Silly After Action Report - Back to Domestic Defeats

It wasn't all howling stukas and death spitting tanks.  While these may have grabbed the headlines the German invasion of Poland involved a lot of foot slogging soldiers trudging wearily forward sustained by nothing but the unshakeable belief that they had an absolute right to walk into a neighbours country and trash the joint while a bunch of inconsiderate Poles shot at them a lot. 

BFP Scenario PiF111, Before the Blunder has me commanding a bunch of Poles with no sense of historical inevitability while Ivan Kent leads his Germans on their uncivilising mission to the East.

I didn't really like the look of this one.  Yes I had trenches, pillboxes and a bunch of machine guns but Ivan had loads of troops and very little territory to cross.  I set up the bulk of my troops in the centre while my pillboxes and trenches (replete with automatic weapons) defended the flanks.

Ivan came on strong on the eastern flank with lesser forces in the centre and west.  He was obviously trying to loop around behind my eastern defenders



At this stage in the war German tactics were still a little clumsy but the Poles were poorly equipped.

The first turn went past without any shooting as Ivan's troops pushed through trees and fields in an attempt to spot any Polish defenders.  For my part I simply relished a turn that went by without a disaster for my troops.  There would be few enough of them.


By the second turn the storm was starting to gather.  My defensive line had remained intact by the simple expedient of hiding under question marks but now Ivan was ready to go.  With sacrificial half squads in the lead his forces crossed the road that let to my defences.  In defence of my defences I should point out that it wasn't easy.  My pillbox in the east staved off early attempts at capture and his progress in the centre was slow.  Over in the west he managed to slip a couple of half squads past a guarding hmg as I disdained to shoot at them.  When he moved a decent sized force out in their wake I was ready and let loose with the hmg guided by a 7-1 officer.  I mean it didn't achieve anything but I was certainly ready.



A turn or two in,  Ivan is starting to sneak through in the west (bottom).



Despite a couple of units getting through in the west I wasn't particularly worried.  He was never going to win with just those guys, the real action was in the centre and east where my defenses managed to hold him off for a couple of turns.  Unfortunately I needed some kills and these weren't forthcoming although at one point there were five broken German halfsquads piled up on a leader in the woods awaiting rallying.  Still Ivan had the leaders and the troop numbers to deal with such minor concerns.  Finally he managed to break an mmg team I had in the centre and with that gone he swept forward out positioning my remaining squad there while those who could ran for the rear.

Suddenly brave the Germans pour forward.  It looks like I've built up a decent defensive position around the village; wrong.

Ivan managed to overwhelm me in the centre, although a squad or so successfully pulled out to continue the fight.  One squad with nowhere to run decided to plunge into improbable close combat with a German stack.  I didn't expect to win but hoped to hold him up for a turn.  To my surprise they did so although the gallant squad died the next turn.  Over in the east Ivan ground cautiously forward getting half squads broken but inching a little further.  Once he got around the pillbox he could safely ignore it while my medium machine gun in the trench solved his problem by breaking at the crucial moment.  Something that took up a bit of Ivan's time was his persistence in trying to get a demo charge onto my pillbox, I broke every halfsquad that tried and actually killed one of them.  Eventually he realised that if he just walked around the pillbox it was largely impotent.

I repaired the medium machine gun the very next turn and with a wealth of targets to shoot at opened fire eagerly, and broke the damned thing again.  Ivan was pouring troops through the centre just east of the lake and positioned himself for a last turn assault on my surviving squads holding the necessary buildings.  In the end I saved him the effort by breaking each one of them in my own turn thus leaving Ivan with little more to do than walk in.  At that point I conceded, I had two unbroken squads and both of them were further from the victory hexes than Ivan's troops who were swarming all over the place.

If you're wondering where my troops are they're under the DM counters.

In retrospect I placed my fortifications poorly.  Setting a pillbox up on the hill slightly out of harms way would have been a bright idea and as Ivan pointed out the western pillbox while set up for one good shot (which of course I failed) it wasn't optimally placed to cover anything that got through.  So defeat for Neil, on the plus side its nice to see I've settled back into my usual routine after the excitement of ASLOK.