Greece-Balkans Campaign When?

[CaptainBeel]

Kalimera, Zdravo and G’Day!

I have made suggestions about this before but not as a proper post. There have been multiple requests for Greece/Crete/Yugoslavia battles to be added, albeit not fully fleshed out.

Greece, Crete and Yugoslavia maps would be significantly different to any maps preexisting in game.

These would allow use of the existing factions, while adding new nations and tech for more interest.

The Balkans are a less recognised theatre of WWII so would be a refreshing change and add further variety to Enlisted.

I encourage my friends from former Yugoslavian countries (I know there are some on this forum) to add further suggestions and more detail such as more potential Yugoslavian locations. I am also aware of the national-ethnic issues which may arise so again strongly encourage feedback from our Yugoslav friends about what works/would be appropriate.

Allies:

United Kingdom:
British squads are already in game.

Australia & New Zealand:

Australian and Greek soldiers in high spirits.

Weapons for the Commonwealth expeditionary force are already in game. We just need freely available uniforms for Australia and New Zealand, including slouch/digger hats and lemon squeezer hats. The models for these already exist in premium/event squads.
This would also be an opportunity for proper AUS/NZ European theatre uniforms to replace the made-up ones used by 1st Agas guerillas for Normandy and Bulge campaigns.

Greek Army.

The following list includes a number of potential Greek weapons that could be added to Allied tech tree. Please see my post about Expanded Tech Trees for a small Greek tech tree within Allied tech tree. Alternatively some could just be added as foldered options.

List of World War II weapons of Greece

Here are some further weapon examples, credits to @coldestwinter_

Gras M1874

FN Model 30

Makrykano M1943

EPK Pyrkal M1939

EYP Hotchkiss greek modified machine gun

Vehicles:
Light Tank Mk IIIB “Dutchman” - 10 actually saw combat with Hellenic Army, 19th Mechanised Division.

Austin 8 HP machine gun armed cars (rider class?)

Captured L3/35 tankette - premium or event?

Aircraft:

Royal Hellenic Air Force PZL P.24

Greek OR Yugoslav air force: Avia B534

Royal Yugoslav Army:

List of World War II weapons of Yugoslavia

Below is a tech tree by @coldestwinter_ and @SzepWaxweiler. I am posting this merely as a quick visual way of showing potential Yugoslav tech.

Tanks:
Renault R35

T32 tankette?

Resistance/Partisans
The addition of the guerilla squads means that Resistance fighters and partisans are now a real possibility.

I would suggest Greek and/or Cretan resistance fighters as well as Tito’s Partisans for Allies.

Greek resistance

Yugoslav Partisans

Referring to my previous post ‘Real Diversity in Enlisted’, Greek, Cretan and Yugoslav resistance fighters means the possible inclusion of female soldiers. The Partisans were particularly famous for their female combatants who were treated the same as their male counterparts.

Any of these units could also include British commandos as well, alternatively British commandos could be their own premium squad.

^British officers and Cretan resistance fighters who abducted General Kreipe on Crete. This was made into the film Il Met by Moonlight (see below) and were led by W. Stanley Moss (see gold order soldiers)

Axis:

Standard German and Italian squads are already in game.

Crete is one of the famous instances of the Fallsmirjager.

We have some Fallsmirjager uniforms in tech tree customisation so this could be an opportunity for tech tree paratroopers. Alternatively they would be a premium squad.

They also fought in the Battle for Greece against my countrymen Australians and New Zealanders.

Axis Yugoslav guerilla squads:

Chetniks

Ustase (these may be controversial?)

Suggested maps:

Elaia–Kalamas Line 1940

Metaxas Line

Battle for Thermopylae 1941

Battle for Kleisoura Pass

Battle for Vevi

Corinth (eg canal bridges).
This battle was mentioned by the Fallsmirjager in ‘Storming Eagles’ where they secured the bridges but were impressed with the bravery and skill of the Australian and New Zealand troops. ANZAC marksmanship was so good, the Ju52s were full of .303 holes from rifles.

Kalamata 1941

Crete.
I believe a single map would suffice for Crete. A mountainous area, seaside port, airfield and German base. There could even be a German HQ building as an objective in reference to the kidnap of General Kreipe.

Battle of Neretva 1943

Battle of Sutjeska 1943

Battle for Belgrade?

Belgrade leads me to an important point:
What to do with USSR?

Various resistance groups were Communist and therefore received aid from the USSR. The liberation of Belgrade specifically saw Partisan forces cooperating with the Soviet Red Army.

Tito’s Partisans were unique though in that, despite their politics, were predominately aligned with the Western Allies, namely United Kingdom.

Except for those guerilla forces/national groups that actively supported the Axis, personally I would place all Yugoslav guerillas under the Western Allies tech tree.

The battle for Belgrade however involved the Red Army, not UK or USA. Therefore we could consider having some maps, such as Belgrade, queued for USSR rather than Western Allies.

I am open to thoughts on this. It would be good to have at least some maps that could be used for both Western and Eastern Allies, as well as reflecting the actual history.

What about the Yanks?
The queuing of US and UK-Commonwealth forces together has been considered a problem for early war campaigns.
I strongly believe that we should not ignore early war campaigns just because of USA.

I would propose that US squad’s uniforms automatically switch to standard British when Balkans map is queued. Players will just have to deal with voicelines.
I’m not too concerned about American weapons since British soldiers incorrectly start with Springfields anyway and weapons are already mixed and matched between nations and theatres of war.

Gold order Rifleman - Sergeant Jack Hinton.
New Zealand Victoria Cross recipient (VC is the highest military medal for valor) for actions during the Battle of Kalamata. Later became a POW.

Gold order guerilla OR assaulter - W. Stanley Moss

Gold order fighter pilot - Squadron Leader Marmaduke ‘Pat’ Pattle

Gold order or premium fighter pilot - Roald Dahl.
Roald Dahl flew Gloster Gladiators and Hawker Hurricanes in the Battle for Athens.
He would go on to write books like Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, James & The Giant Peach and Mathilda.
It would also be good to have a Gladiator in game.

The Guns of Navarone is a fictional story. The idea however could make a good map where the Allies have to destroy German guns in a cliff face (similar to existing gameplay of blowing up radios).

Alternatively this could be a fun event.

[Cringemacht]

had a taste of Crete in Forgotten Hope 2 and I’m utterly hooked with smaller campaigns/battles of WW2. Getting sick of all this Normandy/Berlin/Pacific/Stalingrad rotation

[Dirktator_Dirk]

you clearly put a lot of work into this post but no, I disagree with the main premise.

The truth is that US and Germany have way more maps than Soviet and Japanese. The Germans and Americans also have a lot of maps against each other.

The next map should either be an extra map for Japanese VS Americans, a new map German VS Soviet or the long awaited Japanese VS Soviet in Manchuria and/or Mongolia.

The last thing the game needs is another Germany VS Americans, we have enough of those …

[HX1997]

I would rather see peleliu in the future. And Japan doesn’t have enough players to have a soviet Japanese front in the game.

[CaptainBeel]

Thank you for acknowledging that I put a lot of work into this, because I did.

In response to you:

1. US-UK and Germany have more maps, that’s true. But it’s also perfectly logical. The Western Allies and Germany-Italy fought in the most number of theatres.
   The USSR for instance only fought on the Eastern Front and right at the end of the war against Japan. I believe they may have been involved to a minor extent in some parts of the Middle East but Id have to check.

I also specifically mentioned the liberation of Belgrade as a possible USSR-Germany map, within the Balkans.

2. While I welcome more Allies v Japan maps, we did only just get Burma. So it is very unlikely we would get another US-UK v Japan map soon.

3. I support a USSR v Japan map/campaign, but is that truly relevant here? I was merely suggesting the Balkans as a campaign, it doesnt have to occur straight away, nor did I suggest anywhere that other campaigns shouldn’t happen.

Personally Id like to see China as a faction within USSR so have Sino-Japanese War rather than 1945 Manchuria.
USSR tree already has German and American weapons, while the Communist Chinese forces were of course supplied by USSR. It would open up Enlisted to the massive Chinese market and add more variety for USSR and Japanese maps. (Manchuria would be somewhat similar to existing USSR maps whereas China would be very different).
Soviet squads Id say just swap to Chinese uniforms if a Chinese map is queued.

I understand your concerns but wouldve liked more feedback on my actual post.

[Dirktator_Dirk]

Wow,

Yeah thats a very fair response.

On second reading I think I should not have dismissed it this easy, low BR Mataxis line would be really cool. So would new Greek squads be cool