Invasion of the Balkans, April/May 1941

 After doing the 1940 French campaign, the next Unconditional Surrender scenario was the invasion of the Balkans and Greece in 1941. Not something I've gamed before at an operational level. This is another short campaign, rather like the the invasion of Denmark and Norway, with just two turns, but an awful lot of real estate to cover!

The starting setup. To win the Axis have to conquer both Yugoslavia and Greece by May 1941. The Yugoslav army is quite large and deployed to defend their key cities with three field armies and three garrison armies. Zagreb in particular is strongly defended and the critical rail route south via Belgrade and Nis is also directly defended.

The Greeks have a field army in Salonika and a garrison army facing the Italians on the Albanian border, while the 'BEF' start in central Greece barring the route to Athens. As usual, the very sticky ZOC do a lot of heavy lifting, the alternative would be three times as many counters.

The Axis are a mixed bunch, there are weak contingents of Hungarians and Bulgarians, while the best Italian units are in Albania, seriously handicapped by the awful terrain. The Italian unit in Trieste is just a garrison unit.

The Germans have four ground armies, two infantry and two panzer, plus a single Luftwaffe air fleet. One each of the panzer and infantry armies are in Bulgaria down on the Greek border, while the others are up in Hungary and Austria.

The Axis get lucky and roll fair weather (poor weather being rather more likely), so focus on trying to knock Yugoslavia out in April. The German infantry near the Brenner Pass attack Zagreb with air support and with multiple mobile attacks manage to push out and then destroy the Yugoslav defenders. 2WP to the Axis (they need six to conquer Yugoslavia). The Germans use the last of their movement to move down the valley but run out of steam.

The focus then shifts to Belgrade where 1st Panzer Group makes a frontal attack across the river with air support.

Both sides throw in a ground support unit, but it isn't enough and the Yugoslavs are forced out. Losing Belgrade is another 4WP so Yugoslavia surrenders and all the remaining combat units are removed. Despite surrendering the cities still count as Allied controlled and need to be occupied however, so 1st Panzer motors down the rail route and takes Nis although it doesn't have enough movement to reach Greece. Sarajevo and Split are still allied controlled at this point. 

The focus then shifts rapidly south to take advantage of the good weather. The Luftwaffe stages south to Bulgaria (leaving three sorties for operations). I don't even bother trying to attack the Greeks in the mountains along the Albanian border, as I think there is an opportunity to encircle them instead.

The German infantry attack Salonika with air support and force the Greeks there back into the peninsular as ZOCs preclude an escape westwards. A subsequent mobile attack forces them into the sea and they surrender. 3WP to the Axis, it takes 4WP for Greece to surrender - the only option is to take Athens.

Hard to spot, but the Hungarian and Italian units in the north have mopped up the Yugoslav cities, you can just see Sarajevo is in Axis control now. 2nd Panzer Group attacks the British near Thermopylae, but in the rugged terrain the attack is repulsed! The Germans attack again with the last of their air support and only succeed in forcing the British back. The Greeks on the the Albanian border can still (just) trace a supply line back to the road to Athens as ZOCS don't extend into friendly units for supply purposes. 

Apart from shuffling the Bulgarians around, the Axis have finished now. That would have been a very different proposition in bad weather, with more negative dice modifiers and no mobile attacks. I cant see Yugoslavia surviving, even in bad weather though, barring some good dice throws.

Due to the failure of 2nd Panzer Group in the mountains, the Allies have freedom of movement and set up a defence in depth of Athens with the Greeks holding the mountain passes and the BEF in Athens itself. I thought quite long and hard about that, the other obvious action would be to swap places, and looking at it now, possibly just put one unit in Athens and another on the single hex causeway to restrict the attack channel. Choices, choices.

The weather in May is clear too, this is the best possible set of weather results for the Axis. Given the very restricted front and distances involved, the attack on Athens will be undertaken by the Germans. 1st Panzer Group moves down from Yugoslavia to take on the Greeks - I want to save 2nd Panzer Group for Athens. The rough terrain imposes a heavy movement point cost on all these attacks.

1st Panzer manages to push back and destroy the Greeks (garrison units only have one step and out flanked and  unable to retreat, it is overrun). 1st Panzer could move next to Athens but doesn't have the MP left to attack it, so instead it leaves the approach hex open for 2nd Panzer. 

2nd Panzer goes in with the last German aircraft, plus ground support plus a paradrop (which gives another -2 on the defenders).

The British are driven out of Athens, pursued through Corinth and driven into the sea. Greece surrenders and the Axis win.

I wanted to try some different configurations of the defence of Athens. In this one the BEF defend in front of Athens, which gives them an extra retreat route. This leaves the city open to a paradrop, which has a 50% chance of taking the city. On my first try, the Axis paras took Athens.

On the second they didn't, and the Germans managed to push the BEF back into the city instead.

Their subsequent attacks were too weak however, and despite pulling out the panzers and throwing in the infantry, it was not enough to push the British out, so on this occasion the Allies won. So there is definitely something in that narrow approach to Athens from a defensive pov.

I enjoyed that, it was another thought provoking scenario although obviously much of the running was made by the Axis. It is a similar puzzle to invading Norway in that the Axis have a great deal to do with limited forces and a great deal of space. I can't imagine it being much fun as a two player game and I didn't feel any great desire to play it again, but it is quite quick to play and  I'd like to try it with the historical weather at some point.