Battle of Bzura AAR - Polish AI

[gwgardner]

Day 4

After the Polish turn and German recon, it is apparent that the Poles have taken up a strong position along the juncture of the Bzura and Vistula Rivers, blocking 4th Panzer.

Infantry has finally moved up, within supporting distance of the Panzer divisions, so I'm going to direct both Panzer divisions into the weakest part of the Polish lines. It will take a couple of turns to do that, but it would take just as much time to get the infantry in position to bust through the Polish defense around Sochaczew.

[I'd probably be cashiered in the real world for coming up with a plan like this!]

[Chocolino]

I think you are fully on-track. You have cut off all railroads and streets that lead from the western area to Warsaw. The Polish must now also wade through the Kampinos Forest. (The attached impression of the area is taken from Wikipedia.)

What is the current Polish point score?

[RocketMan]

Also remember that Zychlin is a supply source for Polish units in this scenario, so cutting units off from Warsaw will not necessarily cut off their supplies.

[gwgardner]

Current Polish score is approx 950, which is surprising, because they start with more than that.

That Kampinos Forest doesn't look like ideal ground for my panzers.

[gwgardner]

The Panzer move into the Kampinos Forest is underway. There are a couple of 10 mile wide swaths of relatively clear ground through the marshes.

[gwgardner]

Supply considerations come into play as the 1st Panzer leads the way north.

[gwgardner]

Pushing forward on fumes, 1st Panzer opened up a clear corridor to the north on day 5.

[gwgardner]

Day 6

The Modlin Fortress garrison, seeing that 1st Panzer had cut off the Bzura pocket from Warsaw, launched a desperate counterattack which has temporarily cut the 1st Panzer off from the 4th Army. However, farther west, the 4th Panzer has reopened the link to the 4th Army by driving north.

It appears that the only thing left for the German army now is to mop up the Bzura pocket, and then turn on Warsaw.

[gwgardner]

After the hookup north to south, and isolation of the Bzura pocket, I found that the German army was ill-positioned to finish off the Poles.

1) The panzers are basically out of supply in the forest. No way to get supplies across the Vistula without taking that huge fortress to the northeast. Supplies from the south required better positioning of HQs

2) The screening force west of Warsaw was vulnerable to counterattack

In future scenarios I'm not going to use units like engineers and flak in atypical roles, such as recon. I also never used the cards. I learned a lot, however. It's a really fun game.

[Chocolino]

Thank you for writing the detailed and highly enjoyable AAR. Great read.

In the larger Polish scenario (which I played much more often than the Bzura), I was never able to cut off the Polish units coming back from the Poznan and Bromberg areas effectively. You have achieved this here and followed through with your plan.

I always forget to look for the cards in the HQs in the heat of the battle. But I especially like that there are two layers of cards, the tactical HQ cards and the more strategic cards that you play with your PPs.

[AZKGungHo]

I've played this one through a couple of times from the German side, and have found that by pushing almost straight up towards Warsaw with the forces there, and at the sametime trying to cut off most of the Polish troops you can win. I usually end up taking Warsaw and creating a lot of havoc in the Polish Army too!  Lots of fun!

[gwgardner]

That's exactly what I'm trying this time around. The Poles are doing a good job of defending Warsaw, into turn 4. I'm trying to get my infantry up to the front, to relieve the panzers.