The middle kingdom : a polish AAR

[Bryaxis]

As promised at the end of my chinese AAR "Reaching for the Sun", I will now begin a game with Poland in 1936. My objectives will be simple : hold the german hordes out of my country and build an empire from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and to the Adriatic Sea, event the Aegean Sea if possible. It will be played with Stony Road Professional on normal, normal, normal settings. Hope you'll like it !

 

[Bryaxis]

In this cold morning of january 1936, a lonely car rode in the deserted streets of the snow covered Warsava. The Polish capital was unusualy quite, the population still unsure about her future. For a coup had been staged during the night of Christmas and the new governement had'nt explained his policy yet...

Inside the car, 2 men sat in the back, talking about the decisions which had to be taken. The first was the new polish king Moscicki, former president of the republic. The second was Edward Rydz-Smigly, chief of staff of the army.

"- And so the Germans and the Russians expressed their growing desire to restore the former democracy ?
- Yes, your majesty. Yet the Russians are only speaking while the Germans have put some troops on higher alert...
- I see. What do you intend to do, Field Marshall ?
- Well, I began by dissolving some divisions : the cavalery and the mountain infantery... And I did the same to the navy. Then I ordered our 40 infantery divisions to regroup in 10 armies of equal size, guarding our borders with Germany and Tchecoslovakia... I left one army under my personnal direction in Warsava.
- Good. Will it be enough ?
- I dont think so, Sire. For the Germans have about the same amount of infantery and 3 armoured divisions we can't destroy. Even worse, they can attack from lots of directions, including Eastern Prussia... The garnisons of Torun and Sawalski would be better used in Lodz and Krakow...
- Yes indeed. So what can you do to improve our situation ?
- Well, I tought about stengtening our army to such a point that we can defend our borders, capture Eastern Prussia, redeploy those armies to our secondary positions in Lodz and Krakow and still have an army in Radow for increased protection.
- What do you mean by "stengthening" ?
- Double the size of the army and had 20 engineer brigades and 20 other brigades equiped with AT weapons...
- So you really fear those metal monsters ?
- Yes. Our country seems to be a good land for manoeuver warfare, something which always play against the defender...
- I understand. I'll ask minister Kasprzycki to allow enough funds for a completion of this program by mid-39. Does this satisfy you ?
- Sure enough, your majesty.
- I would like you to tell me about the weapons our men are using. Are they adequate ?
- Well, since you bring the subject... We need better weapons. Some engineer coming back from german universities spoke of new handguns, new AT guns, new artillery caliber... Those are what makes our armies sure of victory. Look at Pizzaro : a hunderd guns defeated thousands of spears and bows !
- So you wish to make studies in infantery and artillery weapons... Speak to Kasprzycki about it then...
- Yes Sire, as you orded.

 

[Tachikaze]

Don't know for sure but I don't think the mods like those swastika flags. Otherwise, good start.

 

[Bryaxis]

Originally posted by Blitzkreig
Don't know for sure but I don't think the mods like those swastika flags. Otherwise, good start.

Oh, sorry, I had missed them... I'm so used to play with mods that I don't notice anymore... If needed, I'll paint them in bright red with MS Paint...

 

[Bryaxis]

A bright sun was shining on Dantzig. King Moscicki and his trusted chief of staff were on the terrass of a nice villa by the sea, looking toward the dark baltic waters.

- This situation in Spain is really a problem... For our special services tells us that Germany is deeply involved, as is Italy, too confident after her ethiopian victory in March...
- Yes you majesty. Yet both the british and the russians are helping the lawfull government...
- Not enough ! All that matters to the russians is the spanish gold ! And the british are there only because they don't want toubles with Gibraltar... No, I want us to help the republicans too.
- Our econony isn't strong enough !
- Yes, I know. So all our diplomatic efforts in the next few month will be put in technological sharing of infantery and basic artillery technologies. Even the doctrines our allies sent us since March.
- As you wish, Sire.
- Where are our army enlargement programms ?
- Well, we already have 10 new divisions with attached engineer support brigades. That's a fourth of the plans.
- Good. And what are we looking for in the next elections ?
- Stability. No changes will happen for our current plans do create lots of employement and little deceptions... Since we appeal to the greatness of Poland, the people accepts everything !
- Well, I shall see you latter

 

[Alexandru H.]

The people accepts everything

So true

 

[Bryaxis]

The cold was really chilling the bones in this early March 37 day... King Moscicki was very angry and his temper showed on the peoples near him : all had a frightened look upon them and they jumped at every occasion to flee the palace... Only one man stood quite amidst all those couard. It was the chief of staff. When he entered the king's own office, Moscicki dismissed his staff. Alone, the two men began to talk :

- Why in hell had they to march against our program ! Don't they see that my way is the only one to achieve prosperity for Poland ? Demonstrator calling for peace in the world while hungry bears and wolves are at our doors !
- I've got a solution to quite them a bit...
- And what that might be ?
- A great parade. A show of power. For the last of the 20 divisions equiped with engineer brigades will be ready by April 3. That will be the end of the first half of our rearmament program.
- Ah, yes... That's good news ! So now we concentrate on building as much divisions with AT brigades ?
- Indeed, your majesty.
- Well. Organise it then.

 

[Bryaxis]

If the winter of 37 had been hard, the one of 38 was even worse. Yet the State had provided enough coal and fuel to warm the cities and the peasant had cut enough wood in the forests so as not to freeze. The king and his chief of staff were in the royal palace of Warsava in this day of March, discussing about the recent evolution of the world situation.

- They absorbed Austria and nobody said anything ?
- No my king. The French and the British had their hands tied by the vote the nazis organised... Morover, large movement for peace have demonstrated in Paris and London's streets because of Guernica and Nankin... So the goverment of those countries could not act agressively.
- How is the spanish war going ?
- Badly for our friends. Despite early victories, they now are on the defensive.
- What a pity. Where do we stand ?
- Well, the 5th of the20 AT brigades equiped divisions is now ready. But we may be late in our rearmament, some delays due to our newest equipments...
- Increase the funds alocated to the units production then. I want 80 polish divisions at the end of the 1939 summer.
- It shall be done, Sire.

 

[unmerged(16533)]

Sounds nice so far to me. Your rearmament seems to be very fast for Poland with its let's say 'average' IC. What do you cut down ? Supplies ??

 

[Bryaxis]

August 15, 1939. The weather was hot, the air thick, the tension palpable. The annexation on Tchequia and the creation of the puppet Slovaquia by the German in March had been a bad yet not totally unexpected move for the Polish. The king spent even more time than before with his favourite marshall. They were meeting in Poznan, where Rydz-Smigly had set his command post.

- We must be ready for war. It will come soon. Everyday we reppel german spying patrols on our borders and their diplomatics messages are more and more threathning.
- I now. It is why I took the liberty to deploy our 40 divisions alongst the borders. Ten armies, 8 divisions each, with 2 engineer and 2 AT brigades for each army. Torun is held by two armies as it is intended to take prussia as early as possible. Our best offensive commenders are there.
- Are our fortifications ready to reppel the german hordes ?
- I think so. We build what is called "class 2" fortifications and all the border armies are commanded by expert in defensive operations. The allies provided us with many useful theories about how to increase our organisation. Yet we will need some days after war declaration to come at full strenght...
- Well, see to it as best as you can. I place all my hopes in your defensive operations. For a failure in the offensive operations in Prussia would only be a temporary setback. But a failure of our border guard would mean encirclement and destruction of the remnants of our army.
- I know it quite well, your majesty...
- You know of course that I approved the recruiting of 20 new divisions and attached artillery support batallions ?
- Yes, a valuable advantage in both offensive and defensive operations. Yet I fear we won't have all of them before 1941 or 2 at best...

 

[Bryaxis]

Originally posted by twokey
Sounds nice so far to me. Your rearmament seems to be very fast for Poland with its let's say 'average' IC. What do you cut down ? Supplies ??

Indeed supplies are at about 50% of what they should be. My IC stands at 92 due to a nationalisation of the industry program in '37. I gave some 25 IC to research and 21 to units production till' april 37 ( completion of my 20 engineer supported divisions ) and then increased production IC to 24 ( so as to produce 3 AT at the same time ). In 38 I saw that my program would'nt be completed by August 39 so I increased the IC given to production to 40 ( leaving a small 8 IC to research ).

The fact I could go to 1/9/39 without raw materials penuries helped me a lot too !

 

[cassa61]

cool aar so far, i haven't even played any of the minors for more than 5 minutes so i'm glad that someone has played a minor and given us all an aar (especially one so good) there should be more as the constant deluge of "my german aar" is a bit repetive
so please continue

 

[Bryaxis]

NOTE : due to my brother erasing my Paradoxx folder to get space on my hard disk to temporarily save his, I can't play the game any further than where I was, in december 42. Luckily, I had paper notes so I will be able to tell you how the Polish manageg to take Slovaquia, Hungary, Romania and half of Bulgaria, not speaking of the operations that put me in the outskirts of Berlin...

I'm really sorry about it.

Now, enough prattle, back to the fact : an update !

 

[Bryaxis]

On Augustus 30, 1939, Germany declared war against Poland. Immediatly, two surprise offensive were launched against Danzig and Lwow. The half organised poles defending the bordersput an heroic defense and held well. By the 1st september evening had the Germans been pushed back from southern poland. It took a bit more time in the marshy lands around Danzig were the german armors fel not at ease... Yet the real surprise for the hitlerian hordes was the powerful AT force they met in both place.

The German retreated and began to rethink their campaign. But they did not have the initiative any more : on the 7th came orders for the Torun and Suwalki guarnisons : the two armies in Torun were to launch an attack against Elbing while the Suwalki force would take Koenigsberg.

5 days later, Elbing fell, the 10 divisions defendit it unable to rout the 16 highly motivated and well led polish divisions. Those began immediatly to walk against Koenigsberg where opposition was more powerfull than planned. Yet it fell on the 23 of september.

During this time, the OKH had come forward with a new plan : a massive 35 divisions assault against Bygdozk. Since the three manoeuver armies were tied down in Koenigsberg, the general Romel had no hopes to hold. On the 3rd of october he ordered a retreat. During this time, the offensive operations alongst the Baltic were almost finished, one army resting before moving to Memel to receive the german capitulation. The two other armies were sent back to Torun and Elbing, to block any German run for Warsava. A counter offensive was then lauched on Bygdozk by those two armies alongside with the province hold guarnison. The german had taken a good part of their assault force back to pre-war position, leaving only a small force in the captured polish province, not thinking about such a counter-offensive. So the surprise was complete when 18 divisions fell on the 5 german's holding the province. They were soon pushed back to the right side of the border but not without having destroyed the defenses build in the province...

 

[Bryaxis]

Some days after the Bygdozk victory was one of the trhee armies repositioned in Koenigsberg. On november 3 was a assault lauched agaist Memel. Yet the Germans still had some supplies and fighted ten long days before the polish determination finally won. And so Poland now had a secure Baltic coast for northern border, the Allied fleets cruising in the closed sea to destroy every german transport they might find.

It took a whole month to redeploy to the south those two armies who were in Memel. On the 14th december, they lauched an assault upon Kosice. 11 days later, the king received a depeche telling him Kosice was now polish, a nice christmass gift...

From there, the troops emmediatly launched operations against Debrecen, yet the ennemy superiority in numbers forced them to retreat on the 6 january 40. They then took 12 days of rest and launched a new operation, completly successfull.

 

[Bryaxis]

So the situation at the end of january 40 was quite good for the Poles : national territory integrity, free manoeuvre groups, completly manned border, good industrial output, 2 secured borders ( north and east protected by the allied fleets and the russian neutrality ), two germans provinces ( Elbing and Koenigsberg ) and two central european provinces under control, too. So the polish hight command decided to launch an attack against Budapest. A great failure, with two armies sustaining more than 50% losses against the combined forces of 4 germans armoured divisions and 20 hungarian divisions of all kind...

The polish army reorganized then, and launched a new offensive on Munkacs in mid July, a succesfull operation which led to plans against Romania. On the october 12 was Pietra Neamt the target of a victorious polish move.

 

[Sgt. Schultz]

Bryaxis,
Great Polish AAR! Nice to see the Poles holding back the Germanic hordes, too bad you won't be able to finish it.
(Give your brother a swift kick in the arse for me.)

 

[Bryaxis]

Originally posted by Sgt. Schultz
(Give your brother a swift kick in the arse for me.)

That's already done !

 

[Bryaxis]

The year 1941 was the year of the Balkanic Campain, during wich the outnumberd, outstretched polish forces managed to take all of Romania and most of Bulgaria in some 8 month.

For after the battle of Pietra Neamt the polish forces had to face a critical situation, with too many provinces to guard and too little troops. It was decided to spit 4 armies in two equivalent halves and to give those new "Corps" the priority in receiving the new artillery supported divisions. Losses were hight during this campaign, 5 divisions being completly lost ( 3 in the battle for Bucarest alone ! ). Yet in mid-october were the last romanians positions taken by well led polish forces. Moving swiftly, they entered in Bulgaria too, where the Greeks were also fighting. In the end, the Greek took Sofia and the bulgarian Thrace and the country was annexed on december 31, 1941. Then the armies were put back in their usual form and the newly formed remplacement for the lost divisions given where needed. The polish army was once more 10 armies and 90 divisions strong.

 

[Bryaxis]

The allies did not stay unactive during this time, most of the action taking place on the french border and in Africa.

During the first months of the war, the french front had been quite and massive british and commonwealth aid disembarqued in the ports like Lille. It was a full year before any operation was launched, after the Germans declared war to the low countries. In their initial operation they took the Netherlands but were then thrown out by massive help comming from Belgium and mostly Britain. The invasion of Luxembourg was quite easy too and allowed the germans to take the undefended Metz and Nacy provinces, thus breaking the Maginot line. Yet the French were able to stop them and launched a counter offensive in Saarbrucken which they captured in late 41.

In Africa, the situation was quite worse for the allies : the massive italian army in the sector took control of the Egyptian coast and got to the outskirts of Alexandria where they finally met a defense stronger than what they could defeat.

The last front of any interest to the polish was the balkanic one with Greece being able to repel the Italians from Albania and to capture two bulgarian provinces including Sofia.