Organising a Historical refight pt 7: The New Zealand division on Crete 1941

Right, after all the setup discussions its time to get to the actual refight. 

One of the issues with a historical refight is that the players know whats suposed to happen and the final outcome. I'll admit now that my mind is a bit of a blank on how I forced the Kiwis to set up reasonably historically. I think that the German battalions picked their target landing points and then the Kiwis deployed.

The Kiiws deployed in 2 zones. The first on the coast from Maleme to Platanias.

The actual dployment was (Map from the NZ official history) .

The deployment on the table was fairly similar.

I don't have an orginal map for the Galatas area but the Deployment looked like this. The prison is at the ar left and Galatas is the large town in the center.

So, everything is ready for the kickoff and its time for the German troops to make their appearance.

Parachute attacks in wargaming are always hard to execute and I've read of may ways to do it. some even involve dropping bits of paper from a certain height along the flight path to see where the stands land (thank you WRG, at least you went onto better things with the DBX series).

I came up with the following system.

German paratroops must dice on landing. Each battalion designates a drop aim point on the table and throws a d6.
            -1 way off target. 2D6 x2 inches. diced by platoon.
            -2 off target 2D6 inches. dice by platoon.
            -3-4 off target. 2D6 inches dice by company.
            -5-6 on target 1D6 inches dice by company
Direction is found by placing the 2 dice in a cup and inverting on the table. One die is predesignated as the center, and a line is them drawn through both dice to give the direction. Add the die scores indicated above to determine the distance from the drop aim point. Companys are arranged around this point. Platoons may be deployed facing any way the player wishes.

I also think that there may have been a -1 to the DEF of the german stands on the turn they landed to similate the beating that they took from the Kiwis.

So, how did it play out on the table.

At Maleme the Sturm regiment executed a perfect drop with the Glider battalion in the hilles behind the Airfielf and the rest of the regiment across the Tavonitis river. They formed up and were quickly into their work.

At Galatas the 3rd FJR were not so lucky. A spectacularly bad set of dice rolls resulted in the regiment scattered to the 4 winds.

Surprisingly enough this is very close to the historical result.

And how did it play out? Find out the result in the next part of the increasingly long series.