Another Silly After Action Report

On the 1st of September 1939 with a bellow of tank engines, a thunder of artillery and a howl of air sirens Germany invaded Poland in what must rate as one of the noisiest acts of naked aggression thus seen.  Much less well known to history is that at the same time Slovakia was conducting its own modest and understated invasion of Poland or at least those bits of Poland most convenient to Slovakia.

In keeping with the polite reticence which marked their entire war (it would be a little unfair to add the word "effort:") the Slovaks have never demanded that the history books give their invasion of Poland more publicity.  Indeed it is unknown how many Poles at the time were actually aware of the Slovak attack as their attention was pretty much occupied with one and a half million Germans noisily dranging nach Osten across their country in wilful disregard of the no trespassing signs.

Some Poles did notice though.  Specifically those Poles in the immediate vicinity who found their retreat path blocked by elements of the Slovakian army conducting one of the most tentative conquests on record.  Eager to get on with the real job of fighting the Germans the Poles grabbed some nearby artillery and attempted to sweep the Slovaks aside.  This is ASL Scenario AP112, First Ally which sees some thirteen Polish squads supported by some (as it turned out very unreliable) artillery attacking nine Slovakian squads with mediocre leadership and a couple of machine guns.  Ivan Kent commanded the Poles and I took over direction of the Nazi lickspittles, sorry Slovakians.

The Poles had to set up in the hills to the north and west while the Slovaks were obliged to set up in buildings.  To win the Poles had to occupy all of the multihex buildings on the playing area most of which you see above although there is another lurking to the south.

A glance at the map shows my problem.  There are quite a few multihex buildings and I don't really have that many squads to hold them.  Trying to defend all of them would leave me weak everywhere while concentrating on a few would hand the rest over to Ivan and allow him to concentrate his forces against my undergunned troops.  Plus the Polish artillery could easily massacre any large congregation.  I decided on a compromise.  The hill in the foreground would be my defensive position.  I placed a squad and a half of expendables in the buildings to the north so that Ivan had to allocate some troops to their capture and the remainder garrisoned the hill.  The squad in the building on the right wasn't expected to last long but I hoped it might deter a flanking attack.  The stone buildings would be my main line of defence.  Here I would attempt to delay Ivan for several turns while a squad or two slipped south to garrison the buildings just out of shot.  Hopefully by the time he worked his way through the hill defences he would be too short of time for the final push.  I placed a half squad with my sole medium machine gun on the second level of the rearward building with another squad to protect it.  I envisioned this as a bastion.  For the rest I was planning a fall back defence.

Ivan set his troops up in two main forces.  Fearing neither my non existent artillery or my feeble firepower he gathered his troops in two powerful groups.  In the south west a group of four squads were lined up for a direct assault on my "bastion" while to the north a kill stack of two squads and two medium machine guns was positioned to sweep the battlefield.  A few squads were detailed to clear out my delaying troops in the north and the remainder nestled in the woods to the east (right) obviously planning to challenge my flank guard.  His spotting officer with the radio sat on a hill gazing down while fingering his radio eagerly.

Unfortunately he must have fingered it too hard because Ivan managed to draw two red chits on his first two attempts at battery access.  So much for the artillery, the Poles would have to do it by hand.

With his bad luck safely out of the way on battery access roles Ivan got down to the serious business of destroying my hopes and dreams.  A rate tear from his kill stack slaughtered my mmg crew before they could fire a shot.  His flankers darted forward tempting fate, one half squad died but the rest crowded up towards my position.  In the southwest my "bastion" had been crippled.  Prep fire from one stack had pinned the flank guard and the remaining squads scooted past him and up the hill.  Up in the north I retreated as he advanced, hoping to keep a sort of "fleet in being" situation happening.  This was without a doubt the most successful thing I did all game.

Turn two brought me to the edge of despair.  Ivan drove into my bastion, killing the defending squad while his flankers destroyed my flank squad and seized that building too.  A squad with a light machine gun that I moved across to help guard the flank fired at everything that moved with no result and was routed in its turn.  Suddenly both flanks had caved in and I had done no real damage to him at all.  His most significant loss was the failure of his artillery for which I could take no credit at all.  Things were so bad that I indicated to Ivan that I was prepared to concede.  I would play out this turn and then down tools.

The end of turn two saw a brief renaissance in my fortunes.  I had scuttled a squad down to the rear most building and Ivan thinking my bastion conquered had moved a couple of his squads away allowing one of mine to sneak back in.  This delayed him for the remainder of the game as he had to reconquer the building.
Up in the north my half squad had died but his squad buddy had survived and was about to show his metal.  No, I haven't misspelled that.

Ivan was still oozing around my right flank but with a battle raging for the bastion (and my leader picked up the mmg and started firing it on his own) and the centre untouched things looked a little hopeful.  Things looked even better when in the north he advanced a squad into close combat to be ambushed and slaughtered by my troops there.

The next few turns saw swings of fortune, Ivan's kill stack broke another squad which fled yelping to the rear.  He ground his way slowly through the centre buildings but I still held the rear building and (part of) the bastion while in the north his one remaining squad was tied down in close combat for three long turns.  So concerned was Ivan about this that he diverted a squad and a half to reinforce the melee which eventually decided it in his favour but as a delaying action it had served its purpose magnificently.
 

The aftermath, only Poles are left on the battlefield and most of Ivan's troops have wound up in the bastion.

Finally it all came down to the bastion.  Ivan swooped through the woods and took out the rear building (assisted by the fact that my poor firepower was making it very hard to hurt him) but the bastion battle raged on.  At one point we had managed to encircle each other on various levels of the building as we shuffled our forces around.  Ivan was trying to build up the firepower to completely wipe me out whereas I was doing my best to stay out of harms way.  It couldn't last though.  It took until the final turn but Ivan eventually put together the firepower to crush me utterly.  Not one single unit of mine survived the battle.

So kudos to Ivan for a well constructed victory and some slight cheer for me at recovering from an almost impossible situation on the second turn.  This seems to me to be a little hard on the Slovaks, I can't imagine what might have happened if Ivan's artillery had been in play to shoot him forward.