When we got back our volunteers told us how they had found the marauder force asleep with only three guys on guard and that they were not going to bother anyone anymore. They brought with them twenty rifles, some grenades and ammunition which Piotr gave to the villagers, who told us if we were in the area we would always be welcome. (The GM played that encounter separately with the two PC’s and in it Narsimha killed two of the three guards with his bow!)
One of the Cav troopers who spoke some Russian said he had intercepted a message saying that someone had just blown up the supply dump at Wielun!
There were repeated requests for orders from above but none were forthcoming. A message to the Polish 10th Tank Division from the Soviet 21st Motorized Rifle Division ordering them to provide fuel to the Russians was met with a terse “Why don’t you come and try and take it!” response from the Poles. Other units reported they were low on fuel and ammo as well.
We were getting into line to leave when we heard the HQ of the Soviet 21st Motorized Rifle Division transmit that they were under attack as well. They went off the air in mid-sentence. I gave the mayor a Jerry can of gasoline as thanks for his assistance.
We headed out thru Radomsko, where the villagers waived and cheered us as we went thru; with several now armed with weapons from the marauders we had killed. We turned west and then crossed the Warta heading south over an unguarded bridge that clearly had seen a lot of traffic lately, and in the process picked up eight more stragglers from the 256th who waved us down.
After we crossed, we headed towards Dobrodzien which, we hoped, would welcome us with open arms. We made it to the ruins Czestochowa and then turned and went thru Lubliniec, which was deserted, then went to Dobrodzien. The Cav went in first when we got there and we could hear the cheering over the radio as they told us how happy the townspeople were to see them again.
We went in and found places for our vehicles and a place for our wounded and sick. We spent the next three days resting and recovering and going thru the supplies we had grabbed and sorting out whom we had with us and what the condition was of our vehicles. After the second day there we stopped picking up any further radio broadcasts from the 5th as the last units that had held out were finally overrun.
We set up our stills and started to make fuel. We had a lot of gas and diesel but it wasn’t going to last forever. We had our one medium still and three others we had liberated from a supply dump. We could make 120 liters of fuel per day but just for my tank alone we would need fifteen days production to fill my tank. Clearly fuel was going to be a big issue.
The Cav had their own stills and the town let them get fuel from theirs as well. In addition we gave them one tanker truck we had captured at Szczercow that was almost full of diesel.
The Cav Troop bluntly told us they were here to stay, that they weren’t going to try to die to find a way home. The Green Berets were already talking about pulling out and trying to find the local DIA or getting out to the west.
Since most of our guys were from the 3rd Battalion of the 156th Infantry, that is what we called ourselves. We put the armored vehicles (two M1A1 tanks, one BMP-C, and one Bradley) into Alpha Company, our trucks and supply guys into Echo Company and the rest into Delta Company except for six guys and one truck with the D30 that we had captured. We had four artillerymen from the 1st Battalion, 141st Artillery Regiment so we left them designated as such.
After we looked thru all the ammo and other stuff we had full loads for the tanks plus a few left over but the Bradley was short 20 rounds on its cannon and only had five TOW’s left. The BMP had a full ammo load but no missiles.
The M88 was clearly not going anywhere, as her tracks were just about shot. The Cav could use her still so we gave it to them.
We had a total of 15 rounds for the cannon.
We were 105 men strong, now we just needed to figure out what we were going to do. Clearly we were on our own.
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