Polish-Soviet War - Battle of Warsaw 1920

[shri]

From my limited reading (have only read the soviets, not the poles).. There were 2 factions.
1. Wanted to reach the old Tsarist lines or even shorter and stop. (Lenin and Stalin faction)
2. Wanted to push on and liberate (conquer) all of Europe (Trotskyist faction with Tukhachevsky prominently in it)

Since, at the start of the war the entirety of Ukraine and most of Byelorussia is in Polish Hands, the initial objectives should be liberation of Crimea, Kiev and Minsk for the Soviets.
Then maybe get an event, asking full push or just liberate ethnics?
If full push then Warsaw should be the new objective with a NM timer (like Ludendorff scenario) such that if no units within 2/3 hexes of Warsaw, soviets lose NM every turn and poles gain NM.
If limited objectives (say the post ww2 lines or post Molotov-Ribbentrop lines) then only those objectives like Lemberg/Lwov & Brest Litovsk should be objectives.

If the Russians choose 1, then the Poles shouldn't get extra NM due to Warsaw timer nor should Russians lose NM.
If Russians choose 2 (AI should choose it 75% of the time) then the timer must start. The extra NM will help the Poles and cause issues for Russia.

Further, i think mobility should be shown for the units in this war, i hope the poles esp cavalry start with 1 mobility and all Russian cavalry and Tachankas and artillery start with 1 mobility, the movement was very very fast in this war.
Supply should be an issue but once Kiev falls, Kiev needs to become a size 10 or size 12 city, easing Russian supply issues. Same with Minsk.

If Russians choose 2, they should have further choice if they want to invade Lithuania (as it was friendly but not allied to Poland), this should end with invasion and more help from Britain and France for the Poles.

The main thing i know about polish forces were that they faced 2 major issues (i think Jason can correct me if i am wrong)
1. Supply as they were pushing eastwards, once they retreat this issue got auto resolved.
2. Rifles and Ammo, the poles used 4 types of armaments.. Mausers which were the best guns but very limited, Mosin-Nagants in plenty after capture of Kiev, Austrian rifles which are plenty and used, British and French equipment... this suggests there should be 2 or 3 types of polish units, not a singular one as these resupply problems plagued the poles (based on what i read). First type should be German/French/British armed, less in number but quite powerful; 2nd type should be Austrian armed generic but okish, 3rd should be Russian armed, more like Militia (the Russian arms were mainly given to the Ukrainian allies who worked like a quasi militia/partisan than a proper mainline army).

[Jazon]

Hi Shri,
Nice idea for Victory Conditions! It would be great that both sides could set their goals in secret, before game commenced! However I don't know if it is possible to set Victory Conditions while game already started - Then it should be designed as an other scenario. But then the whole fun is gone - thinking what the opponent is trying to reach.
For Poles there were also 2 factions:
1. Incorporate to Poland as much possible territory, but only that parts which are predominant polish by ethnicity. Goal was to create a strong ethnic monolith country, so it would be easier to rule and develop. Eastern borders are about to be abandoned, instead Poles should take as much possible in the West from Germans, which would be more beneficial in economic point of view. These faction would easily give up Eastern borderlands. Faction was led by Roman Dmowski, leader of National Democracy Party.
Dmowski never came to rule.
2. Create a ring of friendly, allied with Poland Free States: Belarus,Ukraine, Baltic States which will push Russia away from Poland. This faction wanted to use Soviet weakness into bringing this plan in motion by May offensive and treaty with Ukrainians led by Semion Petlura.Faction led by chief of State Jozef Pilsudski. It didn't work, and in Riga peace treaty in 1921 Poles aquire vast Eastern Borderlands, with low numbers of Polish ethnic groups.

For Poles I will modify the event - choosing the government in face of Reds at the gates. Choosing Dmowski will allow to attack Lithuania, and gain few nationalist troops. Choosing government of national defense (unity) with Peasant's Party leader - will not allow to attack Lithuania, but will give bonuses in defensive war - Volunteer Army etc. This Event I will describe in detail later.

Supply - this in an issue, and to reflect that in Eastern borderlands there are not many settlements and supply bases, but in game play it didn't work out well. Units fall into supply "black hole" and quickly become super vulnerable after their morale fall into 1%, which is really hard to recover.

Different types of guns, etc. I was thinking that every Ist regiment (of three) of Soviet division will have infantry weapons on level 2, others on level 1. this would show that many units lacked of modern equipment and ammunition.

For Poles default will also be 1, but Units that arrived from France(blue Army) and Elite units ( Legions Divisions) will have it on 2.
Of course both player will be able to manually upgrade units but that will cost MPPs which will be scarce.
As for mobility I guess I will just increase it by one for Uhlans, and tachankas. Also I want to give Soviet Konarmia mobile artillery unit.

PS
Screenshot from beta game - polish Tanks are smashing Soviets in operation to retake Minsk. Polish tanks (there were 120 of them) in our Beta game are too strong i guess, but i will need to look into it.

[BillRunacre]

Both sides could be presented with Decision Events where they choose which set of victory conditions they aim for, that is perfectly possible, and neither will know what the other is aiming for unless they can tell from the enemy's actions.

If you have ideas along this line then I think it'll be worth experimenting with.

[shri]

Did the poles have integrated Tank groups or just the odd tank spread in infantry regiments? Since the Russians (both Red and White) used the latter style of dispersal (they of course had low numbers).
2 Tank regiments which means around 80-120 tanks seems ok to the numbers you said, but integrated tank regiments seems too early. Even the English had them only in late 1920s and they themselves disbanded it.

[Jazon]

Poles did had the regiment - 120 pieces, 2/3 R-17 with cannon 1/3 with MG.
" The 1st Tank Regiment consisted of four tank companies organised into two Battalions and saw fighting during the Polish–Ukrainian War after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in a Polish offensive in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia carried out by units of the Polish Army aided by the newly arrived Blue Army of General Józef Haller de Hallenburg. This army, composed of Polish forces which had fought for the Entente on the Western front,[1] numbering 60,000 troops,[2] came with tanks supplied by the Western allies and partially staffed with experienced French officers. The unit was based on equipment and part of personnel of former French 505th Tank Regiment, and was equipped with the most modern tanks of the time, the Renault FT. After the war the 1st Tank Regiment, along with Gen. Haller's Army, returned to Poland, with all equipment. Thanks to this, Poland became the fourth biggest armored power in the world at that time.

They also participated in the Polish-Soviet War, which by 1920 most of the French personnel had departed back to France. In July 1920, FTs tanks were used in the Defense of Grodno and defense of Lida, and Rowne as well as the Battle of Daugavpils. Then, they took part in the great Warsaw Battle in August 1920 and some damaged tanks were put on railway flatcars and used as parts of armoured trains."

This what wikipedia says, but in more detailed sources, from history of Polish Armed Forces, I know that in May 1920 - Regiment was scattered in 3 companies, each for one Polish Front HQ. In scenario there is an event for polish tanks, but it turned out those tanks are too strong, so I am thinking to do it like this in version 1.1 :
The script about the tanks is whether Polish player want to reorganize them and repair and use them as battalions, or immediately use them at front as companies.
Maybe I should do the option 3x5 point strength tanks immediately (companies, capped at 5 strength points) or 2 x 8-10 point strength tank battalions after some time. In battle at Vistula Pilsudski himself insisted to use tanks “en masse” (his words) but it was to late when they realized that local commanders scattered them among infantry.

PS
below situation at 2nd of August - Soviets are slaughtered by Polish counterattack - 1% morale effect make them easy prey for polish tanks, air force and infantry.

[BillRunacre]

Sounds a good decision Jacob.

[Jazon]

We finished first Beta testing on 24th August 1920.
"Supply trap" reduced most Soviets units morale to 1%, and at the same moment Poles regroup and sent devastating punch.
There are many features to amend - especially fix supply trap by adding more settlements - supply bases. That's the main issue.
Also I guess I need to change force Balance, slightly for Soviets.
I owe big thanks for Mithrilotter, Bill and Hubert.I will be solving Victory conditions, as Shri suggested, I would like to give players choose to set their goals. And main thing - Lithuania - I don't learned yet scripts for international relations, i would need to spend time on it. If anybody has any ideas, or would like to add something feel free to speak up.
Below situation at the end of our game, Soviets were pushed back to the starting line.
Cheers everyone!

[FOARP]

This looks great! Very much looking forward to playing this!

Yeah, the balance needs some work so that there is a Polish collapse and fall back to Warsaw.

[Jazon]

Hi,
for those who follow this thread I got good news: We started a second run with Mithrilotter in hot seat mode. So far there are no major bugs, we will see about the balance of power between both sides. Dan again play for Poles and I play for Soviets. I fixed the major problem of the game by adding some more settlements along map, so there are no more "supply black holes".<as you can see on the picture attached>> I also made soviets slightly stronger by adding 5 MPP per turn to their military income.
If there is anybody interested in making a hot seat beta test as Soviets let me now in private message, I will send you the files by wetransfer on your email.
Cheers
Jakub

[BillRunacre]

Great to hear you've been able to make some progress with this!

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Jazon...I sent you a PM with my E-mail address and a link to my YT channel also. Looking forward to do a hotseat test of this fascinating and historically important conflict. Cheers mate...very good work here, very good work indeed. [8D]

[Jazon]

9th June

Poles are withdrawing slowly, but suffered heavy loses at places where Bolsheviks concentrated their forces. Form Soviet perspective offensive gain momentum, especially in the Ukraine. I wonder how Mithrilotter is planing to stop the Reds. Polish air force is superior and constantly attacking.
Polish planes together with artillery easily destroyed Soviet Armored Train. On the other hand Soviet Cavalry Army is doing Blitz in the Ukraine steppes. Poles lost several regiments, surrounded by Red Cossack's.
Poles need to hold up till mid July, when Allied Conference will gather at Belgium and decide whether to send aid to Poles.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Jazon,

Genius.........[&o]

Will join the MP challenge Friday July 2. Working on designing some thumbnails for my planned YT series of the Polish-Soviet War from Trotsky's P.o.V.

cya on the virtual battlefields as I ride Gen. Budyonny west haha

cheers

Mike

[Jazon]

Hi!
I would like to share some thoughts about my second beta test game with Dan. I will not go back to the units characteristics, and modifications about terrain
features etc. because we already discuss it in other thread. Thing is after eliminating "black holes" of supply on the map, it turned upside down the balance fo power.
As I played for Soviets I discovered the devastating effect of Red Cavalry speed. Polish forces simply can't keep up with Soviets. For polish player
it requires extremely caution about flanks and possible holes in defense which Soviet horsemen can use to surround them.
Even so, an interesting fact: After one month in game, Soviets advanced deep into Polish territory. However cut out polish troops refused to give up!
That forced Soviets to left significant amount of units behind to block surrounded Polish forces. Hence, even though Reds are winning, their offensive
lost momentum, because 2/3 of their forces are left behind the pockets. Surrounded units have supply bases, and are strong enough to keep resisting.
meanwhile, Soviets cavalry and forward troops meet Polish Militia's and Volunteers units, which eventually stopped them.
In order to break Poles I sent Reds down south to cut out convoy supply route from Romania. I am really curious what will be the outcome here,
because soon Polish side will receive convoys from UK also Polish Volunteer's army is about to fully mobilize.
Cheers everyone!

[Jazon]

Hi,
here you can see how game is going. Soviet offensive lost it dynamics. Reds wait for reinforcements led by Tukhachevski - I chose to form additional HQ witch wost costly but I hope will be worthy its price.
Polish partisans started to be a problem,also Polish tanks appeared. Front line is stabilizing. I wonder how it will develop.

[FOARP]

Really great to see this! Not exactly the historical outcome but obviously lots of fun!

[Jazon]

Hi!
Its end of July of 1920 and Soviets are approaching Warsaw...little too fast then historical.This game gave me loads of feedback from Dan, and I need to make amends, like changing morale and other stuff. Thing is when you design a scenario feedback is essential. Other thing is like hoe much you go hardcore with historical reality. I ten d to go into direction that the most important is the impression and feeling of this historical campaign to the player. 1920 Campaign is awesome because it's really not determined who will win from the start. That's why we test it so much with Dan and Mike to make it balanced for players.

[Jazon]

Hi,
this is the summary for current 1920 scenario. This Post is mostly a dressed for Mike and Dan, but anyone who has an idea to improve it is free to speak
There are two groups in this subject. Technical flaws and Game play features.

Technical flaws:
1.Polish strategic advice - grammar mistake; should be: “broke Soviet codes”; Also message should be split into historical part and advice - use “” at Commander, ... ; also add description who are the Ukrainians who fight on polish side
2.Poland - first wave of Volunteers - graphic with gen. Haller loads correctly, but afterwords there is BLANK message. Should be description of the event/or additional photo.
3.Soviets - decision about deploying strategic reserves - need to rewrite it, its not clear for the Soviet player what YES/NO means
4.Both sides - edit NATO sprites for zoom out - there are misplaced. Also 3D sprites in zoom out are bit too much to the side.
5.Map edge - I guess moving Smolensk would be too much mess, Smolensk coordinates are almost in every script as a condition. However Borispol can be moved, as well Southern Soviet Front units can be moved away from the map edge
6.3D sprites for air units - polish planes and soviet planes doesn’t have their emblems
7.Strikes in Lodz - caused by Soviet decision - there is something wrong with the date, guess its wrongly written
8.Romania and UK shouldn’t be playable
9.There is “super heavy artillery” unit available for soviets - remove
10.The Lenin telegram - add (West) into brackets
11.Poland -American volunteer squadron reports huge red cavalry concentration around Uman - add Uman coordinates, so it will be clear where is it
12.Add description about Silesia - french occupied territory, until plebiscite
13.Nowy Sacz NM value is to big should be 500 NM; not 3k! Script mistake
14.Poland -Form National Defence Government ; add (polish parliament) after “Sejm”
15.Soviets - make a POP-UP about what is Tachanka Unit - it’s not clear what it is for Soviet player
16.Soviet Player shouldn’t be able to see Photo and event about Ukrainian mobilization (Petlura photo) - change script
17 Tukchachevsky HQ should be only available trough EVENT DECISION
18 Lower HQ costs a bit
19 Change one of Ukrainian regiment destination from Chmielnik to Kamyenets Podolski. Chmielnik is almost not possible to hold until 16th of June.

Game play features:
1. add 1000-2000 morale boost for Poland with each wave of volunteers - as in reality motivated volunteers raised morale among soldiers who were retreating for weeks.
2.remove desertion events; or maybe leave it only if the Polish player will choose nationalist government
3. Polish starting morale should be 90-100% otherwise they can collapse before Reds reach Warsaw
4. Polish militia - volunteer garrison units - should have weapons on level 2; also their trigger point should be about 8 hexes away from Soviets, otherwise they are appear in random place and become target practice for Red player.

5.Another thing which is worth considering is what Dan wrote me in email:
I request that all Polish units that begin or arrive at 7 strength be
instead raised to 8 strength for unit morale preservation.
The game engine handles morale in such a manner that any unit that is less
than 80% strength (8 out of 10, or 4 out of 5) tends to drop in unit morale
over time. Hubert called it a death spiral. It has to do with individual
unit morale calculations for each turn. On any turn when the unit morale
calculation is negative for any reason, the revised math formulas begin a
negative morale death spiral. For all practical purposes morale never
recovers. Only if a unit has 80% strength or more and is in supply 5 or
better, does any unit ever recover any lost morale.
I didn’t think about it before, I gave units the strength value according to data I had about their quantity, I revealed it in previous posts. So now there is a question, how to do it. For example three regiments all together have quantity 21 in strength points. Should i merge them into two wit 10 strength, or three 7 points each, or two 8’s and one 5 strong? That’s kind of problem I need to think over, both for Soviets and Poles.

6.Another point from Dan:
In the Strategic Command World War 2 games, convoys can be moved through decision events. For example, the UK can amend its Mediterranean and Atlantic convoy routes. The Germans can move their Norwegian convoy route. If the normal land convoy route from Romanian is blocked, why wouldn’t Romania simply amend their route through another country friendly to Poland, like Hungary?
That’s a reasonable opinion, however in 1920 Poland, as I recall didn’t have a direct railroad shared with Hungary. Czechoslovakia had it’s own border conflict with Poland, and were not willing to help in any way. It’s obvious Germans didn’t want to send anything to the country they claimed “seasonal”, and also had territorial disputes along border. The only other way was by sea, which lead to Free City of Gdansk/Danzig. UK supplied through this way. I guess there is no alternative, but I am opened for discussion.

7.Dan again:
I really don’t know how many armored trains that it takes to create a full strength armored train unit in the game. When doing Polish tank research, I discovered that was one Polish improvised armored train was created by putting damaged tanks on a train. I wonder if there should be a Polish decision event to create an additional armored train through improvisation.
Another thing, maybe I should make an event for that. Let’s vote!

8.Tachankas - their stats. Still object for discussion. The tachanka (Ukrainian language: &#1090;&#1072;&#1095;&#1072;&#769;&#1085;&#1082;&#1072;), (Russian: &#1090;&#1072;&#1095;&#1072;&#769;&#1085;&#1082;&#1072;) was a horse-drawn machine gun platform, usually a cart or an open wagon with a heavy machine gun installed in the back. A tachanka could be pulled by two to four horses and required a crew of two or three (one driver and a machine gun crew).
Initially I gave it two attacks, but that’s too much. So I guess we all agreed we will give it 20% damage evasion. The best solution both for tachankas, tanks and cavalry units should be that they are deadly for enemy infantry units who are not entrenched or ex. in town / forest.
I added them to the scenario first of all because they often appear in polish memories of this war, many polish officers didn’t know how to deal with them at the beginning and were taken by surprise. Second reason is flavour of the game. I guess all players love rare, special units.

9.However I will make another, and only ONE special unit for soviets. Horse artillery for Budionny’s Cavalry army. It will be normal artillery Unit, but with speed of “horse units”

10.For those who might ask - what are those Cavalry Detachments? They represent Divisional Cavalry - most divisions from both sides were already half-strength, but SOME according to my sources - in previous posts - had significant amount of raiders. I put them all in detachments, because their role wasn’t like regular assault Cavalry but rather scouting and pursuit - which actually Mike is doing during our game.

11.Trench level - maybe we should try also one game with both sides Trench warfare on level 2.

12.Logistics We talked with Dan a lot about that.
I guess we can increase the level of it for Poles, because,
after all they mostly operated on their own territory. Also, in May, during
their initial successful offensive, Poles seized hundreds of wagons and
locomotives.
Local Ukrainians were outraged, how their "ally" is treating
them. There was even a saying popular in this times, Ukrainians changed the
way you read acronym for PKP [originally Polskie Koleje Panstwowe - Polish
State Railways] to "Polska Kradnie Pociagi", also PKP, but the
meaning was "Poles steal trains". Polish army conduct for seized
Ukrainian territories wasn't cruel, there were no manslaughter of
civilians etc., but as it is said in memories even a single Private of Polish Army
had his backpack full of stolen goods. On State scale Polish Railways were
transporting east provisions and ammunition, on the way back basically
everything they could take, and load into a train. That was one among many
reasons why Ukrainians didn't support Petlura's alliance with
Poles.
Although polish railways faced many difficulties in those times, for me it
is clear that operating on inner lines for supply and transport of troops
should be cheaper than bringing stuff whole way from Petrograd, Moscow or
even Urals. So I will increase logistics for Poles.

13.Tanks - Maybe the 3rd battalion should be back, but before I make any
decision about them I want to see how they perform in combat during this
game. I am afraid soviets will only be able to hit them with heavy
artillery piece, while their airplanes can't face Polish fighters.


Thank you for reading! Thank you all for feedback, and time spent on this project, it's
literally priceless

Jacob

[BillRunacre]

Hi Jacob

Great post, here are a few thoughts:

5.Map edge - I guess moving Smolensk would be too much mess, Smolensk coordinates are almost in every script as a condition. However Borispol can be moved, as well Southern Soviet Front units can be moved away from the map edge

If you open all the scripts you should be able to use a Find and Replace All feature to very easily change the coordinates for Smolensk to its new location.


5. On the Polish unit morale being low if their unit strength starts at 7, there is a way to avoid having to increase their starting strengths, and that would be to give Poland a higher level of Infantry Warfare research. Whether this is the answer I don't know, but thought I'd mention it anyway.

7. A Decision to form another armoured train unit sounds good. [:)]

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: Jazon

I didn’t think about it before, I gave units the strength value according to data I had about their quantity, I revealed it in previous posts. So now there is a question, how to do it. For example three regiments all together have quantity 21 in strength points. Should i merge them into two wit 10 strength, or three 7 points each, or two 8’s and one 5 strong? That’s kind of problem I need to think over, both for Soviets and Poles.

In my understanding, you need to square the strength proportion to get the overall combat effectiveness.

This is because understrength units have both offensive and defensive weaknesses. A Strength 8 unit ends up making 80% the number of hits (either strikes or defences) of a full-strength unit, and each hit is 80% as effective. (In fact it's not this simple for many reasons; strike numbers, the zero bound on combat results and that 0 can always be randomised to 1, but that is a rule of thumb approximation).

So 8 strength gives 64% effectiveness, while 7 strength gives 49% effectiveness, 5 strength 25%.

By contrast, strength of historical land units is roughly linear, if you have two brigades of 5000 men and 50 tanks they are equal to one division of 10000 men and 100 tanks. But in the game two strength-5 counters are roughly half as powerful as one strength-10 counter

So you need to bear this in mind and reduce unit strengths by much less than the historical amount. Even without worrying about the 'death spiral'.