Beware of Greek ships bearing deadly gifts

[bookworm_020]

Came across a neutral Convoy (???) with only one escort (1 flower corvette) while sailing my IX U-boat to it's patrol grid. It contained 3 neutral ships (I want to sink, I want to sink!!) and a 50-50 mix of coastal / small merchants and C2 / C3's.

I trimed the Flower from the convoy, then turned my sights on to the rest of the convoy. A single torp for the bigger ships (C2's and C3's) when deck guns to finnish them off if they don't go down. The coastal / small merchats, I found after a little trial and error, could be sunk using my twin 37mm ( I changed it's date of avaiblility)

I suddenly come under attack, but there are no warships or planes around, and the neutrals are doing anything aggressive. I then spot this....



The Greek's are armed and it's only late 1940!! I decided to sort him out by giving him two tin fish for dinner!!

I wiped out most of the convoy (two costal merchants left, along with the *%@$! neutrals). I have stumbled over a simlar convoy since then and have found a greek ship again armed and ready to turn me swiss cheese (or the greek version anyway)

Just thought I'd issue a warning to all who maybe in a simlar hunting environment.

[Wulfmann]

Italy invaded Greece on Oct 28 1940 so from that day on the Greeks were enemies for the Germans, although reluctantly as the Germans generally loved Greece and Metaxa was a fascist so they were pissed El Dunce brought them into the war against Germany.

More ships were turned over to the Greeks by Britain than any country outside the commonwealth and they served well being highly regarded as front line equals.

There is a Greek Hunt class in one convoy out of Gibraltar that has seemed to have my number in 1943-44.
It must be the infamous Adrias.

Although SH3 give the Greeks the Hunt class type I they never had one but did have a number of Hunt Type II and III with the type IIIs being transferred as new ships. They also had two DDs that are in the C-Class in SH3.
They also had a bunch of Flower class corvettes.

The Greeks DDs were noted for fearless almost reckless courage moving in close to shore point blank and shooting it out with the enemy land units.

Wulfmann

[HunterICX]

I always shot the greece, because I shoot first and Identify later

[melnibonian]

Actually Britain was making efforts since 1940 (during and after the German air campaign against them) to get Greece into the allied side. The Greek government refused almost all allied help in order not to give the Germans and the Italians any excuse for attack. After the Italian campaign of 1940-1941 (October 40-February 41) failed the Greek government was still trying not to provoke Germany by refusing to accept any British help. The shipments of allied military equipment started arriving in Greece a few weeks before April 1941 when all efforts to avoid the coming German attack had failed.

The destroyers and the new naval units that Wulfmann refers to where given to the so called ‘Cairo Government’ (the exile Greek government in Egypt) in 1942 after Greece has been occupied by the Germans.

As far as the naval war is concerned there where a number of Greek steamers and merchant ships that have been sunk by German U-Boats in 1939-1941 (before the Italian invasion) but most of them where part of allied convoys. The onslaught of the Greek merchant fleet by the U-Boats happened after the German occupation of the country.

[Jimbuna]

Consider the armed merchants as 20th century 'Trojan Horses' perhaps! :hmm:

[Biggles]

All I know is that I had some rough times aganst Greek merchants in the game, I don't know why, but they always do some damage to me!

I'm always careful in the Med. cause there is loads of dangerous ships and little almost every square inch of the ship is patrolled by the allies so....

[Wulfmann]

From the book “Hellenic Wings” the Greek Air Force official history:

“On December 2nd (1940) the RHAF received from the British government 8 Gloster Gladiators of the MK II version.”
It then goes on to tell of Blenheims and more fighters being turned over to the Greeks but Dec 2, 1940 is the first known verifiable date for aircraft being delivered

British units began to transfer to Greece in January 1941 and this hurt the North African effort and, of course, ended up not saving Greece anyway.
The RAF scored its first kills on Feb 2, 1941.

The American press and British propaganda had a field day with the Greek trouncing of the Italian army driving them back deep into Albania while the tiny air force denied the vastly superior Regina Aeronautica control of the sky until the Germans showed up and ruined all the fun the Greeks were having. The Luftwaffe decimated the Greek air force in two morning attacks and wiped the sky of all aircraft in short order.

Churchill paid one of the highest compliments to the Herculean effort the Greeks had made for all those months when at a party a British general said to him. “Those Greeks fight like heroes”
Churchill promptly replied: “My good sir, Greeks don’t fight like heroes, heroes fight like Greeks”

Wulfmann

[GT182]

I'm in my April '43 patrol in Grid BE, I came across 2 separate convoys. Both had a mix of ships and few escorts. The funny thing was that all the transports(2), a couple of C3s and C2s, out of the 36 ships had deckguns. The rest none. So with that and any ship in a British convoy with merchants carring weapons, I considered all fair game, neutral or not. I did sink one neutral tho, but there was no renoun penalty for that.

[bookworm_020]

When I bumped into a second neutral convoy in a later patrol, I was shot at by one of the neutrals (I think a stray 37mm round hit him, like he should complain!!!)

I didn't shoot him, but he did shoot a british merchant (I was behind him at the time) I was tempted to go and put him at the bottom, but didn't.

This rasies a question, if you take out a Neutrals gun's, but don't sink him, do you suffer any penalty???

[GT182]

I don't see why you would be penalized. In fact, I'd say he's fair game seeing he's armed and in an enemy convoy. Sickem... I mean sinkem! LOL

[joea]

Originally Posted by Wulfmann

From the book “Hellenic Wings” the Greek Air Force official history:

“On December 2nd (1940) the RHAF received from the British government 8 Gloster Gladiators of the MK II version.”
It then goes on to tell of Blenheims and more fighters being turned over to the Greeks but Dec 2, 1940 is the first known verifiable date for aircraft being delivered

British units began to transfer to Greece in January 1941 and this hurt the North African effort and, of course, ended up not saving Greece anyway.
The RAF scored its first kills on Feb 2, 1941.

The American press and British propaganda had a field day with the Greek trouncing of the Italian army driving them back deep into Albania while the tiny air force denied the vastly superior Regina Aeronautica control of the sky until the Germans showed up and ruined all the fun the Greeks were having. The Luftwaffe decimated the Greek air force in two morning attacks and wiped the sky of all aircraft in short order.

Churchill paid one of the highest compliments to the Herculean effort the Greeks had made for all those months when at a party a British general said to him. “Those Greeks fight like heroes”
Churchill promptly replied: “My good sir, Greeks don’t fight like heroes, heroes fight like Greeks”

Wulfmann

Excellent post, yes Greece did accept some help after all. I suppose thhe initial Greek victory is a much a reflection of Italian ineptitude, or perhaps the soldiers were just not motivated to fight their Greek neighbours with whom they had no quarrel.

[melnibonian]

To be perfectly honest there are a few reasons why the Greeks managed to keep the Italians at bay.
First is the fact that the Italian military was totally unprepared for a prolonged fight and had not made realistic detailed plans (i.e. alternative plans if things didn’t go well etc)
Second is the combination of terrain and weather. Pindus Mountains are notoriously rough and difficult to cross. This meant that mechanised divisions of the Italian Army could not deploy and operate as they could in the desert for example. The fact that the 1940 winter was one of the coldest and wet of the period didn’t help matters. The snow and rough terrain cancelled the technical advantage the Italian Army and Air Force had.
Third is the fact that most people in Greece were ‘prepared’ for the war. That doesn’t mean that Greeks wanted to go to fight, but after the sinking of the Destroyer Elli in the harbour of the island of Tinos in 15 of August 1940 (A sacrilege for the Greeks as the 15th of August was and still is a holly day in the Orthodox Calendar) they new that it was just a matter of time for the Italian invasion. The Greek army was virtually the same as the one that fought in the First World War and in the war against Turkey in 1919-1922, and therefore not suitable for ‘modern warfare’ of the 1940s as the German campaign in 1941 proved.

Despite all this handicaps the Greeks managed to score victory after victory against the Italians while suffering terrible loses themselves. They used the weather and terrain to their advantage and by showing a unique level of courage, self sacrifice and realism in their plans and military deployment, managed to drive the Italians deep into Albania. I am not sure though that they could have kept pushing the Italians back more even if the Germans didn’t attack. The difference in military power and the abundance of materials was overwhelming. Nevertheless they did a great job that’s why the 28th of October (the day of the Italian declaration of War) is still celebrated as a national day in Greece.

[Biggles]

By the way, Bookworm 020.....Do you play with any mods?

[Wulfmann]

Believe it or not some of Italy’s best troops led the invasion and they were not incompetent at all. The key to the Greek victory came when on November 2, 1940 an old Brequet 19 spotted advance units if the elite Alpinist “Julia” division on the Samarina-Distraton Road while on a recon flight over the Pindus Gorge. The Greeks prevented a complete encirclement by moving the 8th cavalry (That was a Greek armored division from the 1800’s:rotfl: ) to occupy the Metsovan Pass blocking the advance. This was the most important moment of the Hellenic-Italian war (As the Greeks call it). Without this move Greece would have fallen right then.
History tells us being vastly outnumbered means little to the Greek spirit when the homeland is attacked.
One tactic used by the Greeks was to deny their enemy sleep. They did this with night raids slitting the enemie’s throats but only enough to kill a few and get out fast. Waking up to a dead comrade had considerable effect and sleep deprivation was a Greek ally (The Greeks were later employed in Korea for UN forces doing the same thing with the same result. The commis feared the Greek cut throats more than any one force)
When the Germans attacked there was little in large units to oppose them and the Greeks were quickly cut off.
They surrendered to the Germans which infuriated the Italians who demanded the Greeks surrender to them.
The Italians flew in with all dressed up uniforms and the Greeks and Germans did a Monty Python ceremony that humiliated the Italians who then stormed off in their planes livid as the Germans and Greeks toasted each other for the big joke.
Ironically, the Germans gave the most generous surrender terms they ever offered in WWII and dismissed the Greek army with their weapons, a move they would later regret.
The Yugoslav (Serbian really, the Muslims allied themsleves to the Nazis forming elete SS Muslim divisions under Arafat, Yaser's uncle) and Greek resistance were the most fierce against the Germans except for Crete which was by far the one place the Germans were most happy to leave. The Cretans were not satisfied to just kill Germans they had to mutilate the bodies for revenge.
In truth the Germans did not have the intention of making things hard on the Greeks whom they admired and many officers had taken Greek in the Uni so spoke the language and wanted to be there.
The Greeks simply did not like invaders even if the occupation was not so bad it was their land.
This led to the nice Germans being removed and some really nasty Nazi types being sent to teach the Greeks how to submit to their German masters.
This, of course, only made things much worse and that prompted the whole of the population to support the resistance which then became very bloody for everyone.
I should add that the necessity for the German invasion of Greece to protect the right flank in the Russian invasion delayed the start of Operation Barbarossa. This delay may well have cost Germany the war to which the Greeks believe gives cause to them being the catalyst for the downfall of the Third Reich.
There is certainly some truth to that but there were many such pivotal events that were as significant throughout the war.

Wulfmann

[bookworm_020]

Yes I've got a few mod's, Extra ships - rose ore carrier, large cargo, pryo ammo transport, sailing fishing boat, coastal tanker, vosper boat, RAF rescue launch, BC Hood, and a couple of other ship mods.

A couple of aircraft mods

but the rest is stock standard, other than messing with dates for the use of AA guns and conning towers.