The caveman remained uncharacteristically calm during Nile's argument, and only when Nil himself fell silent did he begin to speak:
"I understand your argument....but I don't understand your goals....
What part of the front do you think a single device can hold? 10-15 km, certainly not more than 20 km
Which gives us how much at most? 600km of front - without reserves, the front alone.
and here I assume that you manage to shorten the front without any losses.... What next, what do we come to?
Let's be big obtymists here and assume that the Soviets do nothing when they see our back....
And what have you achieved? Material war with Germany without a third of our territory.
Material war with a more numerous, better industrialized country .....
What will happen next!? ...you will destroy the country - make yourself well known to other players and weaken the Germans a bit.
Fuck, even if the French beat the Germans for us - at best it is a loss for us".
Despite her dislike of Caveman and his way of speaking, Aurora reluctantly conceded his point - when it comes to torpedoing any Nile's ideas, Caveman is the man...interesting pair.
----
After a few minutes of grumbling, the caveman moved on to a bold proposal.
"If we defend ourselves on every front, we will be the weaker side everywhere.
We must gather forces and defeat the enemy in detail - and where is that easier than in Prussia?"
The caveman returned the tokens to their original positions, then added 2 more with the strength of the devisions, one by the Pomeranian army, the other by the Modlin army.
"I think that the Pomeranian army will defend itself for about a week before the 4th army pushes it to the Vistula.
The corridor is from 40 to 70 km and most of the German army has foot traction :)
As long as the Pomeranian army exists, East Prussia can only be supplied by sea, and the Polish fleet has 5 submarines,
Mining the harbors will block all aid in the first days of the war".
Caveman moved the extra token to Danzig.
"Meanwhile, the intervention group detached from the Pomeranian Army will secure our rear and pacify the city.
I think that after the first strike with regular troops it will be enough to leave ON there.
Meanwhile, we will lead the attack on Elblag and Olsztyn with regular troops".
The token continued to move along the indicated road, crossing a large river and stopping in front of another in the rear of the 3rd Army.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"At the same time, troops detached from the Modlin Army will reach Olsztyn and encircle the 3rd Army from the east - in this way we will cut off the main German forces from the rest of Prussia".
The 3rd Army found itself encircled from the north, on both sides were waiting for it "detached" divisions.
From the south, the army of Modlin was behind the line of fortifications.
To the west, the Pomeranian Army was retreating towards it,
and to the east, the Narew army, facing a virtually defenseless Prussia.
"To sum up, the Narew Army is pacifying the German remnants in Prussia.
The forces of the Modlin Army, together with part of the Pomeranian Army, hold the 3rd Army in encirclement.
The 4th Army, in order to help the 3rd Army, has to cross the Vistula River, with still defending cities in its rear".
Aurora saw several problems with this plan
1 Crossing the river and its floodplains to besiege the relatively unimportant city of Elblag.
2 Insufficient forces to encircle the 3rd Army (after all, 75% of the area is secured by 2 divisions separated by the river - so they cannot even support each other).
3) The number of mines in 5 submarines seems insufficient to mine the entire coast.
Another questionable thing was the focus on the conquest of Prussia (Narew's army) and not on the rapid destruction of the German army.
The caveman argument of not giving the enemy a chance to form a defense when attacking with a foot army was rather impossible anyway - so in her opinion it would have been more advisable to concentrate these forces on the 3rd army.
The last glaring problem, not so much of the plan but of the whole situation, was the proximity of the city of Gdynia to the front and the dominance of the German navy. This would have made rearmament impossible, making the entire fleet look like a one-time investment .....
Despite the drawbacks, the approach of breaking the teeth of the lesser pliers and slowing down the others seemed better than material warfare.
----
Nile scolded the caveman for all the problems with the plan, both real and unreal, and then the traditional argument began, at which point Aurora began to wonder what changes to the strategy presented would make it viable:
The Pomeranian Army consisted of 4 infantry divisions, a cavalry brigade, garrisons and an intervention corps (created to pacify Danzig), its strength was 2 infantry divisions.
Meanwhile, the German 4th Army consisted of 6 infantry divisions and Guderian's motorized corps (armored division and 2 motorized divisions).
Stopping this army would have been impossible with the available forces, but slowing the enemy to 5-10 km per day would not have been difficult - even an unopposed infantry division does not exceed 20 km per day - a lightly shielded minefield, ambushes with small forces ... one or two bridges blown up, a few air raids and that's it ... worse with the Guderian Corps.
He could easily make 100 km a day in the open.
Aurora decided to ignore this front and assume that she only had an intervention corps reinforced by a cavalry brigade.
Another assumption was that to pacify the Free City of Danzig
One division would be enough and the rest of the forces could attack Elblag from the south.
(from under the city "Brodnica" or from under the city "Grudziadz") thanks to which they will be on the right bank of the river.
Unfortunately, a deeper analysis of the German troops dislocation showed that they will meet through this German corps, specifically 2 infantry divisions .....it is not a problem, they just need to motorize part of the troops.
Then the slow troops will bind the enemy in combat, while the fast troops will rush to Elblag to complete the encirclement of the city with the division that captured Danzig.
After several minutes of fruitless planning of the route from Danzig to Elblag.
She came to the conclusion that after all, what is the point of Elblag...let the troops go straight to Olsztyn, the German corps can then be ignored.
If they move in pursuit, they will expose themselves to the slow force.
If they stay put, they will not be of much importance, and if they attack the slow force, we can retreat and draw the Germans into our lines.
Aurora wanted to report her change to the plan to the rest of the meeting, but seeing them arguing, she returned to analyzing her solution.
Her change to the plan eliminates problem 1, but does not realistically improve the situation - there are still too few forces involved in the encirclement maneuver.
Aurora began to analyze the operation from the other side - how many forces do they need for the encirclement itself?
The distance from the Modlin Army Line to Olsztyn is 32 km from the west and 45 km from the east.
According to Caveman, one infantry division can cover 10-15 km.
That gives me 3 divisions in the west and 4-5 in the east .... too much ... too much?
say 20km?
..
..
... maybe 25km?
----
ten minutes later
----
The Caveman and the Nile slowly reached the climax of the argument, after which there would be peace between them - or rather a truce that would allow them to continue their work.
Meanwhile, Aurora's plan did not hold - it had many holes.
She did not know from which front she would take forces for this operation - the necessary number of vehicles to motorize the main forces taking part in the encirclement maneuver did not exist at all...
Nevertheless, Aurora decided to present it as soon as the men had calmed down.
She presented the entire plan in a calm tone, despite the internal tension.
always ready for criticism.
She wondered who would start hostilities:
Neil, opposed to the very idea of holding on in pliers - or perhaps the caveman in retaliation for interfering with his idea?