Operationsplan - Case White
It's now April 1939, and we have initiated the "Danzig or War" national focus which will issue an ultimatum to the Polish government: relinquish control of the port city of Danzig or else. This lies on the land bridge between the eastern edge of Brandenburg and East Prussia (the Polish-controlled corridor sandwiched between Rommel's 5th Army and Guderian's 1st Panzergruppe. We have concluded the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with the Soviet Union, which means we have agreed to split Poland basically in half. We can expect the Russians to intervene in the war, but probably not until we have taken Warsaw.
As we expect the Poles to refuse our demands, we have drawn up an operational plan to destroy the bulk of the Polish army and occupy the western half of the country:
OKH will have 96 full-strength divisions at its disposal to execute this plan. The order of battle:
- 1st Panzer Group (Guderian) - two panzer corps, three infantry corps
- 2nd Panzer Group (von Manstein) - two paner corps, three infantry corps
- 5th Army (Rommel) - two panzer corps, two infantry corps
- 2nd Army (von Runstedt) - six infantry corps
- 4th Army (von Kluge) - five infantry corps
The plan is a typical Blitzkrieg-style attack. The Polish territory west of Warsaw is a giant salient, and Guderian (from the north) and Manstein (from the southwest) will pinch it off and "meet in the middle" along a line east of Warsaw. The infantry from these groups will flow in behind to seal a giant encirclement of all the Polish land forces in and west of Warsaw.
Meanwhile, Rommel will advance from his position in the northwest, creating a mini-encirclement of Polish forces in and around Danzig, before wheeling southward to split the giant pocket in half. 2nd and 4th armies will advance along a broad front in the west to tie up Polish units there and prevent them from moving east and escaping the noose. After Guderian and Manstein link up, these two infantry armies will be responsible for collapsing the pocket and ultimately capturing Warsaw.
Historically this operation was over in about a month. HOI has a really nice "battle plan" system that allows you to lay out attack plans (all the arrows on the map are part of this), but I have my doubts about how effective the AI is at carrying these out the way I want. I expect to have to do a lot of micromanaging to prevent the AI from leaving my panzer divisions in positions where they can be cut off by retreating Polish forces, and this will probably cause delays. So I think two months is more realistic.
As Poland has allied itself with France and the UK, I expect both of those nations to declare war once we launch Case White. If history is any guide though, they will sitzkrieg and not actually do anything on the western front. Just in case, though, we've positioned about 40 infantry divisions along the borders with both France and the Low Countries. I think as long as we have enough of a defensive force there, the Allies will be deterred from attacking us. My main concern is how many British units are lurking behind those front lines in the west. We've placed a heavy emphasis on air defense in the western zones, and have around 1000 fighters stationed in those areas to deal with any Allied bombing.
Here's the situation along the western front:
We're much thinner up north, but my main concern is dealing with any French incursions to the south so we are stronger down there.
In other news...
Our new allies the Italians have recently completed their conquest of Albania:
Meanwhile Japan, which is not formally part of the Axis as of yet, has launched a full-scale invasion of China:
World tension lies at 48%, so things are heating up considerably. We expect that once we launch Case White, we will be in a constant state of war until the end of the game. We hurl ourselves headlong into the abyss!