This week’s blog is going to focus on building the German order of battle for our action around Maleme, Crete.

The primary unit that led the initial assault at Maleme was the Luftlande-Sturm-Regiment 1 (in English the 1st Air Landing Assault Regiment).

The Sturm Regiment had been expanded from the single battalion that famously captured the Eben-Emael fortress in Belgium by glider assault in May 1940 – to an over-strength four battalion regiment a year later.

The basic formation used in the Sturm Regiment was the company (approximately 150 men). Individual missions or objectives were usually tasked at a company level and where larger forces were required, multiple companies were grouped into Kampfgruppe (War Group – a flexible command formation) or as a complete battalion (four companies with approximately 640 men).

Whenin with significant losses.

With the IV battalion essentially broken up, it never fought as a complete entity. The only included infantry was Oberleutenant Hoefeld’s 16th engineer company and that was used to clear Kandanos, well south of the airfield with the aim to stop any allied reinforcements.

After these changes the in game Luftlande-Sturm-Regiment 1 looks like the following;

This is a simple example of the review and cross referencing that goes into an order of battle. Mike Avanzini does much of the research for our order of battles and has significant reference resources to use. Mike plans to write a series of blog posts that covers off the many nuances between the various combatant nation’s order of battles.

Next blog post we plan to cover the British and Commonwealth order