Hello commander !
With Tribute to the Liberation of Italy finally released, let’s take a closer look at Steel Division 2’s next planned expansion: Nemesis - Raid on Drvar.
If you don’t remember, this DLC won Nemesis’ Run 5 competition almost a year back.
Raid on Drvar will feature two new battlegroups from the too often overlooked Balkan theater, introducing two new nations in the process: Yugoslavia for the Allies, and Croatia as a minor Axis one.
Yugoslavia’s battlegroup will be NOV, the National Liberation Army, while Axis one will be the German-Croatian Unternehmen Rösselsprung (meaning Operation Knight’s Move) hunting the partisan leader, Tito.
Today, let’s focus on the latter.
A bit of context …
To understand the reasons for Operation Knight’s Move, let’s rewind a bit the History of Yugoslavia in WW2.
Before the outbreak of the war, Yugoslavia was a kingdom under the regency of Prince Regent Paul of Yugoslavia. On the inside, the country was torn by tensions between various ethnic groups making up the kingdom, while on the outside it tried to stay neutral between Axis powers and France & Britain. With France’s defeat in 1940 and Great-Britain standing alone, Yugoslavia had to accommodate with Germany and, especially, Italy which had invaded Albania as early as 1939. Isolated, cut off from any Allied support and surrounded by hostile neighbors, Yugoslavia agreed to join the Tripartite Pact (formed by Germany, Italy & Japan) on March 27th, 1941.
But this adhesion to the Axis was short-lived: two days later, the government was overthrown by a coup led by Air Force & Royal Guard officers! Prince Paul was deposed and his nephew Peter (six months short of its eighteenth birthday) was declared of age and replaced him as King Peter II leading a government of national union (although without the communist party & the Croatian fascist Ustashe movement).
But Peter was not to remain long on his throne either: barely a week after the Belgrade coup, Yugoslavia was invaded from three sides: by Germany, Italy & Hungary. The Royal Yugoslav Army surrendered unconditionally 11 days later & King Peter fled in exile. The country was dismembered, with Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and even Albania (a puppet-state from Italy) all annexing territories ; a new fascist Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was created ; and what remained was occupied by Italy & Germany.
Another example of well put together Blitzkrieg?
Actually, that’s when the problems really started for the Axis powers in the Balkan.
The power vacuum was taken advantage of by the banned communist party, which already had an existing clandestine organization, to take the leading role of the Yugoslav resistance. Its leader, Josip Broz, more famous under his nom de guerre Tito, managed to unify almost all resistance movements, keeping ethnic differences under control. Only the Royalist Serbian Chetniks refused his leadership, fighting both the Axis occupiers AND the communists, and in some cases, even rather siding with the former against the latter.
In under three years, under Tito’s leadership, the Yugoslav National Liberation Army (NOV) became the largest and most effective partisan movement in all Europe, tying down hundreds of thousands of Axis troops in the Balkan. Hitler tried for some times to avoid being too involved in this area, delegating most of the occupation and partisan hunting duties to its Italian & Bulgarian allies. But when Italy surrendered in 1943, and many Italian troops (in some places, an entire division) subsequently switched to NOV with their weapons, Germany had to step in.
Killing Tito
From then on, anti-partisan operations intensified in scope and violence. The Germans were well aware of two facts: first the war wasn’t going well for them, so the sooner they crushed the Yugoslav partisans, the sooner they would be able to redeploy their troops elsewhere ; second, NOV’s organization leaned entirely on Tito’s ability to keep ethnic tensions at bay. Should he be eliminated, the whole partisan army would collapse. NOV’s leader was the key: as Generalfeldmarschal von Weichs, commander of the OB Südost (Greece & Balkan fronts) put it, Tito is our most dangerous enemy.
This led to Unternehmen Rösselsprung (Operation Knight’s Move), the assassination attempt on Tito.
German Intelligence finally managed to pinpoint his secret HQ in the village of Drvar, in Bosnia, in early May 1944. Operation planning had to be kept short to prevent the target from disappearing: the plan was drafted and approved in less than two weeks, and launched four days later, on May 26th, 1944.
It involved dropping an SS parachute battalion right on top of Drvar to locate and eliminate Tito, and gather intelligence. Meanwhile several ground columns would converge on Drvar from separate starting points to prevent Tito and any other key targets to escape.
Just like most airborne operations, the paratroopers were to jump on target, secure it, and link with ground troops within a day. As often, it didn’t go that way.
As it happens, although taken by surprise, the partisans put a stubborn resistance, allowing Tito to escape (within a hair's breadth though), pinning the paratroopers and delaying their ground reinforcements. The raid had failed, but quickly evolved into a major battle …
Unternehmen Rösselsprung’s main features
What can you expect from Unternehmen Rösselsprung in Steel Division 2?
- Unternehmen Rösselsprung isn't an actual "division", but an umbrella name regrouping all the troops involved in the operation, although they were detachments belonging to several different units. This mean that this battlegroups offers a wide array of German infantry units, both new and existing ones, usually not mixed up in a same division: SS-Gebirgsjäger, SS-Fallschirmjäger, Brandenburger (including new paratrooper variants), Grenadier, Kadetten, Chetnik auxiliaries, Croatian allies, … Veterancy varies a lot, from elite special forces, paratrooopers, … to Disheartened & inexperienced Croatian home guard.
- Unternehmen Rösselsprung was a search-and-destroy operation, with a high emphasis put on recon & intelligence elements to quickly find & identify key enemies. This is represented ingame with the battlegroup having access to a lot of RECON slots & choices, allowing it to supplement its INF or TANK tab with foot or amored scouts from this section.
- SS-Gebirgsjäger represent elements from 7. SS-Freiwilligen-Gebirgs-Division « Prinz Eugen ». They have the same organization ingame as Heer ones as depicted in 5. Gebirgs-Division, although 7.SS received mostly Czechoslovakian collective weapon at its creation, meaning their LMG are MG-26(t) and HMG mostly MG-37(t) (= ZB-53 as used by the Romanians). As other mountain troops, they are all Raiders, with more sniper rifles but with fewer AT weapons than line infantry.
- SS-Fallschirmjäger represent SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 500, an SS disciplinary unit. Being SS and not Luftwaffe, the battalion didn’t have access to FG-42 as other Fallschirmjäger. SS-FJ come in three types: SS-Fs-Jäger Füh., a 6-man command unit, SS-Fs-Jäger, a 12-man rifle squad with 2x MG-42, and SS-Fs-Stossjäger, a 8-man SMG squad formed à la Soviet. This battalion is famous for performing near-suicidal missions, with staggering losses each time. As such, all SS-FJ are classified as Fanatical ingame.
- Brandenburger (special forces) in this battlegroup have two origins: Jäger-Regiment 1 Brandenburg was part of the ground forces, while a platoon-worth of Fallschirm-Brandenburger jumped with SS-FJ-500. You may remember the “mainstream” Brandenburger from Vert. Toulon, here they also come as Brandenb. Aufkl., Brandenb. Führer, Brandenb. MG-42, Brandenb. Pionier & Fs.Brandenb. Aufkl.. Being special forces, they are all Raider, elite-locked, and come with a wide array of G-43, MP-44, flamethrowers, explosives, sniper rifles, …
- other “German” infantry units include the ubiquitous Grenadier, but also Kosaken Pionier (Soviet collaborators equipped with captured weapons & explosives), Kadetten (mixed G-43/MP-40 Fanatical assault squad) or Chetniks auxiliaries (heavy 15-man recon squads with Sten, M.24 Yugoslav rifles & MG-26).
- one of this battlegroup’s unique feature is the presence of Croatian troops fighting alongside German ones. They come from three origins: NDH’s own troops, Croatian “legionaries” in German divisions & Ustaše fascist militia. While Kro. Legionäre (Führer, Pionier & “vanilla” variants) are similar in equipment (but with their own uniforms) to their German counterparts, Ustaše are 12-man squads equipped with old Yugoslav & Italian armies leftovers, while Domobrani are 8-man Disheartened militiamen with a similar motley assortment of weapons. Dojavnici are recon militiamen with MP-40 & Beretta, as Disheartened as their INF counterparts. NDH also had some Italian vehicles handed over by the Germans: Autoblinda 41, L6/40 light tank, Semovente 47/32 light tank destroyer, L3 tankettes, Fiat 626NLM trucks, …
- the battlegroup’s armor support isn’t its strongest point, made up mostly of French & Italian Beute tanks: R35, Somua S35 & M15/42. Several recon armors complete them: the classic SPW AB 41 (= Autoblinda 41), but also new ones such Aufk. Panzer III F & SPW AB 43 47mm. Beware, the latter isn’t the unicorn sole prototype with a 47mm in the AB 43’s turret, but a sawn-off one, without turret and with a 47mm Italian AT gun fixed in an open-top position.
- Unternehmen Rösselsprung’s artillery include GebG. 36 75mm & GebH. 40 105mm howitzers, as well as the excellent K35(t) “Hruby” 105mm, and a lot of mortars.
- AA cover is clearly the battlegroup’s weak point, not expecting much air attacks from NOV, with single & quad 20mm as well as Steyr-borne Drilling. Historically, the British-led Balkan Air Force made them regret their optimism …
- AIR support includes a few German Stuka variants, but mostly Croatian air force planes. The latter operated German bombers, various captured French or Italian planes, but also old pre-war Czechoslovakian or Yugoslav designs: Ca.310bis, BH-33E-SHS and M.S. 406 C1 recon planes (all armed), IK-2, C.202 & C.205V fighters, and several Do-17 bomber variants.
Au revoir and until next week!
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See you on the battlefield, commander!