily repulsed in an uncoordinated attack made against the surrounded paratroops near Heraklion who were desperately fighting for their lives.

These are the situations in the Maleme, Galatas and Suda sector and the Heraklion sector:

Operation Mercury - boardgame by GMT

A campaign theatre I’ve always been very interested in, so I couldn’t resist a chance to try this game out on the Axis invasion of Crete in 1941.  We just played the Maleme scenario through twice – got different results each time, but it was more learning the rules.  Also tried the naval scenario, which was really just an introduction to the air/naval system.  Operation Mercury looks promising and worth finding the time to commit to the full campaign game.

http://www.gmtgames.com/opom/gmtopom0.htm

I should say that the game is from Richard's collection and rather new to me.  I have the old SPI mini game on Crete.