Poles vs Slovaks -- S45 Contested Settlement

In my spare time, which believe me is very limited these days, I found time to play one of the bonus pack starter kit scenarios for advance squad leader. I'm still keen on getting back in the swing of things with ASL and that means lots of ordnance these days. I still have yet to fully master the vehicle rules, but those will come soon. Probably after this summer when my schedule gets a little more sane.

For this AAR though, I pick up a real treat: a battle between Polish and Slovakian units.

I have been in awe of Slovakian history during WW2 since the 5th Grade. In fact, when I was in middle school, I put together my first blog (WW2 Chronicles). It's been lost to the ages, but in it, I put together a newspaper about the opening days of the invasion of Poland, including a special feature on the Slovak participation in that invasion.

The only book I ever bothered to purchase, and which I still own, on the subject was Mark Axworthy's Axis Slovakia: Hitler's Slavic Wedge, 1938-1945. I cannot recommend this book enough. Slovakia's participation in the invasion was limited, but there were clashes between the several divisions of the Slovak military and the defending units of the Polish Karpaty (Carpathian) Army. 

ASL's S45 Contested Settlement models one of those clashes. Oddly enough for this scenario, the role of attacker and defender is reversed. After the initial invasion, Slovakian forces secured a polish town across the border and in S45, Polish army and mountain forces are tasked with taking it back. That's just the sort of scenario I like to see. I've got Slovak forces on the field and Polish units on the offensive. What more could I ask for?

The first several turns looked unfavorable for the Poles, and I almost gave up right then and there. The above image was taken too late to be of real use, but the main Slovakian defensive line held the tree line running top to bottom in that image. A medium machine gun section held the northern anchor while a kill stack and heavy mortar covered the middle ground. To win, the Poles have to control at least one multi-hex building by scenario end.

The Poles tried to skirt around the top edge of the photo and overwhelm the Slovakian defenders' machine guns, but for three turns those plans failed. The northern anchor held the line without loss. Then entered the mountain troops behind the Slovakian lines. The Slovakians peeled off troops to deal with the intruders and in the process weakened the heavy mortar kill stack. On a lucky mortar exchange, the Poles managed to break the southern group of Slovakians and close with the position.

The Slovakians fought a grueling battle to eliminate the marauding mountain troops, but at the expense of their defensive line along the woods. With their troops rallied, the Poles skirted round the Slovakian's top flank, secured a second building, and hunkered down the weather the final counter attack. When all was said and done, the Slovakians had successfully eliminated the first group of attackers to secure a house on the south edge of the board, but their luck ran out while attempting to again reduce an entrenched group of Poles holed up in a multi-hex building. 

The result was a narrow and hard-fought Polish victory. 

The Mighty Endeavor

In my time playing war games, I've only played a handful of wargames. Truly not very many: Normandy '44, the Dark Summer, and (if this counts as a wargame) Memoir '44. That's it. I have a long list of Normandy games that I'd like to play one day, including the Killing Ground, the Longest Day, and GMT's The Battle of Normandy. I can now add The Mighty Endeavor to this series of games on Normandy, though and the great appeal of The Gamer's SCS game on the invasion of France is that the Allied player can select any of the beaches in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands to invade. The Allies get six invasion beaches and a host of suitable options to pick from. 

The endeavor to liberate France and cross into Germany started with the invasion of beaches west of Bordeaux. The beaches were big enough to permit a landing of two armies, the British 2nd Army and the American 1st. The benefit of landing in Bordeaux was there are suitable beaches to support a major landing and fewer mechanized forces within immediate reach of the beachheads. The port of Bordeaux is also big enough to accommodate landbased routes of supply for Allied armies in France. 

The only problem that I encountered with landing in southern France was that once I had a taken Bordeaux (and significantly reduced the 2nd British Army's fighting force for the month of June), I did not have enough trucks on the continent to race for Paris. That was the benefit to making a landing in Normandy: the proximity to coastal ports like Cherbourg, Le Havre, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Antwerp, etc. 

The Germans retreated from Bordeaux toward the Loire and the mountains in Southern France. The 9th Army landed in the Riviera (Operation Dragoon) to augment 1st Army's forces and bring the French onto the field. The Germans kept both armies at bay in the mountains and fell back on their river lines. Only the lack of trucks slowed the Americans and French down. Then the Canadians and more American troops landed at Normandy. That rended the German river line useless. Caught between the Commonwealth troops in the north and the Americans and French in the south, the Germans fell back on the Franco-German Border and the river lines in the low countries.

The British troops landed at Normandy made the thrust across the Seine to take Paris. After that, it was helter skelter for the Germans back to the rear. The organized retreat turned into a rout. With enough trucks to keep up with the front, the American 9th and 3rd Armies managed to isolate a several pockets of retreating German infantry and armor. The Germans still had enough troops to man the West Wall, but once the front stabilized and the Americans landed the bulk of their armor, even the toughest sections fell to repeated attacks.

By the end of the year, the Germans had fallen back to their side of the Rhine and the concentration of the best SS and armored units in the Ruhr still couldn't hold back the Allied armor. On top of that, the 1st Army was in position to break out of Arnhem. Given the forces they had left, there was no way to prevent the Allies from achieving total victory.

And that was it. Total defeat for the Nazis. As it should always be.