This AAR is made because of withdrawal complex – General Guisan just ended his Nationalist China AAR.
I play AoD with 1.6 patch, normall\normall, no IC takeaway. As to Tech Teams I will take just one from each annexed nation, chosen randomly. Short rationale for such solution is here
Only mod I use is SKIFF- can’t live without that. It will be my first game with vanilla AoD . I tried AoD with C.O.R.E, as I like some features of it, especially events and Great Depression implementation. Unfortunately my save file got corrupted. I generally don’t like CORE tech tree (and land doctrines are plain dull), and corresponding changes in tech teams.
I won’t follow historical path, as it would be little boring in this case, and extremely unsatisfying. I will use one gamey trick, as it also will speed up the game, not changing the outcome of war. You have been warned.
Polish situation
Poland is among stronger minors, its starting IC is 35, also has quite an army. 38 infantry divisions, all 1918 model, 12 of them at 30% strength. 4 first level cavalry divisions make “mobile forces”, there’s also 1 HQ. True elite are 2 mountain divs. Also 2 old interceptors and 1 tactical bomber are as old, as it’s possible. Token fleet – 1 submarine and 1 destroyer – is best disbanded at the beginning of game.
Poland has average tech teams. The best are:
Biuro Szyfrów (“The Codes Bureau” – skill 6: electronics, mathematics, mechanics) Team of cryptologist, which broke Enigma code used by Luftwaffe and Werhmacht in 1938 – only 6 skill?
Polska Szkoła Matematyczna (“Polish School of Mathematics” skill 7 – mathematics) – for instance S. Banach implemented Banach space, defined as complete normed vector spaces. Don’t ask me, what does it mean, but hey, those guys were tough.
PZL (“Polish Aircraft Works” – skill 6, aircraft, technical efficiency, electronics) – few good designs were made here.
Stanislaw Ulam (skill 6 – mathematics, science, nuclear engineering, chemistry) – worked on American thermonuclear bomb, and invented Monte Carlo statistical method.
As you can see, Poland can have an edge in aircraft, or nuclear bombs. Well, lets focus on aircraft first.
Land leaders are numerous, though not very good – best have 3 skill (in 36 it is just one – Mj Gen. Rola-Zymierski, panzer leader; second, with Old Guard trait, will be not used). Old guard trait is common, but so are defensive doctrine, and logistic wizard.
Air and naval leaders aren’t of immediate concern.
In DD it was relatively easy do modernize and reinforce land army, allowing to attack Germany at the beginning of September, and having Trench Warfare already invented. Neither first, nor second thing can be done in AoD, making game much tougher. I don’t actually know, what have changed, as I haven’t play HoI2 for a long time, but I suppose money for consumer goods are hard to acquire.
Last thing – my English language skill can use some improvement, so I’ll gladly take any directions, should I write something unreadable.
Poland in World War II. Facts and Interpretations, by Zig Zac
Poland in the beginning of 1936 was facing great problems, both in field of foreign, and domestic affairs. It haven’t recovered from the Great Depression, and government hadn’t got a clue, how to help the economy. More importantly it hadn’t got a will to do so – dominant doctrine was still to let things improve by themselves. Raising taxes to balance a budget only worsened situation.
On the east border Soviet Union was steadily growing their industrial power, turning from agricultural country to industrial behemoth. It was just a matter of time when Red Army will be military behemoth. And the official communist doctrine stated, that revolution must spread to the whole world. If it is necessary, it must be brought by force. Poland stood in the way of Red Army in 1920, but next time it would be much harder. For now Stalin didn’t attack – he tried to strengthen his political power, and to grow his country, so it could face whole Europe, not just puny obstacle Poland constituted.
On the west border Germany renounced Wersal Treaty, and begun fast re militarization. Common sentiment was to regain territories lost in WW1. Charismatic German dictator, Adolf Hitler, claimed his ambitions are restricted to reuniting The Reich, but his political program revealed in “Mein Kampf” clearly was different.
Nobody knew, if he was serious, or was it just a propaganda aimed for gaining political power. But it was certain, that he gradually repelled democracy in Germany, becoming, for better or for worse, the only ruler. Next step had to be renewing military might of Wermacht, using superior industrial base and intellectual potential of German scientists and engineers. But his plans were interrupted by war unleashing – we will never know, how his rule would end. This is why he is now a martyr to right wing political movements – which see him as a visionary stopped in his way by leftists, and an alien ethnic element.
There was no sign until 1936 that polish political elite will be up to the task of saving their country. Before that they fought to gain power after Josef Pilsudski death. Ignacy Moscicki had enormous prerogatives as a president, and Rydz-Smigly had more support in the army. But in the end of 1935 their struggle ceased, and they apparently had noticed a threat fascism posed.
Poland wasn’t a democracy itself, it treated ethnic minorities poorly, army dominated live of a country (it had so called “government of colonels”), and even had concentration camp for communists and other political enemies. Poland also had own colonial ambitions, widely supported, which was major point why it tried to build own navy. Comparing its potential to the task, it was somewhat pathetic. International call against fascism didn’t sound very well coming from other dictatorship, even more benign.
To be just Poland had their own extreme right nationalists, repressed by the government, and fighting against it ferociously. Nevertheless whole thing was a surprise.
Polish army tactics draws from WW1 experience, with emphasis on stationary trench warfare and infantry as a main force. But war against soviet Russia (1919-21) was radically different, thanks to big war theater being full of maneuver. Soviet commanders, mainly from Budionny’s Horse Army, thought in terms of maneuver, but not necessarily cavalry maneuver. Zhukov, Konev, Rokossovsky, best Soviet commanders, all fought in Budionny’s Army.
Polish commanders were instead devoted to cavalry as a main fast force. Reasons weren’t purely rational – tradition played important role. Cavalry was being considered as elite force, consisted of upper classes members. Some young officers (Maczek, Anders, Piskor) opted for motorized “block brigades”, being a form of elastic defense. It would be cheaper, than cavalry, and much more effective, but cavalry lobby was strong.
Also W. Sikorski had good experience using tanks in 1920, and flexible mind, yet he wasn’t liked by ruling group (he wrote a book once debunking Pilsudski’s skills as a commander).
Yet polish officers had to follow orders, and in 1936 orders were clear – to attack. Their strong sense of duty and high professionalism allowed to perform the task, and to learn from the outcome.
I play AoD with 1.6 patch, normall\normall, no IC takeaway. As to Tech Teams I will take just one from each annexed nation, chosen randomly. Short rationale for such solution is here
Only mod I use is SKIFF- can’t live without that. It will be my first game with vanilla AoD . I tried AoD with C.O.R.E, as I like some features of it, especially events and Great Depression implementation. Unfortunately my save file got corrupted. I generally don’t like CORE tech tree (and land doctrines are plain dull), and corresponding changes in tech teams.
I won’t follow historical path, as it would be little boring in this case, and extremely unsatisfying. I will use one gamey trick, as it also will speed up the game, not changing the outcome of war. You have been warned.
Polish situation
Poland is among stronger minors, its starting IC is 35, also has quite an army. 38 infantry divisions, all 1918 model, 12 of them at 30% strength. 4 first level cavalry divisions make “mobile forces”, there’s also 1 HQ. True elite are 2 mountain divs. Also 2 old interceptors and 1 tactical bomber are as old, as it’s possible. Token fleet – 1 submarine and 1 destroyer – is best disbanded at the beginning of game.
Poland has average tech teams. The best are:
Biuro Szyfrów (“The Codes Bureau” – skill 6: electronics, mathematics, mechanics) Team of cryptologist, which broke Enigma code used by Luftwaffe and Werhmacht in 1938 – only 6 skill?
Polska Szkoła Matematyczna (“Polish School of Mathematics” skill 7 – mathematics) – for instance S. Banach implemented Banach space, defined as complete normed vector spaces. Don’t ask me, what does it mean, but hey, those guys were tough.
PZL (“Polish Aircraft Works” – skill 6, aircraft, technical efficiency, electronics) – few good designs were made here.
Stanislaw Ulam (skill 6 – mathematics, science, nuclear engineering, chemistry) – worked on American thermonuclear bomb, and invented Monte Carlo statistical method.
As you can see, Poland can have an edge in aircraft, or nuclear bombs. Well, lets focus on aircraft first.
Land leaders are numerous, though not very good – best have 3 skill (in 36 it is just one – Mj Gen. Rola-Zymierski, panzer leader; second, with Old Guard trait, will be not used). Old guard trait is common, but so are defensive doctrine, and logistic wizard.
Air and naval leaders aren’t of immediate concern.
In DD it was relatively easy do modernize and reinforce land army, allowing to attack Germany at the beginning of September, and having Trench Warfare already invented. Neither first, nor second thing can be done in AoD, making game much tougher. I don’t actually know, what have changed, as I haven’t play HoI2 for a long time, but I suppose money for consumer goods are hard to acquire.
Last thing – my English language skill can use some improvement, so I’ll gladly take any directions, should I write something unreadable.
Poland in World War II. Facts and Interpretations, by Zig Zac
Poland in the beginning of 1936 was facing great problems, both in field of foreign, and domestic affairs. It haven’t recovered from the Great Depression, and government hadn’t got a clue, how to help the economy. More importantly it hadn’t got a will to do so – dominant doctrine was still to let things improve by themselves. Raising taxes to balance a budget only worsened situation.
On the east border Soviet Union was steadily growing their industrial power, turning from agricultural country to industrial behemoth. It was just a matter of time when Red Army will be military behemoth. And the official communist doctrine stated, that revolution must spread to the whole world. If it is necessary, it must be brought by force. Poland stood in the way of Red Army in 1920, but next time it would be much harder. For now Stalin didn’t attack – he tried to strengthen his political power, and to grow his country, so it could face whole Europe, not just puny obstacle Poland constituted.
On the west border Germany renounced Wersal Treaty, and begun fast re militarization. Common sentiment was to regain territories lost in WW1. Charismatic German dictator, Adolf Hitler, claimed his ambitions are restricted to reuniting The Reich, but his political program revealed in “Mein Kampf” clearly was different.
Nobody knew, if he was serious, or was it just a propaganda aimed for gaining political power. But it was certain, that he gradually repelled democracy in Germany, becoming, for better or for worse, the only ruler. Next step had to be renewing military might of Wermacht, using superior industrial base and intellectual potential of German scientists and engineers. But his plans were interrupted by war unleashing – we will never know, how his rule would end. This is why he is now a martyr to right wing political movements – which see him as a visionary stopped in his way by leftists, and an alien ethnic element.
There was no sign until 1936 that polish political elite will be up to the task of saving their country. Before that they fought to gain power after Josef Pilsudski death. Ignacy Moscicki had enormous prerogatives as a president, and Rydz-Smigly had more support in the army. But in the end of 1935 their struggle ceased, and they apparently had noticed a threat fascism posed.
Poland wasn’t a democracy itself, it treated ethnic minorities poorly, army dominated live of a country (it had so called “government of colonels”), and even had concentration camp for communists and other political enemies. Poland also had own colonial ambitions, widely supported, which was major point why it tried to build own navy. Comparing its potential to the task, it was somewhat pathetic. International call against fascism didn’t sound very well coming from other dictatorship, even more benign.
To be just Poland had their own extreme right nationalists, repressed by the government, and fighting against it ferociously. Nevertheless whole thing was a surprise.
Polish army tactics draws from WW1 experience, with emphasis on stationary trench warfare and infantry as a main force. But war against soviet Russia (1919-21) was radically different, thanks to big war theater being full of maneuver. Soviet commanders, mainly from Budionny’s Horse Army, thought in terms of maneuver, but not necessarily cavalry maneuver. Zhukov, Konev, Rokossovsky, best Soviet commanders, all fought in Budionny’s Army.
Polish commanders were instead devoted to cavalry as a main fast force. Reasons weren’t purely rational – tradition played important role. Cavalry was being considered as elite force, consisted of upper classes members. Some young officers (Maczek, Anders, Piskor) opted for motorized “block brigades”, being a form of elastic defense. It would be cheaper, than cavalry, and much more effective, but cavalry lobby was strong.
Also W. Sikorski had good experience using tanks in 1920, and flexible mind, yet he wasn’t liked by ruling group (he wrote a book once debunking Pilsudski’s skills as a commander).
Yet polish officers had to follow orders, and in 1936 orders were clear – to attack. Their strong sense of duty and high professionalism allowed to perform the task, and to learn from the outcome.