Well now that I can post again I will start this up again where I left off
When we got back to base we went thru our booty and started to integrate our new guys into the unit, five of whom turned out to be artillerymen and four cavalry. Two of our wounded died, the rest healed up and we armed them from the rifles, pistols and RPG’s we had picked up.
We also managed to salvage three AT-5 missiles to arm our captured BMP plus 180 rounds for her gun along with six rounds for the cannon from the SPG’s.Our fuel situation improved somewhat as between Olesno, Kluczbork and what we siphoned out of the vehicles we ambushed in the battle we had a total of 4500 liters of methanol to add to our stocks as well as five more medium stills we liberated from the Russians giving us eight, enough to make 270 liters a day.
Over the next few days we intercepted radio chatter from the 129th MRD, saying first that their commander had been killed in the battle, then other units telling a zampolit to go to hell when he ordered them to retake Olesno and Kluczbork. Three days after the battle we picked up another message that the zampolit was dead and that the forces in Opole and Pokoj were pulling out and heading for Wroclaw.
We also heard that the Russians had attacked all along the line and that there were a lot of them between us and Germany. We also knew we couldn’t stay here forever. The village was welcoming to the Cav but the amount of food it was taking to feed us all was beginning to strain their resources.
The Berets wanted to try getting to Krakow with whatever it was they were carrying. We told them not yet; I wanted things to cool down more. (GM played them and rolled to see if our arguments were persuasive but with a cumulative penalty starting to add to the roll the longer we waited). We heard the Berets talking among themselves about something called RESET but that was all we knew.
Seven days after the battle a truck from Olesno brought in another 28 guys that had shown up there from the 5th, along with their vehicles (two HMMWV and a LAV-25), and a patrol from Lubliniec brought in a half dead American who was raving about dead Polish paratroopers coming back from the dead and killing his buddies and a fortune in gold and some religious painting in a cave in Czestochowa. He told us what he had found but when we asked him to go back with us he had a complete nervous breakdown. Luckily we got the story out of him and where he found it before that happened.
Piotr told us it must be the Black Madonna and that we had to get it. The major in charge of the Berets got all interested too, saying that we had to get it before the Soviets did.
I wasn’t going to risk the whole command for this so we put together a group (the PC’s) plus a combat engineer (I was not going spelunking without one) and two squads, one being a squad of five Berets. We would take the BMP along with two jeeps and two Russian trucks as I didn’t want to draw attention with the M1’s. We would run on alcohol for the trip as I didn’t want to run down our stock of gas if we could avoid it. We had the Cav escort us as far as Lubliniec and then we were on our own.
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