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what british and american forces will be in the game? will there be rangers and cammando's?

British forces include the armoured brigade, armoured division infantry battalion, infantry division infantry battalion, Layforce commandos, and various Royal Marine units (mostly artillery), amongst others. Then there's Australian and New Zealand infantry division units. Greek and Italian units include armoured, infantry and cavalry divisions. German units include armoured, infantry, parachute and mountain divisions and the Sturmregiment glider assault units, and a company of the Brandenburg commandos. All of the above are of course in their 1940 (for Greek and Italian) or 1941 (for all the rest) organisations.

At this stage a decision hasn't been reached on including units from later in the war. Since the US didn't enter the war until well after the end of the historical campaign there's no direct imperative to include them, although it's slightly possible they might have gotten involved in the defence of Malta had Operazione C3 / Unternehmen Herkules gone ahead.

Regards
33

thanks i am not really familar with this part of the war thank u very much golf.

No Italian Paratrop units?

[:D]

Since my reply to Razoredge33, I've done some further work on the Malta aspect of the game and we now have a 1942 Italian parachute division, assault and landing division, San Marco marine regiment, and the armoured group (consisting mainly of Bersaglieri and Semovente self-propelled guns) that was established for C3/Herkules. We have also added German units to cover the introduction of new weapons, particularly 10.5cm LG40 and 2cm/2.8cm sPzB 41 (le) to their parachute division, and units to represent the special tank variants of PzAbt.zBV.66 (Special Purpose Tank Battalion) which was formed for the operation.

British units have also been added to represent a wide variety of AA forces and the KOMR (King's Own Malta Rifles) and RMA (Royal Malta Artillery) present on Malta.

Regards
33

Very cool, thanks[:)]


I asume airsuport is somewhat abstracted like before?


.............

Edit: I thought the 10.5cm LG40 , was present during this campagine Creat I mean...

ORIGINAL: Brady

Very cool, thanks[:)]


I asume airsuport is somewhat abstracted like before?


.............

Edit: I thought the 10.5cm LG40 , was present during this campagine Creat I mean...

I'll be away for the next few days but when I get back I'll take another look at my sources for this. Some people claim the 10.5cm LG40 was used on Crete but when you try and work out whether this was the case or not, it gets pretty complicated. Even the veterans I checked with gave remarkably inconsistent data on with what weapons the FJ dropped onto Crete - maybe not so surprising after 63 years.

Regards
33

ORIGINAL: Brady

I thought the 10.5cm LG40 , was present during this campagine Creat I mean...

Having checked again, I am now convinced that not only was the 10.5cm L.G.40 not used on Crete, it was not even in service at the time. Chamberlain and Gander, in Infantry, Mountain and Airborne Guns (WW2 Fact Files series, London: Macdonald and Jane's, 1975) list the 10.5cm L.G.40 as entering service in 1943. Jean-Yves Nasse, in his Fallschirmjäger in Crete (Paris: Histoire et Collections, 2002) makes it quite clear that at least 1./Fs-Art.Abt.7 used 7.5cm Geb.G.36 - both in the text and in a number of photographs showing that unit with those guns. Interestingly he doesn't ever mention recoilless guns at all, and unfortunately gives no details of the 2./Fs-Art.Abt.7 which could have used the weapons. Nasse's work is largely based on documentation and interviews of veterans from the campaign.

The only sources I've seen referring to these guns being on Crete are webpages such as the Lemairesoft site, which do not give any details nor any sources for the information. Generalmajor Julius Ringel, in an article written for the US Army after the war, mentions the FJ Regts as having a company of '100mm rocket launchers'. This could refer to the 10.5cm L.G.40 but I think this is unlikely; the German designation "Geschütz" would be translated as "gun", whereas "launcher" is much more likely to have been a translation of "Werfer". I think therefore that this is a reference to the 10cm Nebelwerfer 35 (actual calibre 105mm) though it's hard to be sure. Elsewhere, for example in Nasse, the 13.Kp. are all referred to as "mortar" companies which also suggests the Nb.W.35.

Given that the 7.5cm L.G.40 definitely was used on Crete, it had to be either with 2./Fs-Art.Abt.7 or with one of the 13./FJ-Rgt.x companies. My best guess, based on the sketchy sources, is that 2./Fs-Art.Abt.7 had them, and probably also 13./FJ-Rgt.2, with 1./Fs-Art.Abt.7 being equipped with the 7.5cm Geb.G.36 and the 13./FJ-Rgt.1 and 13./FJ-Rgt.3 being equipped with the 10cm Nb.W.35.

Naturally I'm always open to correction if anyone has a better source of information!

Regards
33

Are the British armored units equipped with Matlida Is and Matilda IIs? What else?

British armour includes Matilda II infantry tanks, Vickers Mk VI light tanks, A13 Mk II and A10 cruisers, captured M13/40 medium tanks, and Daimler Dingo scout cars. There's also estabs for Marmon-Harrington armoured cars; although they aren't used in any of the official scenarios they're available for users to 'roll their own'. The various infantry units are sprinkled with Bren carriers, as you'd expect.

Regards
33

Awesome. Very nice selection. If there's a possibility of including the Matilda 1 in an estab (obviously unused in any official scenario) I'd try to make use of it. [;)]

What kind and type of Greek units are you going to put in?
BTW Greeks had a ski battalion at the time but it is not widely known.

Greek units include 1940 infantry division, Pindos Detachment, and Cav Bde; 1941 inf div, cav div, and 19th mot inf div. On Crete there are one- and two-battalion infantry regiments, a garrison battalion, and a police battalion. It was extremely difficult to find accurate information in English on Greek activities and organisations!

The Greek ski battalion wasn't mentioned in any of the sources I came across, either it wasn't involved in the battles we're covering or, as you say, it just hasn't been recorded - if you have any further information about the composition and battle history of the unit I'd be happy to add it if appropriate!

Regards
33