"Generalmajor Jeager?" a voice crackled through the radio.
"Yes, Oberleutnant?" Paul asked, raising his head.
"I would like to inform you about extensive Polish troop movements," the Oberleutnant began.
Paul raised an eyebrow, listening carefully.
"As I can see from up here, multiple, what I would guess are armored battalions, are on their way toward your position. They are about," he paused briefly, "20 kilometers from your current location, still within the city, but closing in fast."
"Do you see tanks?" Paul asked.
"I believe so," the Oberleutnant answered immediately.
"Fine. Thank you, officer. When they leave the urban area and the range of Polish air defenses, you may proceed with the dive attacks."
"Understood, General."
Paul switched off the radio and set the device aside.
Something the Polish tanks do not have, if my knowledge is correct, Paul thought, his mind drifting into a deeper state of calculation.
Polish tanks were simple to assess. Their guns were often respectable, but their armor was thin and their doctrine outdated. Worse still was their lack of coordination, radios, and effective support.
"Normally, the Polish use their tanks in a defensive role, more as infantry support. They are well aware of their weaknesses, just as I am. But it seems the precarious position they find themselves in has forced them into equally precarious methods," Paul said aloud into the radio.
"It is simply pitiful. Losing because of inferior technology. Truly pitiful," he added.
"So, any recommendations?"
Hasso's voice crackled through the device.
"Actually, I have one. If Polish tanks are so weak in tank-to-tank combat due to their thin armor, then we must maximize this advantage," Hasso began.
Paul nodded to himself.
"Let us try..."Hasso began again.
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After some time, the Oberleutnant reached out again.
"Yes, I hear you, Oberleutnant," Paul replied.
"Yes, sir. The battalions are only five kilometers from your current position. You should make contact soon."
"Did you manage to inflict any damage?" Paul asked, opening the hatch of his tank and squinting into the distance, spotting aircraft cutting across the sky.
"Yes, sir. By our count, we destroyed three tanks and around a dozen armored cars. Additionally, several vehicles were damaged by machine gun fire, even some of the tanks."
Paul nodded subconsciously. The report confirmed his assessment.
"Good. Continue to inflict damage," Paul answered, ending the transmission.
He turned to his crew and the surrounding units.
"The rest of you, prepare for combat immediately. We will meet them head on in open terrain," Paul said, a faint smile forming as his gaze drifted toward the rolling hills on the horizon.
The German tanks halted and spread out across the wide stretch of grass, their engines resting after the relentless strain Paul and his men had pushed them through. Everyone knew this pause was only the calm before the storm.
"He who occupies the battlefield first and awaits the enemy is at ease. He who comes later and rushes into battle is weary," Paul muttered, quoting Sun Tzu from The Art of War, a book he had read more than once.
Soon, Polish armor appeared on the horizon, rolling forward slowly before coming to a complete halt.
But the Polish commander was anything but weary in that moment.
"Look at that. Where did they leave the rest? Back home in Germany? In Frankfurt or whatever they call it?" the colonel laughed nervously, peering through the narrow slit of his tank.
"We don't have time," he muttered. "Even if it is a trap."
Although several officers in other tanks suspected exactly that, they had no way of communicating their concerns to their commander.
The largest tank battle of the war was about to unfold. Fate had willed it so.
A sharp whistle echoed as the commander cracked open his hatch, signaling the attack.
Polish tanks opened fire, their shells streaking toward the Germans, who held slightly elevated positions.
The Germans returned fire but remained stationary, unmoved despite the incoming shells.
The Polish tanks, by contrast, began advancing almost immediately, their engines howling. If they wished to keep firing, they had only one direction to go. Forward.
Dozens of tanks surged ahead, maintaining their barrage, though with limited success. Occasionally, a shell struck a German tank, but even then it did not always destroy it, especially when it hit a Panzer III, whose armor absorbed most of the impact. The Panzer II fared worse, though only a single one was engulfed in flames. The rest were spread wide enough that many Polish shells landed harmlessly between them.
Still, the Polish had it easier, firing at stationary targets.
But as the exchange dragged on, Polish accuracy steadily worsened. Their firing angle grew steeper the closer they came to the elevation.
German accuracy declined slightly as well, but their hits were devastating. Each successful shell destroyed its target outright. Many of the less fortunate Polish crews were now trapped inside burning wrecks, scattered across the open field.
Then, suddenly, three Polish tanks exploded one after another, tearing a massive gap into the right flank of the formation. The burning hulks bore gaping holes not in their fronts, but along their right sides.
From the forest to the east, tank turrets slowly revealed themselves. Smoke drifted from barrels protruding through the treeline.
Paul smiled as devastating fire erupted from the right.
"Come on now. Adjust your angles," Paul shouted.
The German tanks at the front began moving forward, engines growling, their turrets turning fully toward the still advancing Polish steel giants.
"Fire," Paul ordered coldly, catching the Polish formation in a pincer maneuver.
Cut off by the lack of communication and overwhelmed by the terrifying situation, the Polish commanders found themselves surrounded by chaos. Tank after tank exploded around them.
Some turned and fled.
Others pressed forward blindly, continuing to fire.
Paul tilted his head, then gave a short command.
"Meet them. Use your machine guns."
The tanks surged forward once more. Machine guns erupted almost instantly, streams of fire ripping across the field. The closer they came, the more violent the barrage grew.
When German and Polish tanks closed to mere meters, bullets punched straight through the thinner steel plates, cutting down men inside their hulls.
The moment German commanders realized the effectiveness of their fire, they adapted. Tanks began circling their opponents, slipping out of the narrow arcs of enemy turrets, raking exposed sides with sustained fire.
It became a brutal game of cat and mouse, something shockingly absurd for a battlefield built of steel and engines.
Paul nodded as he observed the battlefield, a quiet sense of pride settling in as he watched his officers act on the autonomy he had deliberately given them.
After barely five minutes, the largest tank battle of the Polish–German war was over. It ended in a disastrous defeat for the Polish armored forces.
They had wounded the eagle, at least slightly, Paul thought as he opened his hatch and looked back across the field, taking in the scattered burning wrecks.
But the eagle would move on regardless, as it always did. It would lick its wounds in motion, only to inflict far deeper and more gruesome ones on its next enemy.
After several hours of recovery and reorganization, along with necessary repairs and logistical work, the tanks moved on. Contrary to Paul's expectations, they encountered no further resistance.
Paul opened his hatch once more and raised his binoculars. Tanks appeared on the horizon, but this time they did not belong to a new enemy.
"Rommel," he murmured, continuing to watch as the vehicles rolled forward beneath a sky still glowing with the last light of sunset.
Their meeting marked the official encirclement of the capital. Warsaw was cut off from the rest of the country, separated from the remaining strip of land caught between the closing jaws of the two great powers, Germany and Russia...
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