I have been playing what I call my "Small Solution" variant combining Balkan Front with Fire in the East and Scorched Earth. in this variant the Germans do not invade Yugoslavia in April 41 and stick to their original plan of an offensive through Bulgaria to contain Allied forces in Greece. This allows an early launch of Barbarossa with a larger force.

We used several home brewed rules to fill in the gaps for the variant. The most important of these were:

a fleshed out Bulgarian order of battle; political rules for entry of Yugoslavia and Turkey; Allied naval gunfire.

Western Desert and Near East were also set up, but with so much force concentrated in the Balkans, the desert war was slow paced and not included here.

Apr I 41- Germany attacks out of Bulgaria with a mountain corps of four divisions plus a panzer corps of four divisions with air and artillery support. I have most of the available RR artillery attacking the Metaxas Line. Weather is Mud and progress is slow.

The Allies start to pull out of Albania. The British fleet occupies Salonika and provides gunfire support. Surviving Allied air units fall back to airfields around Athens.

April II 41 - In real life the weather cleared April 17 but no such luck here. No use to try and attack the British fleet at half air power. I doubt the real British would have risked their precious battleships for any ground support but it is possible. The Bulgarians come in to support the German attack now and I clear more of the Metaxas Line. Excess troops from Albania and 2nd Army in North Italy are brought round to support the attack. Several Greek and British units are wiped out and progress made but the line remains intact on the Allied side.

The Allies continue to withdraw from Albania, but at a snail's pace. Some units reach the front to thicken the Aliakmon Line. The Yugoslavs mobilize but can't enter the war if they are cut off from Greece. The Allies do manage to destroy some Axis units and build a line covering Salonika.

May I Finally, clear weather. The Axis attacks with everything they have but GS is needed for the battle and planes can't be spared for an attack on the inviting fleet at Salonika. Whole stacks of Allied units are massacred and a bridgehead across the Aliakmon is secured. Salonika is cut off from supply. In the exploitation phase some armor and mountain units are pulled out for movement to the Eastern Front.

The Allied situation is desperate. Troops finally escaping from Albania allow reconstruction of the line. A perimeter around Salonika is established but supply ships to the city fall prey to mines and air patrols. Clearly Salonika must be abandoned soon. Axis paratroops have been seizing some of the undefended Greek Aegean islands and then bringing troops in next turn by ships.

May II Troops for the Jun I attack on the Eastern Front are transferred out. Successful attacks clear up most of the Salonika perimeter and the Aliakmon line. Contact is made with Italian forces in Albania. Yugoslavia is cut off.

The Allies launch an amphibious invasion of Rhodes! A counterattack destroys an Italo-German panzer corps and restores a line of communications to Yugoslavia. This will allow a roll for Yugoslavian entry. The Allied forces from Albania reinforce the main front and form a continuous line across the peninsula.

Jun I Axis forces counterattack on Rhodes, absorbing all the air available but destroying much of the Allied force. Fortunately, a 6-8 German jager division in May had increased the garrison. Axis attacks on the Balkan front cause Greek losses but cannot cut the LOC to Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslav activation roll almost brings in Yugoslavia but fails. There is no option now but a retreat out of Axis supply range. More troops reinforce Rhodes; an air sea supported attack exchanges an Italian division.

Jun II Axis air attacks now sink many Allied ships off Rhodes and eliminate the rest of the Allied forces on the island. The Allied front in Greece collapses leaving many units surrounded. Salonika is an isolated bastion.

The Allies evacuate Salonika but take further naval losses from mines and air / sea interdiction. Some land units go down with the ships. Remnants of the Allied army flee south abandoning the airfield complex at Larissa.

Jul I A general advance by the Axis occupies the land abandoned by the retreating Allies and clears pockets of trapped Greek and Commonwealth troops. The Axis forces have almost reached their out-of-supply point, in spite of a truck unit sent from the Eastern Front. Air raids on Athens gain air superiority and sink ships. A chain of Axis airbases now stretches from Salonika to Rhodes.

The Allies establish a new line behind the Spherikos.

Jul II to Aug II A stalemate develops in front of the Allied Attica Line. With the Axis forces out of supply, they cannot break through the Allied defenses, but the Allies are likewise too weak to advance.

The main campaign against the Greeks seems to have been completed. The question now is whether to take care of Yugoslavia or risk its entry when winter comes. If the Germans can take Moscow the Serbs won't come in, but who can count on that? If the Germans retreat from Moscow, the Yugoslavs could enter the war in the middle of winter when German air and armor will be crippled. Thus, the Germans decide to take out Yugoslavia and invade Sep I. For this operation a new panzergruppe is formed with two panzer and two motorized divisions. These are pulled out of Russia as cadres, rebuilt and then sent against Yugoslavia from the direction of Sofia. Meanwhile the Greek and Bulgarian armies attack from Bulgaria and Greece. Six air units support the attack and the Italians advance into Croatia and Slovenia.

Sep I The attack achieves surprise but the Yugoslav forces are concentrated in the south making progress difficult.

Anglo-Greek forces in Attica go on the offensive to take pressure off their new allies. They succeed in destroying two divisions of the Axis Attica Covering Force.

Sep II The Axis covering forces withdraw north, keeping a continuous line. Axis advance splits Yugoslavia into three big pockets. Zagreb, capital of Croatia, falls.

Yugoslav counterattacks destroy several Axis units but no advance south is possible. Link up with Allied forces in Greece seems unlikely. Greek forces destroy another German division and associated support units.

Oct I Mud weather puts many Axis units in Greece and parts of Yugoslavia out of supply. One Yugoslav pocket is wiped out but the vital RR remains closed through Belgrade, Nis, and Skopje. German armor units pull out to aid the Frost offensive as are many air units. The war in the northern Balkans is becoming an attritional mopping-up affair.

Allied attacks destroy yet another German division and the Axis are pushed back to Larissa.

Oct II Skopje falls. More German forces head south to hold back the resurgent Greeks. Belgrade is surrounded. Air attacks sink shipping and planes in the Aegean, which still has clear weather. Rhodes has been taking a heavy toll on British shipping, but half of the Axis Aegean shipping has also been destroyed.

The Allied advance in Greece stalls, stopped by new German reinforcements. The Yugoslav situation is hopeless. Stockpiled Yugoslavian supply will run out on Dec I unless a supply line is restored.

Nov I, Nov II Slow attrition continues. Two Axis divisions are lost in Greece but with most of the Yugoslav Army gone, reinforcements are available for the south. Nis falls Nov II.

Dec I Belgrade falls and Yugoslavia surrenders.

The Allies set up a front through Larissa. Apparently the plan is to hold on there.

Dec II Aided by forces newly arrived from Yugoslavia, the German launch a big attack resulting in a 22 point EX.

The Allies cannot stand such losses and being to withdraw to a fortified winter line covering Attica and the Peloponnese.

Jan 42 to Mar 42 - Excess units transferred from the Balkans help with the winter defense on the Eastern Front. These forces provide needed reserves and help stall the Soviet drives. The Balkan front remains stagnant.

Apr I Hitler and the German high command decide on a preliminary offensive in Greece to crush the Allied front before resuming their offensive in the East. Several armor, air, and mountain units plus engineers and artillery head south. Two big attacks on the Attica Line (forts behind the river and in the mountains) result in a DR and HX. The offensive has its foothold.

The Allied army has been strengthened through the winter but cannot counterattack as the Axis penetration is out of naval gunfire range and the Allied airforce is too weak. The Allies can only reshuffle their battered units for further defense.

Apr II The Axis break through to the Gulf of Corinth with an EX combat result. The Allies are cut in two.

An Allied counterattack, supported by the Royal Navy, fails.

May I 42 The Axis widen the breach. Air attacks pulverize the British Fleet.

The Allies fall back to two fronts covering Attica and the Peloponnese. The Fleet withdraws to the open sea out of range of the Luftwaffe.

May II 42 The Attica front is still too strong for a frontal attack, but the Axis turn on the Peloponnessian bridgehead with two attacks per turn from now on. Most attacks are DR but the line is broken and the painfully constructed Allied forts are smashed.

June I 42 An Axis attack pushes forward and puts the Peloponnessian crossing point in an Axis ZOC.

The Allies try to retreat. The Fleet is brought back to support the crossing hex and final bridgehead.

Jun II 42 The Axis take the crossing hex and the British and Greeks are driven into the sea.

The Fleet evacuates the remnants of the Allied force but suffers further naval losses. The Allies still hold the Peloponeese and a strong 3 hex line in Attica.

July to October The front again locks. The Axis sends troops to the Eastern Front and prepares to support Turkey if it enters the war. Most action in the Balkans switches to air battles over Athens. The remaining Axis transport in the Aegean is wiped out in sea and air action. The British withdraw four divisions from Greece and send them to the Alamein front to force a decisive battle with Rommel before the Turkish threat in their rear has an effect but the Turks have already begun tentative advances into northern Syria and northern Iraq. TORCH is now due which should eventually secure the desert flank for the Allies, but if the Soviets collapse the situation will be in doubt particularly in the Near East.

That is the state of the game so far, I will submit the end later if anyone is interested.

Meanwhile, in the East...

Operation BARBAROSSA, the German attack on the Soviet Union begins three weeks early - with the Jun I turn. Less Soviet force are near the front than in real life. The Germans have five extra divisions near Lwow in Army Group South. In Romania, German 12th Army contains a panzer corps of two panzer divisions and a motorized division, plus an infantry corps of three divisions and supporting units. Four Ju 88 groups must be retained to oppose the Allied countermoves in the Balkans.

With twelve extra divisions at the start plus three more weeks o good weather the campaign understandably goes better for the Axis than is typical for a FitE/SE game. Odessa and the Crimea fall before mud sets in and the Germans reach Rostov. The Arctic goes as usual with a Finnish advance to cut the Murmansk RR on the Svir front. German troops reach Leningrad and Lake Ladoga cutting off the city and even capturing one hex of it. In the center Moscow is reached and passed to the south; Tula falls but no Voronezh or Kalinin. After a pause for autumn mud, the Germans take another hex of Leningrad during frost, surround Moscow and nearly reach Stalingrad. Rostov falls and the Germans form a bridgehead over the Don.

Winter saves the Soviets, as the Germans are driven back from the eastern Crimea and Stalingrad but not from Rostov. Moscow is relieved and the Germans withdraw from the immediate vicinity of the capital. Out-of-supply German units suffer severely in the cold and many are destroyed before the front stabilizes.

The Germans resume the offensive with the first sign of clear weather (May I). Sevastopol has already fallen, so all siege artillery concentrates on Leningrad. Gradually supply is choked off and the city is taken hex by hex. The Soviets attempt a relief offensive through southern Finland. This does damage but cannot restore a supply line to Leningrad. The last hex of the city falls Aug I.

German attacks between Leningrad and Moscow gain ground but are held. However, south of Moscow, the Red front snaps. Tula fall to an exploitation phase coup; Voronezh falls after a siege. The whole front collapses and the Axis gain bridgeheads over the Volga at Saratov and south of Stalingrad. Stalingrad holds out. In the south, the Germans burst out of their Rostov bridgehead, overrunthe North Caucasus MD and cut the Baku-Astrakhan rail line. This allows throws for Turkish entry and on Oct I Turkey enters the war against the Soviet Union. At the same time, Mud weather hit putting much of the German Army out of supply. The Turks Caucasus offensive is a bust, but does tie up 35 REs of Soviet units

At the beginning of November, Moscow and Stalingrad are in salients almost surrounded by Axis troops, but the Soviets still hold the Caucasus passes. The situation is grim for the Soviets but Axis supply problems may give them enough time to regroup. The war continues...