A subject that has come up from time to time in house rule discussions is the topic of elite forces in general, and of Commandos in particular when UK elite forces are involved. In case this is of any use to house rule designers, I’ve accidentally come across an example of an interesting WWII Commando raid that I’d never heard about (though I’m sure Narvik is familiar with it): Operation Archery, also known as the Maloy Raid, an attack (largely aimed at demolition) against the Norwegian island of Maloy. It was conducted in late December 1941 (you can read about it on Wikipedia), and a couple of things about it are notable. First, it wasn’t a quiet infiltration operation; it was actually conducted more like a full-blown amphibious landing, complete with naval gunfire support. Second, and even more interestingly, it was an operation in which the attackers, who were elite / special forces types (British Commandos, plus some Norwegian troops) unexpectedly ran into a defending force who (what are the odds?) were also elite / special forces types: German Gebirgsjager mountain rangers, who had served on the Eastern Front and who’d been sent to Maloy on leave (presumably because it was considered to be a quiet sector). This resulted in much tougher fighting than expected – though, overall, the attackers fared much better than the British 1st Airborne Division did at Arnhem in 1944 when it too unexpectedly ran into some German units that were on leave in a supposedly quiet sector: elements of a couple of Waffen SS Panzer divisions.
