A rare breed, I think not. A breed apart, perhaps. A dying breed, unquestionably so.
Welcome to the tenth post in this series of articles highlighting scenario designs in development for my forthcoming scenario pack. “Dying Breed” is a technical scenario, one that requires a strong understanding of several elements common to early-war battles. It will certainly test your comprehension of the rules in Chapters A through D. The scenario also challenges players less accomplished in coordinating a combined-arms force consisting of horsemen, radioless tin cans, and a smattering of motorcyles, or defending against same.
The Bzura counter-offensive, in the second week of September 1939, was an impromptu operation that suffered from limited planning and poor coordination between the attacking formations. Although the Podolska Cavalry Brigade made exceptional gains on the right wing, the Greater Poland Cavalry Brigade on the opposite flank got off to a slow start. It was the evening of the 9th before the riverside town of Sobota was secured and past midnight by the time cavalry of the 17th Greater Poland Uhlan Regiment began its assault on Walewice, on the south side of the Bzura River. It took three squadrons the night to wrestle the village from the Germans, a fourth squadron arriving when the fighting was all but done.
When the advance resumed at dawn on the 10th, fog enveloped the Mroga flood plain along the Sobota-Walewice-Bielawy road. But with sun and temperature rising fast, the fog would not last. In the vanguard again were tankettes of the 71st Armoured Battalion and a handful of motorcycle troops, tasked with opening the road to Głowno, and thus the city of Łódź. Due to the soft often marshy ground of the lowlands, the vehicles were largely confined to roads, which greatly hampered their ability to bypass German blocking positions. The Poles nevertheless faced only a single German infantry division. Infanterie-Division 30 was strung out along a 60-kilometre stretch of the Bzura, without armour support and unable to concentrate its artillery fire.
En route to Bielawy, the Polish “tank” squadron tore apart a German transport column. Unlike their fellow countrymen in the 14th Infantry Division to their west, the cavalrymen had limited fire support to call upon. Polish horse artillery would have to suffice.
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| Bielawy Poland 1938 |
Battlefield
The 1:100,000 scale map above, published in 1938, reveals that Bielawy sat astride a flood plain running from the southwest to the northeast.1 Fed by the Mroga River and an older parallel branch, this area typically lay submerged in early spring. Once the water receded some of this fertile soil could be, and usually was, cultivated. Therefore by September a good deal of this boggy terrain was defacto farmland, if still waterlogged in places.
Board 14a, from Winter Offensive Bonus Pack 12 (2021), isn’t an obvious choice to represent Bielawy for a couple of reasons. For starters, the road network and watercourse doesn’t exactly map with the historical map. I’m okay with that. More troublesome are all those woods that divide the board into multiple parcels.
The simpliest solution would be to convert woods to brush. Or I could take it a step further and substitute vineyards (B12.7), which are bog hexes. There’s something to be said for this, because this transformation would create boggy areas along the stream and pond, in keeping with what I’ve already said about the Mroga flood plain. However, a vineyard hex is also Inherent Terrain (B.6). Aside from being a little harder to visualize during play, Inherent Terrain would make the board too dense for my liking.
A more obvious answer is to treat woods as marsh (B16.). However, this is worst of all possibilities, making whole areas of the board impassable to vehicles and a significant barrier to movement on foot or horseback. Mudflats (B16.7), on the other hand, offer a better template for my purposes.
Mudflats are something of a misnomer in ASL. They conjure up—to me at least—an exposed expanse of mud at low tide. That’s not how ASL sees it. A mudflat is simply a marsh with a lower water level. Infantry and Cavalry can enter a mudflat at a cost of 2 Movement Factors (MF). Admittedly, this is the same cost as brush. But in contrast to brush, marsh and by extension mudflats have some important and to me useful properties. For instance, Cavalry may neither Gallop into a mudflat nor declare a Gallop while in a mudflat (A13.36), a useful subtlety that reflects the treacherous nature of the flats. For the moment, and contrary to my instinctive perception of a mudflat as a flat, open stretch of ground, it’s important to remember that a mudflat is in fact an LOS Hindrance (A6.7) just as brush and marsh (B16.2) are. And because a mudflat isn’t Open Ground, “it negates Interdiction/FFMO for fire traced into it” (B16.3).2
The bad news is that a mudflat has the same effect on adjacent hexes as marsh does. That is to say that any vehicle that enters a “ground level or level -1 hex” beside a mudflat across a non‑road hexside must undergo a Bog Check (B16.43). In the context of board 14a, a vehicle that enters a stream hex adjacent to a mudflat hex will have to Check for Bog (D8.2) upon entry.3 However, this is only bad news for players, not the mad designer who revels in subjecting his patrons to such things. Kidding aside, this is exactly the kind of effect I was looking for given the seasonal state of the Mroga flats. Unfortunately, only amphibious vehicles may enter a mudflat hex. Moreover, amphibians must use their land movement rate—paying double the Open Ground Cost of Terrain (COT)— and roll for Bog (B16.72)! Not quite what I had in mind considering that neither side has an amphibious capability. So I rewrote B16.72 to suit.
A Scenario Special Rule (SSR) allows a tracked Armored Fighting Vehicle (AFV) to enter a mudflat hex at a cost of 4 Movement Points (MP)—simulating the need to avoid obviously saturated areas, and by making a Bog DR. A tracked AFV may also exit a mudflat-road hex across a non-road hexside if it passes a Bog DR. Say what? There’s no such animal in the rules. Fortunately the concept is easy enough to grasp.
When I transformed woods into mudflats, woods-roads effectively became mudflat roads. You may recall that when a vehicle that has entered a woods hex via a road opts to exit via a non-road hexside, it first enters the woods portion of the hex where it must pass a Bog DR before it can leave the hex (B13.421). It made sense, therefore, to make tracked AFV subject to the same jeopardy when exiting a mudflat-road in the same manner. Wheeled vehicles may still only enter a mudflat hex across a road hexside.
The other wrinkle concerns what’s probably the coolest thing about marsh and mudflats: their dampening effect on explosions. According to B16.31, any High Explosive (HE) attack in a marsh hex is resolved at half Firepower (FP) due to “the muffling effects of soft ground/water on the explosion.” There is an exception for a bridge or units on a bridge, though not for any units “under” a bridge. So I added an exception for units on a mudflat road.
All in all, I think the mudflat SSR captures the special qualities of the low lying areas around Bielawy without unduly complicating matters. For ease, I used the Virtual ASL (VASL) artwork for in-season rice paddies as a standin for mudflats. The colour is similar to grain, yet distinct enough to avoid confusion. The transformation will be doubly useful once VASL recognizes that the paddies are a LOS Hindrance like mudflats, or the cultivated ground the latter is intended to mimic.
The only other terrain alteration to be mindful of is that all roads are dirt. I did this not because of any historical imperative, although most roads in Poland were unpaved. I made the change so that the defenders would have the option of setting Guns up Emplaced (C11.2) on roads.
As for environmental conditions, the 9th and 10 of September 1939 were unseasonably warm, approaching 27 Celcius in the afternoon. At night, however, temperatures dipped to between 12 and 17 Celcius and mist was common in the early morning, especially along the Bzura and nearby waterways. With that in mind, Low Visibility (LV) is a factor until the end of the third Polish turn.
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| Board 14a Winter Offensive Bonus Pack 12 [2021] Dying Breed Map |
Hausbesetzer
I don’t have the kind of detail that I’d like to have for the Germans at Bielawy. I’m reasonably confident that the third battalion of Infanterie-Regiment 26 (III/26 IR) was responsible for the line east of the Mroga.4 Indeed, this regiment was in the vanguard of the division’s eastward push along the south bank of the Bzura, having captured Sobota and the bridge over the Bzura intact by noon of the 9th. The German order of battle (OB) is therefore highly speculative, albeit constrained by what was organic to Infanterie-Division 30.
I have gone with the assumption that Bielawy was an important road junction and therefore would have been an integral part of a defence in depth running north to south from Sobota through Walewice to Bielawy. It’s therefore not unreasonable to posit that a Schützenkompanie was allocated for the town’s defence. After allowing for the possibility that a portion of this rifle company had been sent north to reinforce Walewice the day before, I’ve left Bielawy in the hands of roughly two platoons of infantry. Despite their modest numbers, tests to date suggest that the Germans are more than capable of keeping their Polish counterparts engaged for six full turns. Did I mention the help?
I’ve provided the defence with a single anti-tank gun. In light of its high rate of fire (ROF) and its effectiveness against Polish armor of the day, even one 3.7cm PaK 36 (German Ordnance Note 6) could be a gun too many. So while the 14. Panzerjäger Kompanie of each German infantry regiment in 1939 was authorized twelve Panzerabwehrkanone, I stuck with one.
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| German 3.7cm PaK 36 Anti-tank Gun |
Risky, you might think, to have one’s defence hinge on such an important weapon when Bielawy lies directly in the path of (try not to laugh) the Polish 71st Armoured Battalion (71 Dywizjon Pancerny). In one recent test, the PaK gacked its first shot and became permanently malfunctioned (C2.28) in the next Rally Phase (RPh). During that game, the little-gun-that-could did the heavy lifting. I’m referring to the 7.5cm leichtes Infanteriegeschütz (German Ordnance Note 15), 7.5cm leIG 18 for short. The unassuming infantry howitzer only fires high explosives (HE). But that didn’t prevent it from destroying, immobilizing, and terrorizing Polish armor.
The 26th Infantry Regiment would have had six to eight of these close-support weapons in its 13. Infanterie-Geschütz Kompanie.5 Therefore, as with the PaK, it’s possible that an infantry howitzer was present when the Poles rode into town.
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| German 7.5cm leG 18 Infantry Gun |
Eager to add a little spice to the scenario, I included a Maschinengewehrkraftwagen, or Kfz 13 (German Vehicle Note 68). This early example of a German armored car first saw combat in Poland, where roughly 15 percent of the 147 built were lost. The armored car platoon of schwere Kompanie, Aufklärungs-Abteilung 30 would have included two Kfz 13 and an unarmed radio car, the Kfz 14. My thinking was that elements of this heavy company, which also included three PaK 36 and two leIG 18, may have been in the vicinity of Beilawy. After all, III/26 IR was the easternmost, and thus forwardmost, battalion of its division. Is it that farfetched to propose that elements of the division’s 30th Reconnaissance Battalion and III/26 IR became intermingled during the chaos of 10 September?
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| German Kfz Armored Car aka Badewanne |
The German squatters also have a selection of support weapons (SW) that are capable of engaging both soft and hard targets. Let’s have a look at those targets, shall we?
Liberatorzy
The wouldbe liberators of Bielawy were members of the Wielkopolska Brygada Kawalerii. The Greater Poland Cavalry Brigade mustered three regiments of Uhlans, a regiment of mounted rifles, mounted artillery, pioneers, and an organic armored battalion—71 Dywizjon Pancerny (71 DP), as well as other support units.6
After mauling a transport column of III/26 IR south of Walewice, the tankette squadron of 71 DP approached Bielawy early on the 10th, possibly accompanied by squadron scouts on motorcycles. The squadron was equipped with a mix of TKS tankettes (Polish Vehicle Note 1), having recently received several TKS z 20mm dzialkem, the anti-tank version that doubled as a platoon leader’s vehicle. Unfortunately, these workshop conversions did nothing to improve the tankette’s unreliable drivetrain and worn tracks. It beggars belief that some of these vehicles were little more than two years old. In fairness, several hundred vehicles were manufactured between 1931 and 1934. Regardless, a perennial lack of spares, compounded by a short track life, saw many TKS spend the campaign in repair depots. I’d be surprised if some of the TKS in 71 DP hadn’t suffered the same fate.
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| Polish TKS Tankettes |
Although I have no concrete evidence for its involvement at Bielawy, I’ve included a modest artillery component. Deemed the elite of the Polish cavalry, horse artillery was nimble, able to provide accurate fire support for its fellow cavalrymen on short notice. I wanted to give players a feel for what this may have looked like if a gun had been in position to fire that day.
By the time the Polish–Soviet War ended in 1921, the victors had captured thousands of Soviet weapons, including hundreds of Putilov 76.2mm Model 00/02 (Russian Ordnance Note 13) produced at the Putilov factory in St. Petersburg in 1902. The Poles rechambered the gun to fire French 75mm ammunition and designated it the 75mm wz. 02/26 (Polish Ordnance Note 3). Hundreds remained in service in 1939, many in cavalry brigades where they were the mainstay of horse artillery regiments.
Based on the foregoing, I assigned the Polish an Offboard Artillery (OBA) module capable of firing HE and Smoke. I privileged the Poles with Plentiful Ammunition (C1.211), a nod to the eliteness of horse artillery rather than to any real or assumed abundance of ordnance. I gave them another leg up with the assignment of an Offboard Observer (C1.63), which negates the need to establish and maintain Radio Contact. Then I weakened the artillery’s potential impact on play.
The Blast Area of a HE or Smoke Concentration Fire for Effect (FFE) is comprised of seven hexes: the hex containing the FFE counter and the six hexes around it (C1.32). I’ve reduced the Blast Area to the central hex. The SSR has a couple of game effects. Obviously it reduces the number of hexes effected by the Concentration. My rationale is simple. A single gun wouldn’t have the same effect as an artillery troop, let alone a battery. Granted, Harrassing Fire (C1.72) remains an option. But in that case, Harrassing Fire will only affect seven hexes, not the usual 19 hexes you’ve come to love. Note that Harrassing Fire comes down as 4 FP and isn’t an LOS Hindrance (C1.57).7
The other effect becomes frustratingly obvious when you attempt to bring fire to bear while the LV is in effect. Because the LV messes with the accuracy of placing or Correcting a SR or FFE (C1.62), finding your mark depends on a fortuitous die roll (dr).8 That aside, artillery still can play an important role during the latter half of the game, not least when the Poles are scrambling to Control (A26.14) the last house on the left.
One criticism of OBA is that, on occasion, it can be either extraordinarily effective or a total flop. It certainly can be. However, the restrictions placed on OBA in “Dying Breed” are such that OBA is unlikely to unbalance the scenario regardless of its actual effect on a given game. Having said that, if I had to remove an SSR, the pride of the Polish cavalry regrettably would be the first to go.9
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| Polish 75mm wz. 02/26 Artillery Gun |
A squadron of 17 Pułk Ułanów Wielkopolskich arrives on Turn 2, capitalizing on the mist as they brave long-range fire. The 17th Uhlans aren’t that interesting in ASL terms. They’re Elite. I’ll give you that. But they only have one SW. It’s their mobility that makes them special.
Cavalry, what ASL defines as “any Personnel unit Riding a horse” (A13.1), is the operative terminology Polish players need to keep foremost in mind. In order to satisfy one of the scenario objectives, the Poles must exit a number of Cavalry squads. A gaggle of HS on foot or horseback simply won't do.
I’ve made a point of using the dedicated Polish Multi-Man Counters (MMC) included in the latest edition of Doomed Battalions (2024). For those who haven’t been keeping up with the Jones’s, counters bearing a Polish eagle represent a tougher, more resilient breed of “multi-men.” The broken Morale Level (ML) of Elite and First Line MMC, as well as Infantry crews, is the same as their unbroken ML. The increase is a godsend to broken Polish Cavalry, because it makes it less likely that they’ll be Casualty Reduced (A7.302) when they Bail Out (D6.24).10
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| Polish Cavalry and Polish Squad from Doomed Battalions 4 |
A little later in the scenario, the tankettes and lancers are joined by a platoon of armored cars, part of the Armored Car Squadron of 71 DP. Like the TKS, the Samochód pancerny wz. 34 (Polish Vehicle Note 7) was a product of the 30s. Three versions were built, with increasingly more powerful engines. The ASL vehicle note distinguishes between a model armed with a machine gun (MG), designated wz.34 I on the counter, and a model armed with a 37mm gun, designated the wz.34 II.11 The latter typically served as a unit commander’s vehicle. Based on what I’ve read, I suspect that 71 DP fielded four of each weapon type.
I can’t say one way or another if the armored cars arrived in time to assist with securing Bielawy. I do know that this squadron was operating only five kilometres to the east, near Chruslino (modern day Chruślin), and would have had to pass through Bielawy on the way to Zgoda, a village a few kilometres to the south where the Cavalry Brigade laagered for the night. I took a punt and added them for flavour, and as an irritant to any Germans bold enough to set up on the Elevated Road.
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| Polish wz. 34-I and wz. 34-II Armored Cars |
Mein Gott!
One good irritant deserves another and the final cast of characters is a group of German stragglers. They set up last. Distributed randomly north of the stream, they can, and often do, become a headache for the Poles. Depending upon where they start, the stragglers can influence events early on or late in the game. It’s a minor addition that nonetheless helps refresh the scenario between plays.
As a Polish soldier later recorded, the road from Walewice to Bielawy was littered with dead and dying Germans. Here and there one could be heard wimpering “Mutti!” or “Mein Gott!” In “Dying Breed” these cries could easily be heard in Polish.
The Poles have three competing goals to achieve in the course of six turns. All eight buildings next to the main north-south road must be under Polish Control at game end. At the same time, the Poles must ensure that there are enough “surplus” units available to satisfy the exit requirements. Determining which units to exit and when is seldom easy, as there never seems to be enough assets in the right position to secure that last building on the left.
Think you have what it takes? Volunteer to play test today and find out!
Other posts in this series can be found on the Close Combat page.
Notes
1. As a point of reference, a fun (infantry-only) scenario by Mattias Rönnblom—of Friendly Fire fame—takes place some eight kilometres (or five miles) east of Bielawy. Janowice, the setting for “Totensonntag,” is roughly two kilometres east of Piatek where the commander of Infanterie-Division 30, Major General von Briesen, lost his right forearm while leading his reserves into battle on the 10th. Briesen was awarded the Knight’s Cross and the division bore his name for the remainder of the war.
2. Because a mudflat isn’t Open Ground, the -1 DRM for First Fire Movement in Open Ground (FFMO) doesn’t apply (A4.6). Nor would Interdiction, which only occurs if the FFMO could apply “during a hypothetical Defensive First Fire opportunity” (A10.531).
3. Normally vehicles only undergo a Bog Check when exiting a stream across a non-Depression hexside (B20.46).
4. The regiment’s second battalion had been detached days earlier and remained far to the west at Łęczyca with the division’s 46th Infantry Regiment when the Polish counteroffensive began. The first battalion of the 26th Infantry Regiment occupied the area to the west of the Mroga between Piatek and Bielawy, where it linked up with the division’s 6th Infantry Regiment.
5. During the Polish campaign, lower numbered infantry divisions had six 7.5cm leIG 18 and two 15cm sIG 33 (German Ordnance Note 16) in their gun companies. The 30th was authorized the same scale of infantry guns, but it’s unclear whether the 26th Infantry Regiment had been issued with any of the 15cm pieces.
6. To be more specific, the Greater Poland Cavalry Brigade consisted of the 15th Poznań Uhlans Regiment, the 16th Greater Poland Uhlan Regiment, the 17th Greater Poland Uhlan Regiment, the 7th Greater Poland Mounted Rifles Regiment, the 7th Greater Poland Mounted Artillery Regiment, the 3rd Squadron of Pioneers, and the 7th Squadron of Communications.
7. Incidentally, Smoke which isn’t a Harrassing Fire option, cannot be placed in a mudflat.
8. While I’m on the subject, it’s a good time to point out a common error when using OBA and plug another Sitrep post at the same time. If an SR isn’t in LOS of the Observer, it cannot be converted to an FFE. See Converting a Spotting Round for a fulsome explanation.
9. Full disclosure: I have a personal interest in keeping the OBA. Call it vanity if you like, but I wanted to include propa’ OBA in a scenario. Those supportive souls who purchased my OBA tokens deserve an opportunity to use them. (I only have a few sets left. So it's not like I'm trying to unload a bloated inventory.)
10. Readers may recall that Ukrainian Cavalry in my scenario “Booty Call” are Fanatic (A10.8). I granted them this status in order to make them less susceptible to breaking. However, if they do break, they must also undergo a Normal Morale Check (NMC) as they Bail Out. With a broken ML of “6” they are more likely to fail than pass and will therefore suffer Casualty Reduction. I’m including a Cavalry Guide with the pack that will hopefully help players navigate some of the finer points in section A13.
11. One relatively recent work states that the difference between each version was largely mechanical and had nothing to do with how a vehicle was armed. In fact, the biggest difference between the wz. 34-I and the wz. 34-II was that the engine of the later version generated two extra horsepower. Jamie Prenatt, Polish Armor of the Blitzkrieg (Osprey Publishing, 2015), p. 38. That said, I have no difficulty with using these designations to distinguish between a wz. 34 armed with an MG and one without. However, I do question why the “wz.34-II” is alloted two less MP than the “wz.34-I” is.
