Game of the Week, May 4-10

From May 4 through May 10, this week’s Game of the Week is Panzer Campaigns: Poland ’39, on sale for 25% off. This is the first time the title has been discounted since release, making it a good moment to step into the opening campaign of the Second World War on the Panzer Campaigns scale.

Poland ’39 takes players to the September Campaign of 1939, when Germany’s invasion from the west and north was followed by Soviet intervention from the east. It is a campaign often reduced to the word “Blitzkrieg,” but the reality was more complex: improvised Polish counterattacks, stubborn fortress and city defenses, long operational marches, air attacks, armored thrusts, river lines, collapsing communications, and armies trying to hold together under pressure from every direction.

The First Campaign of the Second World War

When German forces crossed the Polish frontier on 1 September 1939, Europe entered a war whose scale and consequences few could yet imagine. The invasion of Poland was not a border incident or a limited punitive expedition. It was a coordinated campaign planned to destroy the Polish state as a military and political actor, and it marked the beginning of the Second World War in Europe.

The strategic position of Poland was perilous from the start. The country lay between two hostile powers that had only recently agreed, in secret, to divide much of eastern Europe between them. The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939 shocked the diplomatic world, but its secret protocol mattered even more for Poland. It removed the immediate danger of a two-front war for Hitler and left Poland exposed to attack from both west and east. Britain and France had guaranteed Polish independence, but geography meant that any immediate Allied help would be indirect. Poland would have to fight the opening phase largely alone.

“Ebbene, Ribbentrop,” gli chiesi passeggiando nel giardino al suo fianco, “che cosa volete? Il Corridoio o Danzica?”
“Ormai non più”, e mi sbarrò addosso quei suoi freddi occhi da Museo Grévin, “vogliamo la guerra.”

“Well, Ribbentrop,” I asked him, while we were walking in the garden, “What do you want? The Corridor or Danzig?” “Not any more, . . .” and he stared at me through those cold Musee Grevin eyes, “We want war.”

Galeazzo Ciano’s diary entry for August 11, 1939, used at Nuremberg as document 2987-PS from Ciano, Galeazzo. The Ciano Diaries, 1939-1943. Edited by Hugh Gibson. New York: Doubleday, 1946.

Germany’s plan, Fall Weiss, aimed at rapid destruction. German forces attacked from several directions: from East Prussia in the north, from Pomerania and Silesia in the west, and from Slovakia in the south. The Polish armed forces were deployed forward, partly for political reasons and partly to defend key population centers and industrial regions. This gave them a chance to contest the frontier, but it also exposed many formations to encirclement once German armored and motorized spearheads broke through.

The first hours of the campaign already showed the character of the war to come. The battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish garrison at Westerplatte, while German aircraft struck targets including Wielun and the bridges near Tczew. In Silesia, German irregulars and special detachments acted ahead of the regular army. The invasion combined conventional military operations with air attack, sabotage, propaganda, and terror against civilians.

Yet the campaign was not the effortless parade sometimes suggested by older clichés. Polish forces fought hard and, in several places, fought very effectively. At Mokra, the Wolynska Cavalry Brigade resisted German armored attacks and showed that Polish cavalry was not the anachronistic caricature of popular legend. At Mlawa, Polish troops delayed the German advance from East Prussia. Around Piotrkow Trybunalski and Tomaszow Mazowiecki, the fighting became part of the struggle to break or preserve the cohesion of the Polish center. Along the coast, the defenders of Westerplatte, Gdynia, Oksywie, and Hel tied down German forces far longer than their isolation suggested.

The German advantage lay not only in numbers or equipment, but in operational tempo. Armored and motorized formations, closely supported by the Luftwaffe, could exploit gaps faster than Polish commanders could restore a stable line. Communications broke down under air attack and rapid movement. Units that fought well locally could still find themselves outflanked or cut off. Polish high command faced a brutal problem: defend too far forward and risk encirclement; retreat too soon and abandon the political and economic heart of the country.

“Pokój jest rzeczą cenną i pożądaną. Nasza generacja, skrwawiona w wojnach, na pewno na okres pokoju zasługuje. Ale pokój, jak prawie wszystkie sprawy tego świata, ma swoją cenę, wysoką, ale wymierną. My w Polsce nie znamy pojęcia pokoju za wszelką cenę. Jest jedna tylko rzecz w życiu ludzi, narodów i państw, która jest bezcenna. Tą rzeczą jest honor.”

“Peace is a precious and desirable thing. Our generation, battered by wars, certainly deserves a period of peace. But peace, like virtually everything else in this world, has its price—a high price, but a measurable one. We in Poland do not recognize the concept of peace at any cost. There is only one thing in the lives of people, nations, and states that is priceless. That thing is honor.”

Józef Beck, speech to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, 5 May 1939.

The most dramatic Polish counterstroke came on the Bzura River. Beginning on 9 September, Polish forces under Generals Tadeusz Kutrzeba and Wladyslaw Bortnowski attacked the flank of the German advance toward Warsaw. For several days, the battle created a real crisis for the Germans and became the largest Polish offensive of the campaign. It inflicted serious losses, disrupted German movement, and showed that the Polish army still possessed initiative and striking power. But German reserves, air superiority, and the wider operational situation eventually turned the battle into another encirclement. Many Polish troops fought their way toward Warsaw; many others were captured or destroyed.

Warsaw became both a military objective and a symbol. German forces reached the capital early in the campaign, but the city did not fall quickly. Its defenders included regular troops, improvised formations, and civilians caught in a tightening siege. Bombardment and air attack inflicted heavy damage, while food, water, and medical supplies ran short. The defense of Warsaw, like that of Modlin and Hel, prolonged resistance even after the campaign’s strategic outcome had become increasingly clear.

The decisive blow came on 17 September, when the Soviet Union invaded from the east. For Poland, this turned a desperate campaign into a catastrophe. Forces trying to withdraw toward the Romanian Bridgehead now faced a second invader. The Polish government crossed into Romania, and many soldiers attempted to escape through Hungary and Romania to continue the war abroad. Others kept fighting where they stood. The last major battle, at Kock in early October, ended only after Polish forces ran out of practical options.

Poland’s defeat was swift, but it was not simple. The campaign exposed the destructive potential of modern combined arms warfare, but it also revealed the limits of myth. German success depended on planning, mobility, air power, and the political-strategic isolation of Poland. Polish resistance was uneven in its outcomes but often determined in its conduct. The campaign included armored breakthroughs, cavalry actions, urban sieges, river battles, coastal defenses, and large-scale encirclements.

For the wider war, Poland 1939 set grim patterns. It showed how quickly a state could be overwhelmed when attacked by coordinated modern forces. It demonstrated the vulnerability of cities and civilians to air attack. It also began the long story of Polish military service in exile, as Polish soldiers, sailors, and airmen continued the fight in France, Britain, North Africa, Italy, the Atlantic, and on the Eastern Front.

Panzer Campaigns: Poland ’39 places players inside this opening struggle: not as a foregone conclusion, but as an operational campaign full of hard choices. Can Polish commanders delay, counterattack, and preserve enough strength to change the shape of the campaign? Can German commanders maintain tempo, coordinate widely separated thrusts, and avoid costly pauses? The result is a title that treats September 1939 not as a prologue, but as a major campaign in its own right: fast-moving, uneven, dramatic, and central to understanding the war that followed.

What's in the game

• Poland '39 includes 77 Scenarios – covering all sizes and situations, including a solo tutorial scenario plus specialized versions for both head-to-head play and vs. the computer AI.
  
• The master map (956,565 hexes) covers all of Poland, Eastern Germany, the Free City of Danzig, East Prussia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Romania. This is the largest map published to date.
  
• The order of battle file covers the Axis and Allied forces that participated in the campaign, with additional formations included for hypothetical scenarios.
  
• Order-of-Battle, Parameter Data, and Scenario Editors, which allow players to customize the game.
  
• The sub-map feature allows the main map to be subdivided into smaller segments for creating custom scenarios.
  
• Design notes that cover or include the production of the game, campaign notes, and sources the design team used to produce this simulation game.
  
• Poland '39 provides multiple play options, including play against the computer AI, Play by E-mail (PBEM), LAN & Internet "live" play, and two-player hot seat.

Book and video recommendations 

Below you find book recommendations to get a deeper understanding of the historical background as well as video documentaries and game-play videos (Clicking the book covers brings you to Amazon)

Forczyk, Robert. Case White: The Invasion of Poland 1939. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2019.

Zaloga, Steven J. Poland 1939: The Birth of Blitzkrieg. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002.

Moorhouse, Roger. First to Fight: The Polish War 1939. London: Bodley Head, 2019.

Kennedy, Robert M. The German Campaign in Poland (1939). Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1956.

Seidner, Stanley S. Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz Rydz and the Defense of Poland. New York: Peter Lang, 1978.

Screenshots

Below are screenshots from Poland '39 to give you a feel for the 2D and 3D views and the scale of the engagements. Clicking a screenshot opens it in full resolution.

We hope you enjoy this week’s Game of the Week: Panzer Campaigns: Poland '39  Like all WDS titles, it provides countless hours of rich historical gameplay at a very attractive price.