In the spring of 1941, the German Blitzkrieg crushed the Balkans, rapidly overrunning Yugoslavia and Greece. The battered remnants of the defeated Allied armies evacuated to the island of Crete and prepared to defend it. Faced with the threat of air attacks from the Allied air bases on Crete and pressed for time, men and equipment on the eve of Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union planned for June), Adolf Hitler decided to launch a lightning air assault to take Crete: Operation Mercury!
On May 21, 1941, German paratroopers, brave tough, battle-hardened and with esprit-de-corps second to none, formed the spearhead of Hitler's daring airborne assault. Hastily assembled, these elite troopers jumped into an unexpected maelstrom of fire and lead that decimated their ranks.

For the next eight days, the depleted airborne forces, bolstered by a reinforcing Mountain Division, were locked in a gripping life-and-death struggle against fierce resistance from the defending British, Greek, Australian and New Zealander troops.

When it was over, though Germany prevailed, over 7,000 German soldiers, including one in four paratroopers, lay dead on the battlefield. Operation mercury was a German victory, but a Pyrrhic one at best. Adolf Hitler was so shocked by the heavy German losses on Crete that he never deployed his elite paratroop units again in a major airborne operation.

Operation Mercury allows you to recreate this bitter struggle for Crete at company/battalion level. The game system, based of the award-winning GMT Operational System which first appeared in Operation Shoestring and Air Bridge to Victory, allows for multiple combat options. The system also takes into account unit morale and efficiency as well as formation strength when resolving combat.