Silly After Action Report Part 1 - Not Another Polish Village

Oberst von Kattelrussler's command staff crouched a little lower in the damp bog he had chosen as his headquarters and waited for their CO to arrive.  Hauptmann von Kummerbund took the opportunity to pour a stream of water out of one of his boots while dodging shrapnel.  The large sign the oberst had ordered erected saying "not a German command post!" in Polish was serving as a useful registering point for enemy artillery.  Von Kattelrussler's staff had a history of wound and bravery decorations that put most assault units to shame.  When the shelling subsided a little von Kattelrussler joined his subordinates for the morning briefing.

"Well gentlemen," he announced, "it's another Polish village."

"Just for a change," muttered von Kummerbund.  He strongly suspected that von Kattelrussler was selecting their objectives from a street directory.

"Simple enough," continued von Kattelrussler, "we've done it all before.  The infantry will just charge in and beat up the Poles.  Any questions?"

"What about the tanks?" asked von Kummerbund.

"The what?"

"Tanks."

"You're welcome," replied von Kattelrussler.

"No sir, our tanks."

"You're welcome."

Von Kummerbund took a tight grip on his rapidly disintegrating sanity,

"What about our panzerkampfwagen?"

"Our what?"

"Panzerkampfwagen!"

"What are they?"

"Tanks!"

"You're welcome."

Von Kummerbund gave up,

"No further questions oberst."

"Excellent, von Kummerbund you'll take in the infantry.  I'll lead the tanks."

"You're welcome," said von Kummerbund and then hated himself intensely.

Ivan and my latest foray into Poland in Flames is BHP121 - Old Friends.  This pits elements of the Polish 10th Motorised Cavalry brigade against the German 2nd Panzer division in defence of yet another of the interminable Polish villages that need to be captured so the newsreels can show triumphant images of PzIIs crashing through hedges.  In this one Ivan will lead von Kattelrussler's long suffering troops attempting to winkle my gallant Polish defenders out of the village of Trzciana.  Due to what can best be described as  breathtaking incompetence I either forgot or ignored the fact that Ivan's reinforcements could come on from three sides and set up to defend against an attack coming solely from the west.  I had already decided to concede the buildings in the centre (although not without a fight) and hold those in the north with maniacal determination.  I set up my foxholes in the north linking up with the westernmost multihex building and garrisoned them strongly.  A halfsquad with a little mortar took position in a wheatfield and a leader plus an hmg team went upstairs in a multihex building to the rear.  On the ground floor I placed my 40mm AA gun sighted down the road.  My 100mm gun I placed in some forest near the boards edge in what turned out to be a rather dangerous position.  Some dummies and a couple of squads were forward in the forest.


 



At start set up

 

In the centre I placed a squad in the stone church at the front of my setup area, mainly so I didn't concede a victory building without some sort of fight.  Another leader plus hmg team was in a building up on the centre hill.  The small wooden buildings to the south of the hill were occupied by a squad and more dummies.  Finally at the very south of my line another halfsquad with a mortar guarded the approaches and my 37mm gun hid in a building nearby.  The rear multi hex, multi material buildings were guarded by one of my machine gun toting trucks and in what turned out to be a fortuitous piece of positioning the other was placed behind a hedge looking straight down the centre.  My two small tanks were in a wheatfield in the north awaiting events.  I boresighted a couple of totally irrelevant hexes and was ready.

Ivan promptly invalidated my entire plan by driving hard towards the centre with the bulk of his force and detailing lesser troops to start pressing in the north.  Two of his armoured cars shepherded the bulk of his infantry towards the church and my defenders on the hill while another, accompanied by some infantry headed south likely to block the approach of my reinforcements whose arrival I had completely forgotten.  This southerly move gave me my first chance to inflict casualties.  Ivan always gets great results with the Polish 46mm mortars when he has them and it was with a cocky smile that I dropped concealment and fired at his approaching infantry.  I rolled an eleven and malfed the mortar.  I tried a little more defensive fire and failing to roll lower than ten subsided into sulky silence.  I didn't fire my guys in the church.  With half the German army bearing down on them I figured concealment was the best thing for them. 



My own turn was modest in its achievements.  I tightened up a little in the north and hid under concealment counters in the south.  Naturally I failed to repair the mortar.

 

The position at the end of German turn 1.





The next turn arrived and Ivan pressed on.  In the south he rolled his armoured car directly into the path of my 37mm and barely able to restrain my excitement I managed to punch a large sized hole in it.  In the centre he attempted armoured assaulting forward but my well placed machine gun truck (brilliant deployment Neil) broke the squad nevertheless.  In the next turn the same gun truck would blow up the armoured car in a ball of flame.

 

Ivan brought a pair of tanks on to support his troops around the church and swarmed all round the building but my guys maintained stern fire discipline and survived all prep fire without losing concealment.  Finally Ivan ran an entire squad in front of the defenders and I took a 4-2 shot, and rolled another eleven.  Up in the north Ivan brought on another pair of tanks and a group of mortar toting infantry.  Suddenly I felt rather unwell, the game wasn't two turns old (well it was, just) and what I intended to be my main strongpoint was under threat from the front and rear.  I didn't panic (I was too busy crying), I just sat there and hoped for the best.  There was one sliver of good news, Ivan had brought his reinforcements on on either side of my 100mm gun hiding in the trees.  Unfortunately neither group actually placed themselves in my line of sight.  Still he has infantry heading towards my machine gun post (he doesn't know about the 40mm yet) and surely an opportunity will come soon.

 

Well the church is doomed but I'm more worried about the north





With turn three Ivan brought on a couple more tanks in the north (but is obviously holding his infantry back for something special.  He finally shot my church defenders out from under the pews and they fled yelping into a graveyard to surrender.  He offered me a glorious target for my hmg team up on the hill but I totally failed to hurt them.  With halfsquads leading the way he pushed forward and I grudgingly retired.  Up in the north though there was a brief and unexpected renaissance of my fortunes.  My hmg team in the rear building managed to break the crew of one of his mortars and I finally got a target for my 100mm when he pushed another mortar toting squad forward directly into its line of sight.  The ensuing critical hit vaporised squad and mortar both and allowed me to swing the gun round to engage the infantry now pushing towards my hmg post.  Since my other mortar crew died attempting to get away from a PzIV Ivan had rolled up near him its fair to say this game has been rather hard on the mortar teams.

 



 

 

This is more or less where we left it for the night.  My reinforcements arrive next turn and with any luck I'll be able to deploy them in such a way as to buy myself a few more turns of wretched panicked existence.  I'm burning a small wax doll of Ivan before the we resume and hope for great things.