Case White PBEM: RocketMan-Poland vs. CYORESS1-Axis : Polish Thread

[RocketMan]

Turn 6 - Start - Southeast.

Units in this sector will now start fleeing because as long as I can keep the Germans from just freely driving down the roads, they are too far away from anything to effect the outcome of the game.

[RocketMan]

And that ends the tour of the front lines for the start of turn 5.

[Keunert]

i played the morale boost card again: it seems to affect only units below the base morale, untried full morale units don't go up. so no use to play this card early in the game. it is more or less a counter the soviet backstabbing card.

[Vic]

ORIGINAL: Keunert

i played the morale boost card again: it seems to affect only units below the base morale, untried full morale units don't go up. so no use to play this card early in the game. it is more or less a counter the soviet backstabbing card.

Wait till the next round to see the effect.

@RocketMan,
Excellent AAR!

best regards,
Vic

[critter]

ORIGINAL: RedCharlie65

Will or can the Polish Airforce be a factor in the delaying actions?

Nice AAR.
Do the Germans have to bomb the Polish airfields on turn 1?
How are is he eliminating your units in the pockets so easy?

[Keunert]

i think you can opt to just ignore the polish airforce. they can't do you much harm. on the ohter hand i think it's necessary to you use the luftwaffe for ground support to speed up your advance. the key for a german success is speed. it's a very tight schedule.

you also have to think about eliminating pockets or bypass them: after two turns (if i'm right) the isolated units get immobile. so if they don't block important supply routes you could just let them be and move your infantry towards warsaw.

[Enigma6584]

Excellent AAR!  It is a great read.  Could you post more screenshots of unit TO&Es?  I'm curious as to the make-up of the polish forces.

[RocketMan]

Thanks Vic, critter and RedCharlie. Glad you guys are enjoying it!

[RocketMan]

ORIGINAL: critter

ORIGINAL: RedCharlie65

Will or can the Polish Airforce be a factor in the delaying actions?

Nice AAR.
Do the Germans have to bomb the Polish airfields on turn 1?
How are is he eliminating your units in the pockets so easy?

It is probably a waste to bomb the polish air force on turn 1. It is spread out so you would have to use a significant portion of the German air force to bomb any significant portion of it.

Once units are surrounded, and not just by enemy units but even just by hexes the enemy controls, a unit will surrender if it is forced to retreat. So it is pretty easy to kill units in pockets, although it is not all that easy if the units have supplies and are dug in like in a city. It took my opponent three turns of attacking to eliminate the single regiment in Danzig. If you are willing to wait until a unit runs out of supplies, which can take four or more turns in some cases, even a weak attack will take them out.

[RocketMan]

ORIGINAL: RedCharlie65

Excellent AAR!  It is a great read.  Could you post more screenshots of unit TO&Es?  I'm curious as to the make-up of the polish forces.

Sure. Shown below are a typical Polish Infantry Regiment, Artillery Regiment and Calvary Regiment.

[RocketMan]

Turn 6 - End - Northeast.

The Narew Operational Group (units with the dark green stripe) has done a good job holding back the Germans but the time has come to start a retreat. All the bridges in this sector are blown and unless the Germans move an Engineer to this area they won't be able to follow the Poles very far due to supply problems. But even if they do repair some of the bridges, none of the infantry in this area can even effect the outcome of the battle at this point as they are too far away from anything vital.

The Narew Operational Group has suffered almost no units lost. In fact, with the additional units raised they actually have more units then they started the war with, although total manpower is probably a little less with losses units have suffered without being destroyed.

[RocketMan]

Turn 6 - End - North.

The Modlin Operational Group (units with the dark purple stripe) has also done quite well, giving up less than 5 kilometers a day from their start lines to the Germans (hexes are 10 kilometers and turns are two days). The only unit lost from the Modlin Operational Group has been one cavalry brigade, although there have been additional losses to units that weren't destroyed.

[RocketMan]

Turn 6 - End - Northwest.

I pulled back the bulge in the line this turn in this sector.

The Pomorze Operational Group (units with the light green stripe) has been hit hard. Out of 5 infantry divisions, two independent infantry regiments, two cavalry brigades, an engineer unit, a flak unit and a corp artillery unit, only 4 infantry regiments from four different infantry divisions managed to retreat successfully (one of the infantry regiments that I railed out earlier is down by Lodz). The flak unit and two infantry regiments are still fighting around Thorn but are surrounded and won't survive much longer. A large part (probably more than half) of the Polish Causalities are from the losses the Pomorze Operational Group has suffered.

[RocketMan]

Turn 6 - End - West and Southwest.

The Poznan Operational Group (the units with the dark pink or perhaps light red stripe - hey I'm a man and only know like nine colors) managed to retreat in pretty good order. With the additional troops raised and excluding the units surrounded in Poznan, they are only down a flak unit, although they have suffered one unit lost that was made up for with an emergency regiment. They have also suffered some additional casualties to units that were attacked but weren't destroyed.

The Lodz Operational Group (the units with the light purple stripe) has also been hit hard, what with the idiot Juliusz Rommel's orders for units under his command to hold their ground. Out of a starting force of four infantry divisions, two cavalry brigades, an independent infantry regiment, an engineer unit, a tank battalion, a corp artillery unit and a flak unit, only two infantry divisions two cavalry brigades, the flak unit and the corps artillery remain. Most of the rest of the Polish casualties are from the losses the Lodz Operational Group has suffered.

The area around Lodz has units from three Operational groups in the line, the Lodz Operational Group, the Poznan Operational Group, and the Krakow Operational Group, plus units from Army HQ (Rydz-Smigly).

[RocketMan]

Turn 6 - End - South.

The Krakow Operational Group (the units with the light blue stripe) has also retreated in pretty good order. Out of six infantry divisions, four cavalry brigades, two mountain brigades, two motorized brigades, an engineer unit, a flak unit, a corps artillery unit and an independent infantry regiment, they have only lost two cavalry brigades, an infantry division artillery brigade and a motorized brigade, but have gained an emergency regiment. These losses make up most of the rest of the total Polish losses.

[RocketMan]

Turn 6 - End - Southeast.

The Karpathy Operational Group (the units with the pea green? poop green? yellow green? stripe) has done very well, losing no units so far while denying the Germans a breakthrough in their sector. In fact, with the emergency regiment raised by Kazimierz Fabrycy (the head of the Karpathy Operational Group), they have more units than they started the war with and have suffered only minimal casualties.

[RocketMan]

And that completes the tour of the battlefield for turn 6 and takes us up to the midpoint of the scenario, which is 12 turns long.

[Barthheart]

You seem to be pulling back fairly easily... is your opponent not trying to pocket you? The Germans seem to be moving too slowly/causiously....

With that much Polish hardware around Lodz it's going to be a real grind for the Germans.....

[RocketMan]

ORIGINAL: Barthheart

You seem to be pulling back fairly easily... is your opponent not trying to pocket you? The Germans seem to be moving too slowly/causiously....

I agree that the Germans have played pretty cautiously. The only real pockets he has formed were in the first few turns of the game before the Poles could retreat. In the west (around Poznan), south (Krakow) and southeast (Karpathy) I have pulled back pretty aggressively and the Germans have had a hard time even keeping contact with the Poles, so the opportunities to form pockets have been few or non-existent. In the north (Modlin) and northwest (Narew) the opportunities to form pockets probably existed, although I tried to limit my contact with the Germans even there.

The Germans did try to form a few pockets with the 4th Army driving towards Lodz, but I managed to extract most of the Polish units when he did. The only place large numbers of Polish units have been pocketed is in the northwest (Pomorze), and that was only because I couldn't retreat those units fast enough.

ORIGINAL: Barthheart
With that much Polish hardware around Lodz it's going to be a real grind for the Germans.....

The most direct path to Warsaw is the area east of Lodz, so I want to make it as painful as possible for the Germans to try to go through there. It appears as if my opponent is trying to swing further east with a large part of his mobile forces and then perhaps drive north to Warsaw from there, but he is running out of time. The Germans are so far away from Brest-Litowsk at this point that I don't think he has any hope of reaching it before the end of the game, so victory or defeat will almost certainly come down to who controls Warsaw at the end of turn 12.

[RocketMan]

Turn 7 - Start Messages.

No new units again this turn. I don't know if the Poles will get any more for the rest of the game or if they only appear the first few turns.

Losses went down to a ratio of less than 6 to 1 this turn after going to 7 to 1 last turn. For turn 7, Polish losses were only about 2 times German losses (2% for the Poles and 1% for the Germans), which is excellent for the Poles.