The Second Soviet-Polish War (Democritus Only)

[Orostan]

THE COLD WAR THAWS - APRIL 1990


A Soviet MiG-23 participating in recent nuclear drills near the Polish border

For forty years after victory was stolen from the USSR in the second world war by the western atom bomb the USSR had prepared for another great war. Military industries have been built up and the incorporation of Soviet China has added important resources and labor for the Soviet Union's preparations. As the western block broke up during the late fifties and sixties the USSR found itself standing alone as a super power. No alliance existed to contest it but it continued on its military course. During the late seventies and early eighties it looked very much like Chairman Chernenko or Andropov could at any time order the bombers to take off, the missiles to be launched, and the tanks and men forwards. He almost did, but in 1985 things changed a new course for the Soviet Union was planned by men from its Chinese regions like Deng Xiaoping. Negotiations in 1990 put the Soviet government led by Chairman and General Secretary Nikolai Ryzhkov in communication for the first time with Poland over peaceful trade relations and a solution to the border issue that would not require war. The men in the Politburo had (reluctantly) come to the conclusion that the world had changed while the Soviet Union did not. In late February the USSR's outreach to Poland reached an impasse, neither side would compromise over the border. Soviet negotiators insist some adjustments are required but the Poles demand immediate Soviet recognition of the border as it stands now. The Poles furthermore had begun importing weapons from the Franco-British Union while repositioning their air force and army in their own territory. Their Danubian allies did the same and even tested their own thermonuclear bomb in a significant escalation of tensions.

As a display of strength the Soviet Union marshaled together several hundred bombers and escorts carrying nuclear weapons to make mock nuclear attacks against Poland, as they did frequently. However on the fifth of April a nervous Polish air defense crew fired a missile which flew over the border and struck down a bomber over Soviet airspace. The missile position which launched that missile was immediately annihilated with a missile shot out by the bomber's escorts but the damage had been done. Early the next morning, fearing a war, the Poles attacked first. Over one hundred aircraft were destroyed on the ground in the largest air raid since the second world war. In only a few hours there was fighting across the border as both sides made use of their long preparations. Bases near the Polish border were struck with tactical missiles and the Soviet Union immediately began a campaign to suppress Polish air defense and take control of the skies with initial success. Both sides are launching probing attacks against the other and international observers cannot tell which side has the upper hand.

The first month of the war consisted of probing attacks, shelling, and many missiles being fired. Air raid sirens go off in towns belonging to both sides though Polish towns are the more likely to be struck by the hundreds of cruise missiles deployed by the USSR against railyards, bridges, bases, and enemy positions. Information about what is happening is limited but it is known that the Poles are calling up reservists and their Danubian allies are rushing to help them at the front. Their Greek allies as well if they can get past the Soviet Black Sea fleet.

Soviet Army T-72s in action during late April.

The Poles, not risking large air battles, do not contest Soviet control of the skies except for short interception missions. The constant firing of missiles at their bases does not make it easier, and the presence of Soviet electronic warfare further clouds the skies. Polish air defense is not doing better and must carefully choose when to turn on its radar and what aircraft to intercept. Soviet cruise missiles make enticing and easy targets but close to the front there is always an aircraft with an anti-radiation weapon waiting for the Poles to try it. Poland is doing better on the ground and its mobile anti-aircraft guns make it an exceptional risk for the Soviets to use slow attack aircraft or helicopters without excellent support. Able to hide in forests and quickly move these AA guns make difficult targets when used well and are completely unlike the artillery and armored vehicles the Soviet air force or artillery is destroying more effectively.

Despite a clear advantage at the end of the first month the Soviets take losses, with their helicopters taking heavy losses whenever they are deployed. Their tanks are similarly having difficulty and despite ample support the Poles had prepared for forty years not to attack the USSR but to defend themselves from it. There are many Soviet tank and armored vehicles wrecked but they usually have been spent well to secure the area in front of them and create a similar number of Polish wrecks. The first month of open war sees the Poles lose border areas in Belarus, but in Ukraine and Latvia the Soviet army does not cross the Daugava or Dnieper rivers behind which the Poles are well entrenched. The Soviets believe that direct western intervention in the war is a high possibility and have put their nuclear arsenal on the highest alert. They also believe the Poles are deliberately avoiding battles in hope of waiting for that help to arrive. The nominally reform minded Chairman Ryzhkov has confided with his generals, the Presidium, and the Politburo that the enemy should be pushed as far as they can go and that what perhaps began as a border dispute and accident should end as a Soviet victory in a conventional war. None believe the Poles will actually use their nuclear bombs, a decision that certainly would end their empire, to defend their non-polish eastern territories. However the position of the French, British, Japanese, and even KMT governed China is another issue and even though the KGB's eyes are focused west today, they may need to focus on the far east should the war escalate.

[Nowa Polonie]

''WE WILL BURY YOU IN HISTORY''

April 1990 - Amid (failing) negotiations with the Soviets to finally cease their decades-long practice of launching near-attacks into Polish Airspace, a Polish SAM crew listens to their radio, broadcasting a report of that day's negotiations; after a barbed comment from the Polish delegation, rebuking any adjustment of the border as unacceptable, and making an unfavorable comparison between the two countries; 'Poland's state is owned by her citizens, and not vice versa, and it will act accordingly'. Feeling slighted by the statement, the Soviet delegation bursts into jeers, and the radio broadcasts the final statement by the Soviets made before negotiations ended early that day; ''WE WILL BURY YOU IN HISTORY!'', he loudly proclaims across the floor, sending both delegations into a cacophony of shouting.

As the news-reader speaks of anti-War demonstrations across Prague, and even at home, the crew detect a signature - an incoming Soviet bomber formation, potentially including nuclear-capable strategic bombers; it's a large signature, and getting larger. As it comes within several kilometres of the border, it does not stop - the gunner asks for clarification on whether to fire, the officer mutters something about them turning away. They continue to close distance. The Soviets, perhaps thinking to push the envelope after a day of spoiled talks, perhaps thinking to get closer than they ever previously had as a show of strength, perhaps, even, intending to finally cross the frontier, come within several hundred metres of Polish airspace, before a missile flies out from a forest on the other side of the border, rapidly closing the distance, and sending down a Soviet bomber on the other side of the border.

Immediately, escort craft attached to the bomber fire off anti-radar missiles in retaliation, and before a second missile can be sent off towards them, a Polish anti-air installation within its own borders is just as quickly destroyed by the Soviets. Within minutes, the military comms on both sides of the frontier are on fire with activity, within the hour, both governments have assembled emergency meetings, and on the border, small patrols and border guards have begun to fire at each other from across the border; incidents are too common to identify the antagonists in individual cases - small-arms fire is eventually joined by initially small use of artillery, but it clear to both sides that the genie is out of the bottle.

The Polish Military and Intelligence agencies both argue that a pre-emptive strike before a complete escalation is the most preferable military option if the military situation is going to have any hope of success; allowing the Soviets to inevitably mobilize first, and to land the first serious blows, could potentially be disastrous. An air-raid, composed of virtually every aircraft in the Polish Air Force, and supported with an aggressive use of artillery and cruise-missiles to target Soviet military installations along Belarus' border was tabled, and within hours, organised and executed with the intention of destroying Soviet Airforce assets located along the border; in a single attack lasting nearly two hours, Polish Airforces, and later cruise missiles, damaged or destroyed over a hundred of their Soviet counterparts, either on the ground, taking off, or in dog-fights between Polish escort-fighters and Soviet air-patrols. In a night of chaos, though the war had already started in practice, Poland gave to the world the first images of what it would look like, and Soviet televisions broadcast footage of firefighters silhoueted against burning aircraft hangers. Polish Intelligence Services have indicated that in their estimation, a similar attack by the Soviet Union on Poland was pre-empted 'by a matter of hours'.



As dawn broke the day after the attack, official declarations of war followed - Poland and the Soviet Union for the third time in less than Century, finding themselves locked in a deadly struggle. Despite a novel use of aggressive surprise attacks in the initial hours and days of the war, Poland is of course on the back-foot; while its domestic forces can, with time allowed for full mobilization, hope to offset the greatest extent of the Soviet superiority in manpower at the front, it cannot ever match it for raw numbers of war materiale, and while Polish troops continue to offer admirable resistance, they cannot feasibly hold territory; within days, Poland's military position is one of a fighting retreat - a very hard-fought fighting retreat - and while Soviet advance units now pour into the country, they are still consistently met by prepared ambushes, and many Soviet troops enter the theatre driving past the burnt remains of a friendly convoy, in many places often joined by Polish wrecks as well.

Poland has immediately appealed to the international community to provide humanitarian and military assistance, with the President making desperate appeals to neighbours to provide whatever support of politically possible for them - adding that he understood that recent events placed an immense economic strain on countries around the world, but that 'the growth of Soviet hegemony will only mean this will only happen again in future, and it will be worse.'', adding that actions by the Arab Federation indicated that Soviet 'tolerance' towards the rogue actions of countries attempting to profit from the economic disruption caused by the conflict adding 'Soviet and Arab oil is now stained with blood.'.

Other News:

The Polish Red Cross desperately appeals for international humanitarian support
Soviet Forces cross Daugav River after skirmishes
Odessa recieves overnight 'hail' of missile strikes

[Orostan]

OPERATION SHEREMETEV - THE 1990 BELARUSIAN STRATEGIC OFFENSIVE OPERATION
MAY 1990


Long range Su-27 aircraft escort bombing missions flying across the border.

The Soviet Union estimates that it will take at least seven months until bombing campaigns can reliably be mounted against Warsaw and other cities deep within Poland. This is not an excuse not to try other bombing campaigns however, and as success against Polish air defense results in less attempts at interception and detection the USSR is able to use its bombers to launch supersonic but shorter range missiles at targets deeper into Poland by flying over the border. Every raid like this, usually involving between fifty and seventy five aircraft including escorts, is accompanied by SEAD missions occurring at lower altitude and a wave of cruise missile attacks designed to distract what is left of enemy air defense. Rather than believing the Polish air defense is already destroyed the Soviets instead take the view that the Poles are conserving what assets they do have to defend from larger raids in the future aimed at infrastructure not only critical to the war effort but the functioning of the Polish war economy. The Soviet air defense force on the other hand so far has observed only limited Polish attempts to fire missiles over the border, and as a Soviet offensive pushes the front line west the USSR believes the Poles cannot spare the equipment to launch attacks against border infrastructure, although artillery shelling and missile strikes have already caused unfortunate Soviet civilian casualties.

Soviet aircraft and helicopters were deployed near the end of April as the intensity of fighting increased as the first line of Polish defense was penetrated, and Polish anti-air guns have so far preformed well and prevented much close support from being deployed, however the Soviets will frequently use the tactic of sending in a group of lower value aircraft or rotorcraft as bait, with other aircraft standing by to drop bombs the moment tracers are seen flying up from the trees. The absence of the Polish air force in the north except for brief interception missions has also allowed the Soviet navy to begin attempting to destroy the Polish fleet in the Baltic. Although the Poles have a much smaller fleet in the Baltic than the USSR does and the same is true for the Black sea this does not mean that their fleet is not a threat, and so far with strikes on port facilities and Polish ships on patrol the Soviets hope to end that threat. The Polish air force likewise despite being heavily outnumbered is targeted by missile and air strike to force it west and lengthen its response times and the warning that the USSR has when its bombers are intercepted. Air losses overall have declined since the start of the war and it is known to international observers now that the air war is firmly in the USSR's favor. The ground war is a different story.

A camouflaged tank prepares to leave its position and join an attack with the rest of its unit.

On the ground the Soviet attack is divided into two sections. The first is the northern attack which has already crossed the Daugava river at several points and aims to protect the Soviet attack into Belarus. Just prior to the war deception efforts had been carried out to attempt to fool the Poles into believing that Kaunas would be the first major target of the war and that the USSR would first attempt to secure Lithuania before launching its large attacks into Belarus. It is likely this effort had some effect on the Polish preparations but regardless when Soviet soldiers reach the first real defensive line the Poles established they encounter heavy resistance. The Poles have built extensive fortifications and even planned farms and forests around providing the best possible defense against Soviet attack. Knowing this and perhaps overestimating the Polish preparations, heavy artillery barrages and massed tank and infantry assaults are made to overcome these defenses. This takes time and unknown to Soviet commanders will cost extra lives, as the USSR does not deploy its best units in the most intense fighting because it believes the Polish defenses would cause them unacceptable casualties even if they would actually take more severe losses by not using their elite units to break the Polish front. In some sectors where the fighting is so intense as to force Soviet retreats, T-80 tanks and elite mechanized infantry are employed with good results although the Soviet government which believes the war will last as long as two years is not prepared to expend its most valuable assets in large numbers so quickly. The possibility of direct intervention by Japan, KMT governed China, and the Franco-British Union is also not currently discounted and the best assets the Soviet army has must be preserved for that eventuality.

Despite using only the standard T-72 tanks which are only slightly better than the average Polish tank at best the Soviet Union employs them in overwhelming numbers. Poland has about two thousand tanks in active service according to Soviet estimates. The number of T-72 model tanks alone on the Soviet side reserved for the war is eight thousand. There is never a battle in which the Soviets do not outnumber the Poles at least two or three times over and although the Poles have prepared defensive position after position to retreat to and endless stocks of ammunition and anti-tank rockets. Artillery bombardments must be kept up for days to cause the enemy serious damage and that involves losses of Soviet artillery due to enemy counter-battery fire and difficult to intercept tactical missiles even though their guns risk an even heavier response and their missile launchers are most often destroyed from the air shortly after revealing their position. When the enemy seems broken and retreats they leave behind small detachments to delay the Soviets and try to prevent quick exploitation of their broken defense. When the army is able to penetrate those defenses anyways they find another row of bunkers and defensive positions waiting for them, each more hardened and well defended than the last. It has become apparent that Poland was preparing for defensive war rather than an offensive war. The forward positions of western imperialism against the Soviet Union seem to have been just that - forward positions which fell back to better positions when threatened.

[Nowa Polonie]

May, 1990 - Poland's Patriotic War

As Poland enters the second month of its conflict against the Soviet juggernaut, it finds itself beleaguered - it is often said that no plan survives contact with the enemy; it may also be said that no degree of preparation can prevent what cannot be prepared for. As Soviet missile barrages have battered infrastructure across the country, especially in the besieged East, the Polish military, which once could boast of being able to move a division over hundreds of miles, from its Occident to its Orient, in only a day and a night, now finds its troops reduced to a style of fighting perhaps not too unfamiliar to that of their grandfathers before them; fuel is of premium importance in the supply of every and any unit, but strategic reserves can only service so much of the army, and more importantly, with deteriorating conditions, can only reach so much of the army.

However, for the first time, Soviet troops have met in battle Poland's fighting allies in the Danubians, who's own forces have begun to trickle into the theatre, with increasing escalation likely to lead to tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of third-party combatants involved in what is, in essence, a border-war between Poland and the USSR. Danubia's land forces are naturally joined by their strategic air defenses, and while the situation for soldiers on the frontline is quite unlikely to change; namely, Soviet air domination cannot, and will not, be broken - the Polish Government and people can sleep somewhat more soundly knowing that the West of the country, which is home to not only the greatest portion of its population, but an evergrowing population of refugees from the East, is more secure from conventional attack from the air. Additionally, extra-national support from entities such as the FBU, while in effect token, have played some part in freeing additional elements of the Polish Reserve Army for service on the frontlines.



While Soviet forces continue to advance into Poland, checked wherever possible by the Polish Army and their allies, they have met in many areas something unexpected, and perhaps to many of them, unfamiliar - the sight of peaceful civilian protest. In cities, towns and villages where Russian troops advance, and where they occupy, they find themselves harried, obstructed, and verbally harassed by the local residents - some block roads with their bodies, others remind soldiers that they will not be alive to enjoy the medals they'll recieve for their 'heroism', some appeal to them to simply return home to their mothers. All the same, for an army that anticipated its role to one of liberation in a 'colony' of 'Western imperialism', they have found that many of the residents that the house that Poland's government has built over the past Century, have found it to be one they find accomodating; more surprisingly still, many movements and political groups that had previously called for a de-coupling of their respective countries from the Polish project, have set aside the objective of secession from Poland, and rallied to the cause of resisting the perceived return of Russian hegemony. Though farmers blocking roads with their tractors will not stop the Soviet advance, in ways armed or otherwise, much of the Polish population seems to be rallying to the cause of resisting the Soviet advance, with whatever means they can.



On the strategic level, Polish planners were taken off-guard by the scale and degree of preparation made by Soviet counter-parts in regards to the Baltic region - it was unthinkable before the war that Soviet troops would enter Lithuania proper within weeks of the war starting, though many Lithuanian towns and cities now in earnest find themselves the sites of ongoing occupations and battles. They count their blessings, then, that local resistance has been especially fierce, and civilian and irregular forces in the area blur the lines of engagement for many Soviet units; civilians pay the price for every hour saved when their village becomes the rendered sacrifice for a halted Soviet column. Local counter-attacks, strongly reinforced by elements of the Polish Reserve Army, operating well within range of what is considered Polish 'heartland' territory, offer to Soviet advance elements possibly the first battles of the war where they face an enemy near force-parity, and while it is clear that on the frontlines, Soviet advances will continue, across the board, without great issue, it is likewise apparent that Poland's military is prepared to mobilize with surprising energy to defend major metropoles, and more importantly, regional-national capitals; beyond the simple military arithmetic of war, for any European capital to come under as great a military attack as this war would bring, it would indelibly mark forever their landscape and populace, a fate that the Polish Government is determined to (attempt) to prevent. For Vilnius, Minsk, and Kiev, so far, this has been successful.

Though, with the first-month yielding tens of thousands of casualties in its own right, it would now be proper for most to say that the Third Polish-Soviet War has begun in earnest, and, unlike the prior two examples, it is not the Polish who are advancing, and it appears that the peace will not be one where the Polish diminish, or appear to diminish, the position of their rivals; in short, for every day, week, month, that Poland and her few allies fight alone, for as long they continue to must challenge the Soviet Invasion without true external support, the further the Soviets advance, and the more it will become self-evident;

The Soviets Continue to Advance on Europe...

[Lendenburgh]

The Scourge of the Danube

Operation Rachegötter
5 May, 1990

Soviet incursions into Belarus were a definite escalation over the border conflicts which had taken place over the previous few months. The Danubian military, aside from the political posturing, could no longer tolerate the open violation of its allies' sovereignty. The birthday of Karl Marx was chosen as an ironic opportunity to launch two deadly, if costly, offensives to keep the Soviet advances at bay and give Polish defensive lines more time to reinforce. The Danubian ground forces had never been typical, with a disproportionate amount of special forces, mountaineers, defensive regiments, and anti-armor/air companies. The conscripted personnel which formed the bulk of the Danubian military's manpower hadn't been called up- instead, several regiments of special forces were activated to deliver debilitating strikes on advanced Soviet assets.

British designs for a stealthy helicopter were mentioned to Danubian arms negotiants in London as soon as the conflict in Eastern Europe erupted... not that intelligent assets from Vienna hadn't been observing the developments of the Westland company for years. Given the opportunity to acquire prototype stealth helicopters from the British, Danubian military planners eagerly got to work on a feasible use to accomplish their strategic objective of delaying the Soviet offensive. Ultimately, a concealed strike on the naval base at Sevastopol was deemed to be the most efficient use of these assets. Two of the stealth helicopters would deliver a teams of 14 soldiers each north of the Port of Sevastopol, from which point they would scuba dive to plant explosives on the underside of several vessels in the 5th Operational squadron. The main target would be the aircraft carrier Kiev, with several Tapir-class landing vessels and two Kirvak-class frigates also being identified as targets. While the sinking of the aircraft carrier would be a long-term strategic advantage, there were no current Polish air operations over the Black Sea that it would benefit. Instead, the main purpose of the operation would be to distract Soviet ground forces and preempt any possible naval strike on the coast of Polish Ruthenia.

Snake Island (острів Змії́ний), Black Sea

A 28 man platoon was detached from the 1st Special Infantry Company "Marena's Own"- trained in remote arctic locales, the deserts of French Africa, and the jungles of the Angolan revolution, they were undoubtedly the most elite the Danubian Army had to offer. Under the cover of darkness, the partially silenced helicopters took off from a small island in the middle of the Black sea, making a beeline for the area North of Sevastopol. Before the sun rose, the dull thump of the blades and the crash of waves close below finally gave way to the brown sands of Crimea. Luckily, the low flying and radar sheilding had prevented being spotted by Soviet coastal defenses, but it was hard to avoid the police patrols, night workers, and maintenance men of the seaside town seeing dozens of dark figures pour out onto the beach. As a few began to secure the seaside streets with silenced weapons, to try and delay their discovery as long as possible, the others began to suit up in scuba gear.

Once they were in gear, they could theoretically walk down the beach as close to the port as the military would let any civilian, but well before that point several men would slip into the shallow water, strapped with PETN-based explosives made moldable with paraffin instead of plastics to be waterproof and still stick to the underside of the Soviet vessels. Of course, nothing ever goes to plan...

03:35 - before Sunrise
Word had, unfortunately, reached the naval base in Sevastopol that "several large seal-men were walking down the beach," yet strangely none of their patrols were reporting back. This panic was realized by the platoon which neared the base, when several alarms and PA systems were heard over the sounds of the sea at the breaking of dawn. Radioing back to the helicopters, the decision was made to extract fuel from one into the other so it could make the return trip to Snake island, while the other would land directly on top of the aircraft carrier- under power, or not.

As the fourteen men slipped under the water and began using their hours' supply of oxygen, the dull thump of the helicopter could be heard overhead. Though it had no weapons, when it careened directly into one of the control antennae of the carrier Kiev, then promptly landed on top of several anti-ship missiles and caused a large explosion... it sure served as one hell of as distraction. The Soviets were unable to identify if the helicopter was friendly in the dark, with several of the ships' auto-cannons firing at the shadowy figure approaching. When a bullet hit the rotor, there wasn't much the anti-radar shielding could do to keep the helo from going down on top of the ship. Machine gun fire erupted pointed at the bottom of the aircraft carrier from different ships, the Soviets probably suspected fast landing craft had infiltrated the harbor, but the explosives had already been planted and began to go off. Massive holes were ripped in the side of the ship as a soldier pressed his detonator in panic. Several landing craft across the harbor would also see explosions, the three men who had planted them barely having time to get away, but having no chance of escaping Soviet authorities...

Operation Erblassen
Kupovate (Куповате), Polish Ruthenia

The regular infantry of the same 1st Special Infantry division were assigned to carry out a tactical strike on Soviet supply lines. A vanguard of the Soviet army had taken up a position at Hdzyen, but the thick marshes at the convergence of Ukraine's two great rivers were obscuring the Danubian forces as they prepared. The large cooling towers of the Chernobyl nuclear plant loomed in the distance, where the armored column would cross into the cover of the forest further upstream. Infantrymen in gilly-suits would make the first advances across the marshes of the Pripyat river. Around 80 M-84 Main Battle Tanks upgraded with Western/Yugoslav components would be supporting the infantry. Though they were essentially ripoff T-72's the upgrades to the sensors and gun made them particularly deadly to any unmodernized Soviet counterparts. Polish defensive positions would be given more time to organize as the strategic supply link from the major city of Chernihiv to the Soviet forces in the Gomel district of Belarus would be cut for a few days to a week, slowing their offensive. It wouldn't impact the strategic outcome of the front, but it would buy crucial minutes for supplies to be brought up and take pressure off Polish reserve forces. A secondary objective for the advancing unit would be to destroy the bridge over the Dnipro river at Kirovo, to further delay supplies. Ultimately the Danubians would serve as a potent distraction for Soviet airpower and armor reinforcements which would otherwise be used to penetrate further into the Polish defensive lines.

[Orostan]

OPERATION BUDYONNY - THE TELSIAI AND BABRUYSK OFFENSIVES
JUNE 1990


A Soviet T-80 tank in a forward base.

When Operation Sheremetev fulfills its primary objectives of smashing front line Polish defenses and breaking down the enemy's mobility, it is viewed as completed on the 5th of June after just over a month of continuous action. Soviet troops are now able to pass through the initial lines of Polish defense and begin fighting the enemy in areas where fortifications are not as built up. To take advantage of this more of the Soviet force must be committed however, and the Poles have prepared their rear well for what they had to know was coming. The Soviet commanders are cautious, and make breakthroughs in Belarus and Lithuania with overwhelming numbers and ample air support while surrounding fortified cities before making efforts to storm them. Barysaw in Belarus only falls after being encircled and attacked from multiple directions, and Riga meets a similar fate. The capture of all of Latvia comes soon after the fall of Riga but most Polish troops are able to withdraw from the Courland and only limited numbers are encircled and captured. The next major battle on the Baltic front would be in Lithuania at Siauliai and it would also be the first place where the Soviet Army encountered intense partisan warfare. After a battle lasting five days the Poles were forced to withdraw from the city or risk encirclement but when Soviet tanks and men entered the city they found their way blocked by unarmed civilians. For several hours soviet tanks were stopped in the street as soldiers tried to disperse civilians by firing over their heads with guns or physically pushing them out of the way, but on the northern approach to the city what was peaceful resistance quickly turned violent. It only took one molotov cocktail from the crowd soldiers to panic and open fire on civilians. This would fortunately be the only massacre to occur in Siauliai, but other places were not so lucky. The town of Telsiai had an abundance of weapons but few territorial defense soldiers available and when the Soviets arrived they found enemy combatants and civilians impossible to distinguish. After two failed assaults interrupted by civilians with anti-tank weapons, the entire settlement was leveled by artillery bombardment. The objective to capture it was fulfilled on schedule - but there was not much left to capture after it was done.

It was necessary soon to change the rules of engagement and allow increased civilian casualties to keep up the invasion schedule. Leaflets had been dropped across Lithuania and Belarus, and messages distributed by radio warning against civilian resistance soon after the rules of engagement were changed but these had little effect on civilian resistance which even this close to the border was proving much greater than the Soviets anticipated although in Belarus so far the Poles could not rely on large peaceful demonstrations. Babruysk falls to the Soviet Union with the only non-military response being partisans who flee into forests without mounting a defense inside the city due to insufficient numbers. Due to a Danubian led counter attack which the Soviets had repelled in the north of Ukraine the Soviet vanguard had been delayed but at the same time their artillery and helicopter support was believed to have inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy who both not only had to cross a marsh to attack but had to cross it to retreat after their raid was done. Although the counter attack was small and repelled after initial limited enemy success the Soviets now believed they should try and draw Polish and Danubian resources away from Belarus and into Ukraine. To do this they began a series of military and air bombardments across the Dnieper river for a week and then attempted crossings in a number of locations in the south of Ukraine. The Kiev area, being the most heavily defended, was only bombarded and there were no attempts to cross the river there. The Soviet crossings incurred high casualties but were able to secure footholds in the Kherson and Dnipro areas although were not willing to commit the resources to expand them in an area where the Polish defense was interpreted to be much stronger than in Belarus or the Baltic regions. The function of these attacks were to divert enemy resources rather than take ground.

A Tu-95 bomber returns to base after launching missiles at Polish infrastructure targets

With the destruction of many Polish radar stations and the Poles forced to rely on mobile radar systems for surface to air missile targeting, the Soviet Union would begin launching waves of missiles to force Polish air defense to open fire on them and reveal their positions to SEAD aircraft before formations of bombers flew over the area. Sometimes these waves of missiles would be not be accompanied by cross-border bomber flights and they functioned to force the enemy to reveal their air defense positions for SEAD aircraft and missiles. It was believed that the Poles would always aim to hold a portion of their air defense units in reserve, so the largest cross border bombing raids that were aimed at firing supersonic missiles at enemy cities and infrastructure frequently only attacked after several waves of missiles and always just after the last one. Soviet bomber losses had occurred but the accompanying of aircraft carrying anti-radiation missiles and electronic warfare equipment helped to greatly limit them. The Soviet bombing campaign and missile bombardment would only intensify and reach further into Poland as the USSR began to feel more secure in its control of the air.

[Nowa Polonie]

THE FIGHTING RETREAT CONTINUES

THE BATTLES FOR THE CITIES BEGIN

POLAND continues to fight bravely, and to endure the withering and total barrage of Soviet military power set against it - but the defense is failing, and for week after week, they continue to advance Westwards. For the first time for many of Poland's major Eastern cities, war has arrived directly as the Soviets have begun the encirclement of cities like Minsk, Vilnius and Gomel - in Ukraine, Soviet bridgeheads are met with resistance, but with each fresh attempt, they face less and less, and more and more they have made it passed Poland's main riverine defensive line - until now, Poland has used the greatest measure of its army's mobile armoured forces in the task of checking Soviet advances across the river, though steady attrition has brought their numbers to a critcal level; the residents of cities like Kiev and Odessa brace themselves to join other cities across the country in playing host to their Soviet neighbours.



Standing for its final sentry, a Polish tank lies by the wayside after its final counter-attack - while negotiations with the Arab Federation have offset the greatest degree of Poland's fuel shortages throughout the war, it is a likely fate for Poland's remaining tank commanders to find themselves miles from help when their engines burn the last drop, and the gun fires its final shell.

With the Soviet Union achieving air supremacy over virtually the entire East of the country due to devestating and steady losses to Polish air defenses throughout the duration of the war, missile strikes have increased in their range and frequency in reaching further and further into Polish territory, with successful strikes on targets even in the far-West of Poland beginning to be reported - in four months, the Soviet juggernaut has systematically destroyed much of the materiale set against it by the Polish Army - one of the largest and well-supplied forces in the world.

However, Poland is not yet lost, and indeed, she still fights on fiercely - in some areas of armed resistance to Soviet occupation, it would indeed seem as if the further West the Soviets drive, the greater the mounting resistance they face in already-occupied areas. While the Soviet military possesses a massive infrastructure of supply, it also faces a massive geographic area - for the first time, Soviet units have faced issues of supply sometimes comparable to their Polish counterparts; though this is mostly true of the Baltics, where relatively high population density, and a strong anti-Soviet public impulse, tied up with a series of ongoing city-battles, have seen some Soviet units operating independently and without supply for days at a time, as the intersection of rural and suburban irregular warfare, urban assaults and encirclements, and ongoing Soviet pushes even further South into the heart of Poland see the area continue to show perhaps the fiercest localised fighting of the war.



The Baltic Region has seen what is likely the most horrific irregular warfare witnessed in modern European military history - generations of national enmity, political differences and a starkly Russophobic population, galvanized by the Polish Army's continued 'stay-behind' campaign of irregular warfare being waged in the Soviet rear, has seen Lithuania, despite presenting perhaps the quickest route directly to Poland, provide more resistance than some in the Polish High Command had even predicted.

Since the beginning of the war, Poland has returned to a prior tradition of military government, and while the Polish civilian government continues to operate the majority of organs of auxiliary administration, international diplomacy and other spheres outside of the military struggle, the greatest measure of political power now rests on the lap of the Army. Poland's Marshall Jaruzelski, the most prominent public figure among the emergent new wartime military government, has been the first to join Polish politicians in directly appealing to the West; though underneath shoulderboards, behind his trademark sunglasses, his communiques to the West take on the tone of threats - not appeals. Threats that if they should continue to stand-by while 'Poland is bled white', that while Poland will be the first to fight the Soviets, they will not be the last - ''The Paris of the West will share the fate of her sister in the East.'', he has remarked, ''Let us hope she stands.''



Towns and cities in ruins - lives destroyed - the Polish state is fighting for what seems to be its very existence, and even while Minsk, Vilnius, and perhaps soon even Kiev, face Soviet attack, there has been no word of a ceasefire. Warsaw itself may soon be under direct threat - the world holds its breath and asks itself if the Soviets take the capital of another European nation, if they will stop there? For the Poles, the answer is obvious, and they continue to fight accordingly.

[Orostan]

THE SIEGE OF MINSK AND BATTLE OF VILNIUS
JULY 1990


Soviet tanks ambushed by Poles in the outskirts of Minsk.

Soviet advances have brought them into the Belarusian city of Minsk and allowed them to begin encircling Vilnius by the end of the month. The fighting over Minsk in particular has been brutal, with the Soviets having to invest significant resources in securing bridgeheads into the denser sections of the city where the enemy is entrenched and hides in tunnels linked to the city's sewer system when artillery rains down from above. Furthermore they draw on bunkers full of supplies and weapons which are nearly impossible to detect from the air and are being used to arm reservists and civilians within the city to swell the defenders numbers. There is similar resistance in Vilnius and other cities that have been encircled. Although there are cities falling daily to the Soviets the advance continues to be made cautiously. Continuing the pre-war trend of overestimating Poland, military planners continue to believe that the Poles are keeping a significant number of their best men and equipment in reserve in hope of western intervention. Even though the political leadership of the USSR has begun to alter the political and by extension military objectives of the war the subtle changes in the Soviet method of war in Poland are almost invisible. The pace of the Soviet advance through the Baltics is not sped up despite the requests of many lower level commanders for several reasons. Although they are now authorized to use artillery more freely against enemies taking shelter in urban areas, the pace of advance is kept slower than it could be due to the Soviet view that over extending themselves in any part of the front would invite a counter-attack by Polish forces held in reserve. The VDV however is allowed to strike targets deeper into Poland than it was before due to the weakened enemy air defense and some strategic towns tens of kilometers from the front find themselves taken by Soviet helicopter borne troops in the night or early hours of the day. Although they are almost always immediately attacked by territorial defense troops and armed civilians in many cases, only one side has air support and is armed with enough night vision technology. Attacks in Ukraine face the most heavy resistance out of any part of the front as this is where Danubian aid arrives first and where Polish troops have seen the least combat. Despite that resistance the Soviet Army is able to secure territory near Kiev and begin attempts to link its bridgeheads across the Dnieper with each other. The opening of a new front in Ukraine promises to draw away Polish resources from their reserves or from other fronts where they are needed just as much. Polish artillery, already very depleted, is not able to match or effectively counter Soviet artillery in many parts of the front any longer and this results in heavier and lengthier Soviet bombardments. Some cities, particularly in parts of the front where Soviet commanders have been given much freer use of their artillery assets, find themselves looking unrecognizable after prolonged bombardments designed to force defenders out or outright destroy them.

A Soviet armored personnel carrier traveling with a convoy through western Latvia.

The Soviet army by this point has degraded the enemy's mobility so much that encirclement are becoming more common and the Polish Army frequently draws on civilian trucks or other vehicles to make up for losses. Despite communications being similarly affected the Polish army continues to retreat in good order where it is possible to do so in the Baltics and in Belarus where even units totally disconnected from their commanders are well led enough to retreat properly. Increasingly where the risk of encirclement is high Polish soldiers will abandon difficult to conceal armored vehicles and heavy equipment to join "stay behind" groups beginning a partisan campaign in the Soviet rear. Although partisans have been unable to tie up large amounts of resources they have forced Soviet trucks to travel in convoys and caused the start of a campaign to remove anti-soviet populations in strategic areas, particularly in the Jewish Republic where confusing Hebrew signage and anti-communism have caused a large degree of resistance. Several towns have already been "relocated" to Kazakhstan or eastern Belarus and Ukraine where there is little chance they can cause problems to the Soviet war effort. Soviet rail logistics, aided by the capture of a large number of standard gauge locomotives and rolling stock, has been able to move tens of thousands of anti-communist villages away from zones designated as strategically important by Soviet commanders. While in some cases this has severed to grow anti-soviet resistance, the depopulation of towns denies the partisans critical local support and potential bases. It forces them deeper into forests and the countryside where there are fewer targets and fewer supplies for them. The worst resistance to the Soviet occupation apart from the Jewish Republic is within areas the Soviets call western Belarus but the Poles call eastern Poland. They entered this area not long after passing Minsk, and the high Polish population continues to be an obstacle. Although civilian resistance does occur to the Soviets it is nearly indistinguishable from partisan resistance. An unarmed man blocking a tank column can and does often quickly turn into an enemy ambush and civilian obstruction that was once tolerated is now treated harshly and those that participate in it are charged with aiding partisan banditry.

Su-27 long range fighters fly escort missions for Soviet bombers targeting Poland and Danubia.

With the entry of the whole of Danubia into the war and the already weakened state of Polish and Danubian air defenses, it is now possible for targets across Poland and parts of Danubia to be regularly and more heavily bombed by the Soviet air force. Runways that host interception aircraft are cratered and industrial targets in cities are level bombed regularly. The day Danubia announced its full entry into the war Vienna and Bratislava were bombed by the Soviet airforce in raids targeting rail infrastructure and as the fourth month of the war wore on these bombing raids only became heavier and more severe. With the depletion of Polish air defense and the flow of not insignificant numbers of Danubian troops into Poland the Soviet air force has been targeting infrastructure and industrial targets. Rail yards in Ukraine have been bombed, and groups of Danubians crossing the border quickly understand that by exposing themselves they risk attack. Although the Poles and Danubians employ western MANPADs and creative air defense tactics the amount of Soviet bombers they are able to stop is always decreasing and as runways are cratered in Danubia and Poland the amount of interceptors which can be flown against bomber groups and their escorts similarly decreases. For the first time since the second world war entire cities are subject to air bombing. The air force in conjunction with the Soviet navy has also been able to sink several Polish frigates and smaller patrol craft at sea and force the Poles to move their naval assets to the west where Soviet aircraft are not omnipresent and are more vulnerable to air defense.