Author Notes:
Welp, apologies for the one day delay. In case you don't know, I was busy with a meeting with a physician to get my mom into a leg therapy program. It's a bit pricey, but I don't see any other way I can help alleviating my Mom's ailments, at least partially. More on that on a later date if I feel like it's ok to share.
Anyway! Neat little RM chapter aside, I sincerely welcome Private Tyler Burks and Private can (Yes, his name is 'can')! The Belkan Reich and the Imperium of Man treasure your contributions very much!
Now, onward to the story!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Gdańsk, once a quaint coastal city, is in an upheaval. Rudely awoken to the sound of an airstrike, the Polanians of Gdańsk met face to face with the sight of their military infrastructures, weapons, and vehicles going up in flame and twisted metals. The worst to be hit, however, was none other than the Polanian Navy, having lost all of their naval assets stationed at the coastal city. This circumstance was brought about not just by the air raid that sank all of their torpedo boats but also by the sinking of all four of their precious destroyers out in the open water. No one knew exactly how they were sunk, but surviving sailors in the sinkings claimed that the keels of their vessels exploded first. Whether the warships were sabotaged or torpedoed, no one could say for sure, but a fact stands:
Gdańsk is screwed, especially when its garrison commander is nowhere to be found and is presumably killed or captured.
So, with that knowledge in mind, how do you think the people and soldiers of Gdańsk will react when the whole High Sea Fleet comes knocking on their doorsteps? Well, an obsoleted and landlocked Army garrison can only do so much when multiple 17-inch barrels are leveled at them. After a couple of warning salvoes that may or may not have decimated what's left of Gdańsk's coastal artillery, multiple white flags are seen flying above the city walls. And, due to the impossibility of radio communication, a few brave souls are tasked with using a searchlight atop the walls to transmit the city's official surrender via Morse code. Smart of them to do so promptly, thus saving the Reichsmarine some good money from being wasted. However, the Polanians could have at least learned how to structure their sentences grammatically correct.
Regardless, the deed is done. For the continuing existence of the city and its people, Gdańsk's mayor has no choice but to bypass the disrupted chain of command and offer the Belkan invaders the proverbial key to the city. Even if there are still some zealots left, their disgruntled cries of outrage are swiftly silenced by the heavyweight champions of the Reichsmarine. Things are also swiftly brought to an end when Belkan Marines make landfall either by Pumas or Ospreys. Polanian soldiers have been really quiet when someone twice their size is cuffing them up for POW processing. The civilians, however, are treated respectfully enough until one of them gives the Marines a reason to be tossed behind bars.
In other words, it's literally the same shit, albeit different place.
No doubt some of the Polanian soldiers and civilians have deserted Gdańsk even before the High Sea Fleet blockaded the city. They will then go on to alert the rest of the Polanian Army that is still combat-effective. That said, given the state of their Army right now, Belkan Marines have more than enough time to dig in and set up their FOB, which they are already in the process of doing. Thanks to the mostly intact harbor and the fact that all the large vessels were sunk out in the deep, the Marines are swift to convert the piers to receive war materials from the Bayern-class battlecarriers. With these materials, they patch up, reinforce the city walls, and even set up a fully functional VTOL-base in the heart of Gdańsk. Given enough time, they can build a runway for heavier aircraft as well, but that is kinda superfluous at this point. Other than a couple of adventurous Polanian submarines that swam too close to the gaping abyss, which is another way of saying they were sunk with prejudice, the facelifting process of Gdańsk proceeded virtually unimpeded.
When the sun starts to set, Gdańsk isn't just flying the flag of the Reich and its Marine Corps, it also sports enough firepower on and inside its walls to beat back anything short of a whole Army Corps. Now that is some fast engineering work right there. With Gdańsk now secured, Belkan Marines will be free to expand outward and connect with elements of the Belkan Army and Airbornes, thus accomplishing the first phase of the overall war plan.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Western Polania is met with the multi-faceted Blitzkrieg that sees the majority of the Polanian Army in peril, the Eastern side of things isn't doing much better. Even with the Rusviet Union being nowhere near as technologically advanced nor as modern doctrinally, the Eastern Polanian garrisons are still being beaten black and blue in the first conflicts between the two sides. Granted, the Polanians there have a way better fighting chance, and it is shown in the early beginnings of every battle where the Polanians tend to score first blood.
While home-field advantage certainly helped, the Polanians were able to get some easy kills on the vastly more numerous Rusviet soldiers. This happened because most Rusviet Generals tended to favor a more brute force approach, owing to their impressive manpower pool. They first shelled or bombed the Polanian positions haphazardly before sending in wave after wave of armored vehicles and soldiers to finish things up. Some casualties were expected with such casual approaches. Anyhow, the Polanians' lucky streak never lasts for longer than the first hour of active combat. When the Rusviets managed to get into close-to-medium range, the advantage brought about by their multi-turreted tanks and infantry semi-automatic rifles drastically tilted the tide of each battle. The sheer volume of fire generated by the Rusviets in a singular moment was devastating to the haplessly underequipped Polanians.
In one of the many active battlezones between the mighty Rusviet Union and the battered Polanian Republic, both sides are bringing to bear everything they have. One is trying desperately to hold their ground, awaiting a reinforcement that may never come. The other is having its steps in the art of combined arms warfare.
A Polikarpov I-16 swoops down from the sky, unleashing a brief, but nonetheless devastating hail of six RS-82 rockets. Used against a known position of a Polanian AT gun, the six rockets come down very, very inaccurately. However, against an emplacement that is virtually unprotected from a top-down air attack, the shockwave and fragmentation from six HE warheads detonating is still enough to decimate the gun crew.
Now that the primary threat is silenced, a T-28 lumbers through the Fog of War and into view. Following right behind it are two Squads of Rusviet soldiers, with half of them carrying Model 1935 semi-automatic rifles. The T-28 turns its main turret, aligning its 76.2mm howitzer on a Polanian pillbox before firing. A heavy high-explosive fragmentation shell is sent through the air before slamming and detonating just above the firing port, the blast killing whoever is using the static machine gun. Not stopping there, the smaller 'heads' of the T-28 turn left and right respectively, engaging or suppressing visible enemy troops with their DT-28 machine guns. Rolling just shy of the Polanian trenches, the T-28 stops and lets the soldiers behind it spring forward. Guns and bayonets raised, the Rusviet soldiers jump down onto the trench, stabbing, firing, and cursing bloody murder. Thanks to the ten-round capacity and the impressive fire rate of the Model 1935 rifles, these two Rusviet Squads completely dominated trench warfare, taking only two casualties of their own while killing and capturing twice their numbers.
On the other side of the battlezone, in a slightly more open terrain, the heavier cousin of the T-28, the T-35, is seen chasing down an enemy convoy trying to break through the encirclement. As a heavy tank, a landship even, the T-35 is obviously ill-suited to ride down an enemy motorcade. As such, it leaves such a task for someone else to handle. The landship, for the most part, is perfectly content with coming to a slow stop before swiveling its multiple turrets. Unlike the T-28 which is more suited for bunker-busting and infantry support, the T-35 is of a heavier multirole-combatant design with a dash of anti-armor focus. This sub-variant of the T-35, however, leans further down the latter priority, trading its usual 76.2 mm howitzer for a 57 mm anti-tank gun. While not as modern as the one used by the Belkan and Chinese Panzer III M, the Rusviet 57 mm AT gun still packs enough punch to defeat whatever armor contemporary countries used... Probably. Anyway, against the desperate Polanian tankette, barely a few fitted with 20 mm autocannons, the 45 mm and 57 mm gun turrets on the T-35 start having a few days. Firing its multiple cannons swiftly, one after another, the T-35 pelts the convoy that is half fighting and half running away disorderly. Due to the distance, not all of the shells fired by the T-35 hit true, with some glancing blows and near misses recorded by its crew. Still, it's better than average accuracy against targets that are more than 600 or 700 meters away. The crew can also compensate for the inaccuracy by the sheer volume of fire, the 45 mm and 57 mm shells being quite light to load into the breeches. Thanks to the new internal comm system, the crew of the T-35 is able to work quite smoothly, raising the fire rate and target selection above what is expected in live combat situations. Soon enough, more than half of the Polanian tankettes are destroyed or disabled, leaving the rest to beat a hasty retreat with the trucks they're supposed to protect. The T-35 only harries their getaway with machine gun fire, knowing the futility of further engagement.
That said, it's not like the Polanians can easily run the blockade. Near immediately, they're strafed by the machine guns of the I-16 from earlier. One speeding truck has its driver shot in the head before veering and crashing into a telephone pole. Another truck has its soldiers in the back torn apart, dying immediately or faring worse alive. The misfortune of these Polanians doesn't stop there as coming over and down a hillside are two T-50 light tanks. Made by the same company that built the T-28 and T-35, albeit of a more conventional doctrine to supplant the aging and less reliable BT-5 and BT-7, the T-50s easily get into a flanking position and engage the broadside of the convoy. They first rake the flank of the motorcade with machine guns, killing unfortunate soldiers who are caught on the back foot. Then, the T-50s go into stone-throw distance before unleashing their main, 45 mm cannons, targeting trucks and the turretless TKS tankettes that can't turn fast enough to retaliate. Against such speedy threats that are running circles around them, the Polanians are helpless. Even a lucky shot from their 20 mm-equipped tankette failed to penetrate the armor of these supposed light tanks, much to their consternations and the Rusviets' glee. The survivors of the convoy find themselves being put into a proverbial grinder, with blood and metal being the products. It takes little to no time at all before the first Polanian soldier drow down their weapon and raises their hands, only to be cut down by the merciless barrage of 7.62 mm bullets. Riding fast and blazing, the crews of the T-50s fail to catch the surrendering gesture in time. Nonetheless, the damage to the Polanians' morale is done. One person becomes two, and two becomes four until the ragtag survivors start bringing out white cloths and rifles discarded do the T-50s stop their game of Ring Around the Rosie. After enduring multiple rounds of attacks from not just the T-50s but also the T-35 from earlier, this Polanian convoy has only a dozen survivors out of half a Company's worth. Such casualties are enough to write their whole unit off, but that will be the last of their concern.
As the T-50s start coming to a stop with turrets pointed at the survivors, the Polanians can only hope that the Rusviets will treat their POWs properly like the Belkans on the other side of the country. Surely, staying alive is much better than being dead, am I right?