POV : 'Aurora'
The caveman was excited and asked for details. Most of the questions were not answered - so the caveman made some assumptions. When they were finished, the caveman was silent for a while, until he finally nodded.
Caveman:
"We can assume that this is reasonable, I would check how it would work in a simulation".
Nile:
"I still don't like having my fingers in the closing door.
You're involving forces much greater than those we discussed, but that doesn't affect the feasibility of the plan".
He turned to her and asked
"How much would you like to increase our power in that direction?"
Aurora thought about it, but before she could say anything... the caveman interjected.
"As much as we can - I would leave some detachments in the major cities to force the Germans to lay siege... the rest I would throw at Prussia to achieve victory before other fronts begin to fall".
Aurora did not necessarily like this strategy - defending the cities in encirclement will end in great losses of troops and civilians - but she did not express this openly.
Nile:
"eh, I don't like this plan, but so be it. it's 2:1, we do it your way...".
Caveman:
We still have to discuss the south and we still have the Poznan army in the north
Nile:
Eh I would leave it in Poznan you can then reduce it a bit for example send cavalry north .... for your adventures
Caveman:
Maybe leave 2 divisions there in the city, that direction wasn't heavily attacked and we can't afford to create a Poznan holiday resort.
Aurora decided to chime in:
I would leave the cavalry in Poznan and in general anything that can be motorised - this is the only place from which you can lead out to the left flank of the larger pincer if Krakow is taken.
Caveman nodded his head in agreement.
This went much faster, mainly because the caveman was already tired and agreed to the plan of a general retreat.... "At least until the situation in the north is resolved".
When they had finished, they talked about nothing for a while, until the Caveman suggested that they end the empty discussions and start playing war games.
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The war game took place on a very rudimentary simulator, with participants controlling units at division and brigade level, and the programme itself did not go below company level in the simulation.
The first simulation was set historically, with the German side largely commanded by computer with Aurora monitoring.
While Nile and Caveman started discussing again, this time about a specific event from the historical campaign, Aurora adjusted the "personalities" to make them behave as close to the historical ones as possible.
- She didn't do it by the book - instead of reading biographies and making psychological profiles, she ran simulations at high speed, and in places where events didn't match history, she randomly changed some parameters.
At first it didn't work very well, but after a quarter of an hour she got some practice and began to know what she was changing.
In a few minutes the simulation started to look good.
It may not have been perfect, but Aurora thought it should be good enough for quick tests.
In the first simulation, the only deviation from the historical timeline was the introduction of the "Aurora-Caveman" offensive plan.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The 'A-C' offensive plan against Prussia was initially successful.
"The two task forces, detached from the Pomeranian and Modlin armies, effectively outmanoeuvred the German infantry they faced and successfully broke through the front lines.
According to Nil's account, the subsequent advance on Olsztyn proved successful because the Germans were preoccupied with ongoing battles, making it difficult for them to quickly deploy sufficient forces against the advancing Polish troops.
Aurora attributed this success largely to the incompetence of the AI responsible for commanding the German mechanised forces in the 3rd Army.
By 3 September, the bulk of the Third Army had been successfully encircled. Unfortunately, despite this success, it was not possible to completely destroy the enemy.
Before the encirclement effect could take full effect, the Germans were able to withdraw their main forces from the offensive and open a supply corridor to the rest of Prussia.
This was achieved largely through the enemy' s terrifying fire superiority.
After another three days, Guderian's motorised corps of the 4th Army finished off the Pomeranian Army and entered the theater from the west, effectively ending the Polish offensive.
Meanwhile, in the south, the Germans quickly broke through the Polish defences and penetrated deep, reaching 150-200 kilometres into the country within the first three days. By 17 September it was clear that the campaign had been a failure of historic proportions.
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After this warm-up, Nile and Caveman exchanged remarks - it sounded very different from their typical bickering - as if they were barking facts at each other.
"South?"
"The army of Lodz has a chance to defend only on the line of the Warta".
"Or you can also fortify Kalisz".
"Army of Krakow..here I don't know what to do"
"Here you can set up lines of defence"
"Here, with what you have, you can only defend the cities, let the Germans go and harass their supplies".
"the Carpathian army... you have to strengthen it at least with a division and a cavalry brigade".
After a while, Aurora saw how Nile began to optimise strategies with the caveman, comparing the efficiency of different roads and the negatives of dislocation points... "Wait a while, they will plan the war almost to the minute".
...waiting a long time to do nothing, Aurora decided to be a little mischievous in the next game and show the disadvantages of overplanning.
She moved the motorised and armoured divisions from the composition of the 3rd Army to the west, in order to cut the Polish corridor with a quick attack, the southern direction she left historically.
1st September:
The motorised attacks of the Polish intervention group and the German corps hit each other almost simultaneously.
The encounter led to the massacre of the leading troops of both sides.
The German advantage in armoured troops was to lead to the massacre of the Polish troops, but despite the German advantage, by some miracle they managed to hold the front and gradually gain the upper hand ... until the moment when, on September 3, Guderian's motorised corps found itself in the Polish rear, at the same time as the second arm of the Polish offensive in the east broke through the lines of the 3rd Armoured Division.
In theory, both sides were now surrounded, except that the Poles had to go another 60 km behind the enemy's rear to join the battle.
Desperate fighting continued until 7 September, when German infantry divisions arrived and the slaughter began.
The only advantage, or rather the field on which the troops were balanced (in numerical strength) was lost.
...the real miracle was that Caveman with Nil managed to escape annihilation, some of the retreating units disorganised and without heavy equipment - but still.
In operational terms, however, this did not mean much.
The Poles were no longer able to form a line of defence in the north.
German mechanised corps advanced 60km before Polish retreat.
The fun was over on 12 September, after which Nil sighed.....
"Well, so much for our offensive: 2 attempts, 2 defeats".
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Subsequent variants analysed assumed both retreat and offensive actions, similar to the operation they had planned in East Prussia.
Unfortunately, the war games resulted in defeat after defeat.
Aurora's mood was not helped by the fact that it was she who was winning, she was not trying to win - she was simply not making stupid mistakes, the disproportion of forces did the rest....
blurry man dressed in bad style joined the meeting as
Nile and Caveman have just reviewed the latest replay.
Caveman:
"Let's summarise the results after 6 games: even with direct control of a significant part of the historical Polish army, we are not able to defeat the Germans.
Nile:
"We can slow them down, patch up breaches, even launch offensives.
So far we have not been successful, but even if we were, within 30 days we will lose the ability to fight with manoeuvre - due to wear of machinery (assuming it remains constant), lack of fuel, lubricants and ammunition - but a stable line of defence is still possible..."
Caveman:
To the time... the whole scenario ends after 90 days anyway - then we lose the last remaining ammunition and all that against the Germans....
in the room you could smell the frustration
Blurry Man smiled at them:
"Och, boys, don't bitch about PVE, just tell us what you need."