White Eagles
A Preview
Mike Bennighof, PhD
November 2007

As a design project, White Eagles was about as complex as any full-sized game. Forty scenarios is a lot, and I wanted them to cover a wide variety of actions. I think we accomplished that, with tank battles, infantry assaults, cavalry against cavalry, and some unusual battles, too.

I also decided to try something different with this book, to answer a request we've gotten from a number of fans. There are "wire diagrams" for both the Polish and German armies of 1939, showing their organization in terms of Panzer Grenadier pieces. Now you can see how many INF and CAV pieces make up a rifle battalion or a cavalry regiment, and battle with them in your own scenarios.

The diagrams of course reflect unit organization "by the book," and neither army went to war exactly by the book. As the victim of a sneak attack, the Poles had to fight with the army they had, and so their units in game scenarios are rarely as strong as the tables suggest they should be. The Germans, on the other hand, planned an unprovoked war of aggression against a smaller neutral country and actually put some thought into their crime. German units are usually up to strength, at least at the start of the campaign, and some are even stronger than the tables direct.

Road to Berlin was designed with this supplement in mind, so the mapboards from that game match with what I wanted for scenario design in White Eagles. I also wanted to include a variety of opposing units for the Poles, and so we used German mountain troops from Edelweiss and Waffen SS men from Sinister Forces. I really wanted a scenario using the NKVD pieces from the same book, so the Poles could fight them, but there were few combat situations involving Polish and Red Army units to begin with, and none in which the NKVD took part - they concentrated on the civilians.

Even without that, it's a fine set and I think Panzer Grenadier players will really enjoy these. Here's the final installment of scenario previews:

Kopal's Legacy
14 September 1939
The German advance from Slovakia moved much more slowly than on other fronts, thanks to harsh terrain and fierce Polish resistance. Ordered to interpose itself between the Polish fortress cities of Przemysl and Lwow to prevent the garrisons from reinforcing one another, the Edelweiss Division's Rainier Regiment encountered a powerful force of Polish mountain troops equally determined to keep the route open.

Conclusion
The divisional history records that "the Poles fought with exceptional bravery," and this would be the only campaign in which the Edelweiss Division faced another nation's mountain troops. It proved a very bitter experience for older veteran officers, as several Polish officers of 1st Mountain Rifles had served in the Austrian mountain troops in the Great War. The jägers cleared the road after bitter fighting, helping to isolate Lwow.

Note: This scenario uses a board and pieces from Eastern Front, pieces from Edelweiss, and a board from Road to Berlin.

Design Note: Under our original plan Edelweiss Expanded Edition would have appeared after White Eagles, and this scenario would have been included there. It's an infantry fight between two elite forces in rough terrain, with the unique aspect of both sides receiving the benefits of Kopal's Legacy.

Gates of Brest
14 September 1939
The Polish high command abandoned Warsaw on September 7th, moving to Brest-Litovsk (Brzesc in Polish) in eastern Poland, where the Polish Army maintained a large fortress complex but one that was not prepared to control the entire war effort. Once the Germans understood the move, they raced to capture the fortress both to decapitate Polish leadership and to snag the prize before their Soviet allies entered the war. The Polish high command deployed its last armored reserves to help hold the city - including the armored train Smialy.

Conclusion
The Poles placed their weak garrison just north of the Brest fortress in an attempt to stop the Germans from seizing it "off the march." The Poles successfully slowed the German advance, but lost all their tanks in the effort and suffered serious casualties. The Germans would renew their assault the next day, while the high command made its way southwards toward Romania.

Note: This scenario uses pieces and a board from Eastern Front and a board from Road to Berlin.

Design Note: Smialy the Bold returns, along with ancient Polish tanks, to face a fast-moving German panzer division. It's a short and small scenario, and one of the best ones in the set - I do enjoy all of the train scenario, and wanted to make sure we used the World War One vintage tanks in their sole battle.

Children of Warsaw
16 September 1939
Repulsed in their first attempts to capture Warsaw, the Germans moved troops around the city to attack from all directions. On the eastern bank of the Vistula, Col. Stanislaw Sosabowski's elite 21st "Children of Warsaw" Infantry Regiment prepared to defend their home city from waves of Nazi attackers.

Conclusion
Sosabowski's men suffered 40 percent casualties, but they held the suburb of Praga against repeated German attacks. The claimed "annihilation" of 11th Infantry's 23rd Infantry Regiment was over-optimistic at best; while the Germans suffered terrible losses they re-grouped and would try again for three more days before breaking off their assaults.

Note: This scenario uses a board and pieces from Eastern Front, and a board from Road to Berlin.

Design Note: Any Polish officer played by Gene Hackman deserves his own scenario. This is a tough infantry fight in a restricted area, where the Germans have numbers and artillery and the Poles have their Polish stubbornness.

Black on Black
16 September 1939
Gen. Ludwig Kübler of 1st Mountain Division assigned the defense of Zboiska to his attached SS regiment, where he thought they could handle a quiet defensive sector screening his artillery on the nearby hills while his tough mountain regiments assaulted the city of Lwow from other directions. Unknown to the German general, the Poles had received a substantial reinforcement - Col. Stanislaw Maczek's 10th Mechanized Cavalry Brigade, reputed to be the toughest unit in the Polish Army. Having heard reports of SS actions against civilians, notably the wanton slaughter of small children in Burzeum by the Life Guards' regimental band, fortress commander Gen. Franciszek Sikorski flung the "Black Brigade" at the unsuspecting criminals.

Conclusion
Maczek's black-clad troops rushed into the attack with what their forebears would have called "fire and sword," eager to crush the vermin infesting their land. The SS regiment crumbled under the attack, and as panicked Aryans flung down their weapons and begged for mercy the Poles simply shot them down. The Poles re-occupied Zboiska but the attack ran out of steam before it cleared the hills as well.

Note: This scenario uses a board and pieces from Eastern Front, pieces from Sinister Forces and Edelweiss, and boards from Road to Berlin.

Design Note: This scenario is part of a series set in and around Lwow, and I wasn't that sure about including one that resulted in what is essentially a war crime - even if the "victims" got no more than they deserved. As an action pitting Poland's best against Germany's worst it's an interesting exercise.

Poland's Bravest Son
16 September 1939
With his division surrounded and running out of food and ammunition, Brig. Gen. Jozef Kustron of the 21st Mountain Division told his regimental and battalion commanders to release all men who wished to make their way home individually. The general himself had no intention of giving up; he placed himself at the head of his bitter-end volunteers and led them in a headlong attack against the Germans barring their escape route to the Hungarian border.

Conclusion
Kustron was killed leading a wild bayonet charge that disrupted the Germans long enough to allow some of his troops to escape. Part of the division - now well under 4,000 men - joined with 6th Infantry Division to keep fighting, while another group joined a cavalry unit still resisting. The high command disbanded 21st Mountain Division, but Kustron became one of the September Campaign's heroes.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Eastern Front, and boards from Battle of the Bulge.

Design Note: It's typical of Mitteleuropaisch melancholy, to find and celebrate the heroes from a defeat. Kustron was no doubt insanely brave, but he did not choose a wise course for his final expression of Polishness. The Poles are good troops in this scenario, but forced to break through against numbers and artillery.

Escape
18 September 1939
The Polish Armored Training Center had already retreated from Modlin earlier in the campaign, and when the high command ordered all Polish units to make for foreign territory its troops hit the road for Hungary. The instructors brought every armored vehicle they could get to run, and charted a course taking them far from all German formations. They did not encounter any Germans along the way.

Conclusion
Spotting the ancient enemy, the Poles tried to fight but were at a distinct disadvantage, with most of their tanks armed solely with machine guns - the very reason they had been left in the depots instead of deployed against the Germans. The Soviet tankers were not as well-trained, but had much better anti-tank weapons in their vehicles and the difference told. The Polish detachment was wiped out, with only a few stragglers making their way to Hungary.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Eastern Front, and boards from Battle of the Bulge.

Design Note: I had this one penciled in very early for this project, as an excuse to use all the weird Polish tanks in the counter mix. And we do provide a lot of odd tanks. This time the enemy is the Red Army, and if they are not as good as the Poles (or the Germans) they certainly have better tanks.

Tank Battle
18 September 1939
With rapid advances by German units and the unexpected hostile intervention by the Soviet Union combining to shred the Polish defense plan, the Polish high command ordered its remaining troops to break out to Hungary, Romania and Lithuania. From there the soldiers were to make their way to France, and form an army in exile. Army Krakow collected all of its fuel to allow the Polish army's only true armored unit, bolstered for the occasion by a number of smaller independent tank detachments, to spearhead its attempt at the village of Tomaszow Lubelski.

Conclusion
The Poles had the best of the early fighting, but prompt reinforcements from 2nd Panzer turned the tide against them just as they seemed on the verge of success. With no other real choice, the Poles regrouped to try again.

Note: This scenario uses pieces and a board from Eastern Front and a board from Battle of the Bulge.

Design Note: I wrote a scenario based on this battle for the computer game Panzer Commander back when I worked on stuff for SSI, and it's a sharp and intense little fight in close terrain. In the computer version I got to write the dialogue, though, which was a lot of fun with the stand-up comic my old friend producer Rick Martinez hired to do the voice-over. In our version you're going to have to do your own bad German and Polish accents.

Night Action
18 September 1939
Determined to break free of German encirclement, the Warsaw brigade gathered tanks from smaller units that arrived during the afternoon and flung them all at a single point in the German lines. Poland could no longer be saved, but that did not mean Poles would stop fighting Nazis. The drive to break free and reach the exiled army remained strong among the troops, while the Germans believed victory already in their grasp.

Conclusion
The night attack caught the Germans by surprise, but they recovered quickly and this attempt also failed the break through their lines. The Poles had lost half of their Vickers tanks and tankettes in the daylight attack, and now lost all but one of the Vickers in this renewed assault. The Warsaw brigade would not last much longer.

Note: This scenario uses pieces and a board from Eastern Front and a board from Battle of the Bulge.

Design Note: I'm not as fond of the two- or three-part scenario sets that we've done in a number of games, but gamers like their tanks and this features the Polish tanks fighting at night. They have a much better chance thanks to the reduced range of German weapons in the darkness.

Train of Death
19 September 1939
The Poles had built a modern fortress at Modlin, site of their NCO school and many other facilities, to defend the approaches to Warsaw. As the Polish field armies crumbled, Army Modlin fell back on its namesake city. The armored train "Smierc" ("The Death"), a reconditioned veteran of the Austro-Hungarian Army, also retreated to the city to provide fire support. When the Germans made a probe outside the fortress supported by their own train, one of World War II's rare confrontations of these unusual weapons of war took place.

Conclusion
With the aid of the Train of Death, the Poles beat back the German assault while the German train provided artillery support to its side. Both trains fired a considerable number of rounds at each other but did little damage to their opposite numbers. Modlin would hold out until 29 September, when the fortress command surrendered and the train's crew blew up its fighting wagons.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Eastern Front, and boards from Road to Berlin and Battle of the Bulge.

Design Note: As a trained historian, which I'm told makes me a better person, I know you're on shaky ground when you call any incident "the only" such occurence. But I'm pretty sure this is the only incidence in World War II where armored trains fought each other, and that (well, that and the train's name, too) made its inclusion necessary.

Black Monday
25 September 1939
The Polish Army fought fanatically to hold Warsaw, infuriating Germany's Führer, Adolf Hitler. Hitler ordered that the Polish capital be subjected to terror attacks, and 425 bombers promptly attacked residential neighborhoods while heavy artillery targeted them as well before the troops went forward in a new round of assaults on the city's suburbs.

Conclusion
Fort Mokotow, built by the Russians in the 19th century, was no longer a modern fortification but still posed a serious obstacle. The Poles fought off the German assaults, but the terror attacks caused serious dissension in Army Warsaw's headquarters. Many officers wanted to keep fighting - they had food and ammunition for weeks of resistance, Warsaw had a sufficient garrison, the Germans had made few if any gains, and surely the French would soon move against Germany's nearly-undefended western frontier. But the Germans had already slaughtered 25,000 civilians with their deliberate attacks, and Gen. Juliusz Rommel, savior of Poland in the 1920 war with the Soviet Union, could not allow the killing to continue. The next evening he requested surrender terms, and on 27 September 140,000 Polish soldiers laid down their arms.

Note: This scenario uses a board and pieces from Eastern Front, and a board from Road to Berlin.

Design Note: The Panzer Grenadier game system doesn't handle urban fighting very well, in my own opinion at least, and we don't have the game boards to show a city anyway. But I wanted to show something from the heroic Polish defense of Warsaw, and that limited the choices to combat on the far outskirts or in an area like this one with open ground around a fortification. The Poles have fixed defenses to aid them, but the Germans get to fling an awful lot of troops into the fray and they have artillery and air support. Polish courage against German steel, the story of 1939.

Hereditary Enemy
28 September 1939
With the Soviet Union's 17 September invasion from the east, Poland's tiny hopes of holding out for an Allied offensive in the West vanished. Gen. Wilhelm Rueckemann, commander of the Polish Border Guard, gathered what troops he could from the eastern garrisons and began to march westward. The Poles soon entered a "free zone" between the German and Soviet armies, where neither entered for fear of offending the other. But with Poland collapsing around them, the troops demanded action and some began to desert in hopes of finding units still fighting the invaders. Rueckemann, believing he had to attack the invaders or watch his command dissolve, set out to find the hated Red Army. Locating the enemy near the town of Szach, he sent out mounted scouts to lure the Soviets onto prepared Polish positions.

Conclusion
The Poles blunted the Soviet attack, which blundered into prepared positions and suffered the loss of all its tanks to Polish Bofors guns. The Poles then mounted an attack of their own, capturing the Soviet regiment's headquarters with its secret papers along with nine tanks. The action does not match Soviet accounts, of course, which do not even place 52nd Rifle Division in the invasion force. And the Polish version does little to explain how Rueckemann won a crushing victory, yet reported having lost 2/3 of his strength just two days later.

Note: This scenario uses a board and pieces from Eastern Front, and boards from Road to Berlin.

Design Note: Another battle with the Red Army, this time on much more even terms. The Poles get hidden placement to help them ambush the Soviets, who on their side have overwhelming numbers plus tanks.

Borderlands
1 October 1939
Reeling away from their "victory" at Szach that cost 2/3 of their small force, the Polish border guards led by Gen. Wilhelm Rueckemann crossed the River Bug in an attempt to join up with Gen. Franciszek Kleeburg's group trying to fight their way through to Romania. Exhausted, the Poles did not march with their accustomed speed and blundered into a Soviet tank company in the dark. After a brief firefight, the tankers withdrew and the Poles moved into the town of Wytyczno. At dawn the rest of the Soviet division appeared.

Conclusion
Polish luck - if there was such a thing in 1939 - finally ran out. Wytyczno fell after fearsome house-to-house fighting, and Polish morale crumbled as one battalion refused orders to counter-attack. With artillery ammunition nearly exhausted, Rueckemann ordered his command to break up into small groups and make their way to the Polesie Corps fighting nearby. The general himself slipped back across Poland to Lithuania, and from there to Britain.

Note: This scenario uses a board and pieces from Eastern Front, and a board from Battle of the Bulge.

Design Note: Even Poles have a breaking point, and in this scenario their morale has finally sunk to low levels. The Red Army has numbers once again plus tanks, but the Poles only need to hold on long enough to let the rest of their force escape.

The Last Battle
5 October 1939
Seemingly trapped, with ammunition running low and morale fading as news of Warsaw's fall finally settled in, Gen. Franciszek Kleeburg saw only one operational choice for his Polesie Operational Group - attack and destroy part of the German force facing him as a last gesture of defiance. Meanwhile Gustav von Wietersheim of XIV Motorized Corps prepared his own attack to end Polish resistance for good.

Conclusion
Control of Adamow swung back and forth throughout the morning, but eventually the Germans secured the town and then moved into the southern flank of the cavalry brigade operating just to the north. The Polish infantry struck the flank of the flanking attack with a spirited bayonet charge of their own, but the Germans laid down a massive artillery barrage on them and the Polish artillery could make no reply. With ammunition nearly exhausted and food running out quickly, Kleeburg surrendered his command the next morning. Polish patriots still claim that the September Campaign ended with a victory, but it is a very hollow satisfaction.

Note: This scenario uses a board and pieces from Eastern Front, and boards from Road to Berlin and Battle of the Bulge.

Design Note: The Battle of Kock is one cherished by Polish patriots (a redundant phrase if ever there was one), and so it seemed necessary to include it. The Poles attack in two wings, one of infantry and one of cavalry, while the Germans counter with good morale and that ever-present artillery advantage. It's one of the larger scenarios in the set.

Poland Has Not Yet Perished
30 April 1940
Harsh reality has no meaning to the true Polish patriot. For Maj. Henry Dobrzanski of the 110th Reserve Cavalry Regiment, the capitulation of the Polish Army and destruction of the Polish state were no reasons to stop fighting the Germans. He gathered volunteers from his unit, and civilian men and women who volunteered to join them, and continued to ambush small German units for months. The government in exile ordered him to stop, to spare civilians from the brutal retaliation the Germans visited on them after every successful attack, but still Dobrzanski and his mounted partisans continued their raids. But his luck had to run out eventually, and near the village of Annielen the Germans sprang their own trap.

Conclusion
The Germans surrounded the Polish encampment and poured fire into the Poles, who desperately tried to break out to freedom. Dobrzanski and his command staff were shot and killed, and the Germans proceeded to desecrate his corpse. The body was never found.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Eastern Front and a board from Battle of the Bulge.

Design Note: I knew from the start I wanted to include a scenario from the Hubal group's lengthy campaign, and this is a small one and pretty challenging for the Poles. Whether Dobrzanski truly rates as a Polish hero is open to question: his group did little damage to the Germans and provoked widespread massacres in response to their pinprick attacks.

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