[Targan]

At first it does seem as though the PCs have no chance against all of the various enemy forces roaming around Poland and in fact that is a good vibe to instill in the players and their characters. At first the characters should feel desperate, hunted and alone. That is what T2K is all about. But there are a number of factors that work in the PCs' favour.

Number one is that there can't be enemy troops in all places at once. Given the amount of destruction across Europe by 2000 there are wide areas with hardly anyone in them. As the GM you need to keep in the back of your mind the locations of the command elements and major subordinate units of the enemy in the area the players are in. From that you can logically determine the radius in which enemy troops from those units are likely to be. Different types of enemy units will move at different rates and will be more or less spread out. And some units are much more capable of rapid reaction than others.

The first day or two after the Battle of Kalisz will be the worst for the PCs. They'll be demoralised and battered and probably a bit confused about what happens next. They will probably not all be from the one platoon or company so they will be getting to know each other and feeling out their new chain of command. The opposing force will definitely be actively trying to destroy or capture surviving elements of the 5th but the enemy isn't in terrific shape either - the 5th went down hard and made the enemy pay heavily for its destruction.

You can slowly raise the PCs' hopes by helping them start to feel empowered and more in control of their destinies. For instance, the officers and senior NCOs amongst them will probably want to try to make sense of whatever intel they have regarding enemy forces in the area. Reward them for this, give them enough info (even if much of it is inaccurate or just plain wrong) to help them make some decisions about what to do and where to go in the short term. The decisions made by the party's leadership (or by consensus if that is the style your group likes to play) and the success or failure those decisions lead to are likely to influence the way decisions in the party are made in the future. For instance, if the party's officers and senior NCOs make good (or lucky) choices early on and the party survives without taking heavy casualties for the first few days, the other PCs and NPCs may gain confidence in the leadership abilities of their superiors. If they botch it perhaps there might be the threat of mutiny or a forced change in the way group decisions are made.

As a GM I love those early parts of a T2K campaign because you can never really tell ahead of time how these things will turn out. I am envious that you will get to experience these things soon.