Poles vs Slovak's v.3 EW tournament AAR

My first game was against Andreas and his beautiful Slovak army, run as early war "SS infanterie". His army was tiny, and as we both had infantry armies we rolled to see who would end up attacking. Turned out the Poles had to attack. This time around at least I had a few mobile units in my tournament list.

Scenario played was "No Retreat".


Polish Army

Batalion Piechoty Infantry Battalion

Polish Early-War

75	Batalion Piechoty HQ
185	Piechoty Company (1platoon)
185	Piechoty Company (1platoon)
90	Piechoty Anti-tank Gun Platoon
245	Czolgow Platoon
180	Mounted Kawalerii Company
530	Armoured Train
------ 1490

Slovak Army

fearless/Trained
hq 35p

combat
New Infanterie platoon 160p
New Infanterie platoon 160p

Support
Pionier Platoon (145p) + supply truck (25p) 170p

SS- Panzer platoon 210p
3x Panzer 35t

Luftwaffe heavy anti-air 280p (confident trained)
2x 88
+ loading crew

Light Artillery battery 310
4x 10,5cm lefh18

Priority Ju 87B Stuka (Schwerpunkt) 175p

tot 1500p

................

The Poles started their push towards the Slovak lines, they started packed against the front edge of their deployment zone but spread out in their first movement step. The only thing I screwed up was that I forgot about the enemy air support - which ended up with my 7TP platoon being grouped very tightly. The train moved forwards to soften up the Slovak's holding the fortified position in the center. As the Slovak army was tiny my plan was to use cavalry and 1 infantry platoon to seize the trenches, and use tanks and 1 infantry platoon to cut to the right and grab the nearest objective. I figured the train would support the assault on the fortified position and then make a aggressive move into enemy artillery positions and wipe them out.

The Slovaks failed to receive any reinforcements during turn 1, leaving them with 1 infantry platoon, 88's in ambush and the 105mm artillery platoon to fend for themselves. The Stuka bombers made an appearance and dropped their load in the middle of the Polish advance, hitting all Polish tanks, but only managing to bail a single tank! The infantry on the other hand was pinned down. The Polish train took a hit from the 105's straight in the face of the light artillery car but made a successful armor save. Things looked bright for the Poles.

The push in the center came to an unexpected halt as the infantry platoon failed to rid their pinned down marker. So only cavalry and the train advanced further on the left flank while the Polish 7TP tanks - now aware of the enemy planes spread out to prevent a disaster. Infantry on the right flank moved over the fields and towards the small forest for cover but came under fire and became pinned down. The train moved up through the hedges and fired at the defenders inside the fortified positions and at the enemy artillery platoon in the wheat fields. The defenders in the fortified position took a couple of casualties, the artillery on the other hand only lost a single team to train MG fire but at least became pinned down from all the bullets whistling above their heads.

During turn 2 the Slovaks managed to roll in 2 reinforcing platoons. So tanks and more infantry arrived. 88's popped their ambush and fired at the advancing Polish infantry and the half exposed train - blowing up the light artillery car and bailing out the heavy artillery car. The Slovaks also managed to pin down the Polish advane on the right flank.

In the following turn, the Polish infantry refused to pin up, making me lose precious time. The train was backed out of line of sight since the heavy artillery car refused to mount up as well.
The cavalry dismounted and assaulted the defending Slovaks in the center, and Polish tanks rolled up the hill and around it to fire at the enemy on the other side and amidst the trenches. The cavalry on foot managed to storm one of the bunkers and kill the Slovak 2iC and rest of what remained of that platoon holding the trenches - a couple remnants from that platoon remained on the right flank though.

Slovak tanks and infantry were now moving up towards the objective on the right flank, which was also guarded by one of the 88's. The Polish infantry finally pinned up and moved forward again, on the right flank they managed to assault the enemy across the barbed wire and push them back. The train remounted the heavy artillery car and moved out of cover to blast the enemy positions - but either failed to hit or the enemy was rolling excellent saves. The ideal situation would have been to remount the cavalry but they lacked the range to successfully assault the artillery platoon so that plan failed. More bombs were dropped on the Polish infantry climbing the slopes of the fortified position and the Slovaks fired everything they had at everything that moved across the frontline. The Polish train was finally destroyed by 88 fire.

The game ended rather abruptly as time ran out. The Poles contested one of the objectives but it was not enough. Only a single platoon had had been lost on the Polish side, the train.
The battle was very close, and I think the Poles would have made it if given another turn as the tanks were perfectly positioned to cover the Polish objective on the right flank.
A very close game which isn't reflected in the final score 6-1. As it turned out, every single allied player lost his first game to the German with the exact same score , 6-1.