User Guide

of the corps-sized Soria Division, and the Italian “volunteer” corps, the CTV,
provided three divisions of Blackshirts and the Littorio division. This last was
supposedly a regular army division, though the army had as little to do with
it as possible. The troops were in their 30s, unemployed workers who had
signed up either as colonists for Libya or Ethiopia, or for work as extras in the
movie Scipio in Africa, then in production in Libya. They were deeply surprised
when their ship docked in Cadiz, they received rifles and uniforms, and they
learned that they had volunteered to fight Communism.
The Republic committed some of its own top units, including the elite 11th
Shock Division and a number of International Brigades including the “Garibaldi
Battalion” of anti-fascist Italians, which successfully induced over 1,000 CTV
soldiers to desert with promises of fair treatment, and then massacred them.
Also present were a brigade of Germans and Austrians, the extremely tough
Spanish El Campesino Assault Brigade, and the Soviet-manned 1st Tank Brigade
with over 100 T-26 and BT-5 tanks.
Guadalajara proved a disaster for the Nationalist cause, especially for the CTV.
Madrid would hold out for two more years as the war continued in Spain.
Ciechanow
The Poles put up a pretty stiff defense against the Wehrmacht here. Though
Mlawa lies almost directly north of Warsaw, the German objectives actually lay
to the east and south, toward Ciechanow. German leaders considered it politi-
cally very important to present eastern Poland to the Soviet Union as a gift,
rather than have the Soviets conquer it for themselves. The Kempf panzer divi-
sion, a hastily thrown-together outfit which later became the 10th Panzer
Division, was supposed to move quickly past the frontier fortifications and
head for Brest-Litovsk on the new German-Soviet border. Instead, the Poles
inflicted serious damage on the panzer unit, and it did not participate further
in the Polish campaign. Polish cavalry in turn invaded East Prussia, deeply
embarrassing the German army.
Players should not be misled by the quick conquest of Poland in the historical
campaign. Individual Polish units fought very hard for their country, and where
they faced fairly even odds, the Poles often frustrated the German advance. The
Polish regular infantry is at least as good as its German counterpart, though it
is not nearly as well-supplied with modern artillery. The Polish reservists are
no worse than the German Landwehr division. The Polish cavalry is superior to
the German cavalry brigade. Unfortunately for the Poles, it has nothing to
match even a second-rate panzer unit like the Kempf division.
CAMPAIGN DESIGN NOTES: Blitzkrieg 58
CAMPAIGN DESIGN NOTES
While it’s probably not possible to provide “truth” about any historical event,
PANZER GENERAL II does give the player much the same kind of choices as those
facing his or her historical counterpart.
No single general fought all of these battles, but they could have: the cam-
paigns are designed to leave enough transit time between scenarios for a
player’s core units to have time to move to the new battlefield.
Blitzkrieg
From the civil war in Spain, to the “lightning” victories of early World War II
and beyond, the Blitzkrieg campaign offers a large variety of challenges to the
aspiring general and is the centerpiece campaign of PANZER GENERAL II.
Madrid Offensive
The Civil War in Spain provided a testing ground for the German Wehrmacht, as
well as the Soviet and Italian armies. The Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion air wing
is the best-known German formation to have assisted Francisco Franco’s
Nationalist army, but the German Army also sent a small motorized unit,
including a number of tanks, to Spain.
In the battle of Guadalajara, northwest of Madrid, both sides committed some
of their best units as the Nationalists tried to cut off Madrid, still held by the
Republic despite repeated attacks. Franco sent in the tough Moroccan brigades
57 CAMPAIGN DESIGN NOTES: Blitzkrieg