Heraklion:
Scenario Preview, Part One
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
December 2021

Panzer Grenadier: Parachutes Over Crete came out really well, I thought, and it seems to have become popular with the Panzer Grenadier fanbase now that it’s been out for a while and word of it has spread on the interwebs. The game has very few tanks – just a couple of British platoons – and otherwise it’s a fight between elite infantry. That makes for some intense battles, and shows that the game system was designed to highlight infantry combat.

Parachutes Over Crete includes the German airborne landings at Maleme Airfield, Prison Valley and Rethymnon, all of these on the western end of the island. Here the Germans faced the New Zealanders around the first two objectives, and the Australians defending the third. After days of bloody fighting, the Germans finally managed to take Maleme Airfield and bring across battalions of mountain troops by air. From there they leveraged the defenders out of the other two sites.

But that wasn’t all the Germans attempted on Crete. They made a fourth landing as well, dropping the 1st Parachute Regiment, reinforced with a two-company battalion of the 2nd Regiment, at the island’s capital, Heraklion. Heraklion’s airfield boasted the island’s only concrete runway and protective revetments, and was originally considered the prime objective of the airborne invasion. But it also lay outside the range of German Bf.109 fighters operating from newly-occupied Greek airfields, and eventually German commander Lt. Gen. Kurt Student shifted his emphasis to Maleme.

We left the Heraklion segment out of Parachutes Over Crete, because the area was defended by the British 14th Infantry Brigade, and the game didn’t have room for Brits along with everyone else. But Road to Dunkirk has plenty of Brits, so we fixed that lack with Parachutes Over Crete: Heraklion. It has nine scenarios from the Battle of Heraklion, tied together with three battle games.

Let’s have a look at the first, two-scenario chapter.

Chapter One
Highland Attack
These two scenarios cover the attempts of the 1st Battalion, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders to clear the area southwest of Heraklion. 

Scenario One
The Thin Red Line
23 May 1941
Shortly before midnight on May 18th, the British destroyer Glengyle dropped anchor 500 meters off Tymbaki on the south coast of Crete and the 1st Battalion of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders came ashore. They remained under cover on the 19th to avoid the ever-present German ground attack aircraft. The only exception was the Bren Carrier platoon under Lt. Guy Valentine, who went to see if the area south of Agioi Deka along the road across the island to Heraklion could be turned into an emergency airfield. Valentine reported that it could be and two companies moved up join him at Agioi Deka while another moved to Moires. On the 23rd the battalion marched northward to clear the area southwest of Heraklion of Germans, joined by the last two operational Matildas on Crete on their way to Chania. The first objective was to drive the Germans from Cheretis Farm. Once that was accomplished, they were to attempt to secure Stavromenos.

Conclusion
Valentine’s Bren platoon reached Cheretis Farm at 1000 and it took an hour for them to determine that the enemy could be driven from the area with the forces available. Due to a lack of transport most of the battalion remained in Agioi Deka and only A Company arrived. It took an unusually long time to organize the attack and the Scots infantry didn’t go forward until late afternoon. They took Cheretis Farm rather quickly and the small force proceeded with the armored vehicles in the lead.

Unbeknownst to them the headquarters of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Parachute Regiment had established themselves in Stavromenos and quickly dispatched men to handle the situation. Soon small arms fire forced the Bren carriers and infantry to break off the attack. Things then went from bad to worse as they were forced to abandon Cheretis Farm and spend the night in Gournes. The day’s only good news was that the paratroopers possessed no weapon capable of stopping the Matildas, which rumbled north unmolested to reach friendly positions around Heraklion.

Notes
This is not a very large scenario, with a reinforced company of Highlanders trying to force their way past a German roadblock, which receives reinforcements to help out. It’s Scottish Highlanders vs. German paratroopers, which is about as elite as it gets in Panzer Grenadier. And the Scots have a tank, which the Germans can’t stop with their weapons, only their bare hands.

Scenario Two
Hielan Laddie
24 May 1941
On the previous day the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders finally cleared Cheretis Farm and proceeded northward. Their attempts to clear the area south of Heraklion went poorly and a German counterattack drove them back to the Gournes area. During the night two more Highlander companies in addition to the battalion’s recon and command elements reached Gournes and made ready to move northward early in the morning.

Conclusion
The Highlanders moved out at 0500 and quickly began taking heavy small arms and mortar fire. Anti-tank fire forced the Bren carriers to break off their advance and seek cover. At 0730 the German Air Force appeared and greatly complicated movement. To overcome this, battalion commander Lt. Col. R.C.B. Anderson sent Company C and the mortar platoon forward to keep the advance going.

While the rest of the battalion attacked, Company D was cut off from when a company of paratroopers who had been left behind in Greece due to a lack of transport planes dropped just behind them. Only 17 Scots managed to extract themselves from the confused fighting that followed and rejoin the battalion. The other companies involved suffered only light causalities before breaking off the attack. Having failed by daylight, after night fell the battalion infiltrated though the scattered German positions to reach friendly lines outside of Heraklion.

Notes
Balked at their last attempt, the Scots are back with a lot more Highlanders, but they don’t have their tank. The Germans get to drop a parachute company as reinforcements, which will limit the Scottish options as they’re not quite sure where it might show up.

And that’s the story of Chapter One.

You can order Parachutes Over Crete: Heraklion right here..

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his Iron Dog, Leopold.

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