Uprising:
Scenario Preview, Part Two
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
January 2025

There are a few constants in human history, usually involving some variation of man’s inhumanity to man. One of the more particular constants is that in every modern war, Germany’s allies come to really hate the Germans.

That can be readily seen in the experience of Nazi Germany’s first and weakest ally, Slovakia. The Slovak fascists leaned on the Germans for political and economic support, which brought some benefits like factory employment and ready markets for the backward country’s agricultural produce. Antisemites appreciated both the suffering inflicted on Slovakia’s Jewish community and the loot taken from their former neighbors.

The Slovak Army marched into the Soviet Union behind the German first wave, and despite stripping away the most capable troops to form a Mobile Brigade that could fight alongside the Germans, the Slovaks simply weren’t up to the challenges of modern mechanized warfare. Instead, their troops spent most of the next three years waging the dirty war against Soviet partisans in the German rear areas. By the late summer of 1944, resentment had flared into open resistance.

The Slovak National Rising of 1944 is the theme of the second chapter of Fire & Sword: Uprising. It’s a Campaign Study, our little books of history and scenarios. The six scenarios pit the Slovak Army against what’s pretty much a rabble of German rear-area security: Armed SS murder-gangs and German Army training units.

Versions of them appeared in our First Axis and Slovakia’s War books; I re-designed them all for Uprising to take advantage of the beautiful new maps from Fire & Sword (you’ll also need pieces from Fire & Sword, and maps from Broken Axis and Fire in the Steppe). Let’s have a look.

Campaign Two
The National Uprising

The Slovak 18th Anti-Aircraft Battery reports for war with the hated Bohoslovci.

Scenario Six
Dubrovodsky’s Stand
2 September 1944
As with other former members of the Axis, Slovak troops fought against the Germans with far greater enthusiasm than they had ever fought alongside them. Falling back from the Var valley, the Slovaks received more troops, tanks and most importantly, large-caliber antitank guns. The Germans would come to regret having given these to their allies (weapons never fired at the Soviets), but they had made good their tank losses and picked up a few more.

Conclusion
The Slovaks held their ground this time, but not without serious losses.  German Stuka dive-bombers destroyed several artillery batteries, and all of the Slovak tanks fell victim to German tanks and anti-tank guns. Repelled, the Germans pulled back and re-grouped for another try while reinforcements flowed in from Germany, Poland and elsewhere.

Notes
The Slovaks are defending themselves, and they have tanks, aircraft, and artillery in support, and a tank-busting 88mm gun. The Germans have better tanks, better planes, and better guns and more of each. But we do get to see an 88mm gun shoot up German tanks for once, which is a good thing.

Scenario Seven
Collapse at Zhilina
4 September 1944
Though the Slovaks had scored one of their few victories of the Second World War, they had lost most of their support weapons in the process while the German force remained more or less intact. The Germans began their renewed attack with a heavy artillery barrage, and then sent their tanks forward in a frontal assault while infantry forces tried to envelop both Slovak flanks.

Conclusion
This time things went much better for the Germans, as the Slovaks had little with which to stop their tanks. The Slovaks at first fell back in good order, but then as the tanks pursued them a rout ensued. But knowing their troops to be ill-trained, the German command pulled back the reins on pursuit before they could become disorganized. The Slovak officers used the respite to restore order in their own ranks and incorporate reinforcements.

Notes
The Germans renew their attack, and they still have tanks, artillery, and airplanes, but now the Slovaks have none of these. This is going to go much harder on the Sons of Mount Tatra.

Scenario Eight
Tank Battle at Martin
5 September 1944
Realizing that this fight might continue for some time, the Germans gathered their mixed bag of small units into the new 178th “Tatra” Panzer Grenadier Division and renewed their attack. The Slovaks continued to gain reinforcements, and every day a few more tanks previously noted as “irreparable” on reports made to central headquarters or the German liaison staff rolled out of the arsenal in Martin.

Conclusion
This time the Slovaks fought with much more determination, and when it became obvious that the German attack had faltered their tanks launched a counterattack of their own. The tanks met with disaster, moving forward without artillery preparation or infantry support, and German antitank guns soon dispatched the Slovak Panzer III's while the Slovak light tanks somehow escaped a gunnery duel with the German Panzer IV's.

Notes
This time we have a tank battle, and the Slovaks have some decent tanks on their side, courtesy of the Germans, but aren’t very good at using them, also courtesy of the Germans. Both sides get airplanes, but the Germans have more artillery.

Scenario Nine
Raksa Valley
4 October 1944
Supplied with more tanks and crews, the German Tatra Division pushed into the Raksa Valley where the Slovaks dug in for a determined defense. The valley’s good roads led to Sviaty Martin, home of the Slovak Army’s armored training center and most of its technical workshops. Slovak maintenance crews were rapidly refurbishing tanks and artillery pieces there; loss of the vital center would doom the uprising.

Conclusion
The Tatra Division had been issued a large number of outdated Czech-made tanks from the Arsenal in Vienna. Though useless against the Red Army, they proved very effective against the Slovaks, as did the handful of Tiger tanks. The Germans broke through the first line of the Slovak defense but their offensive stalled thanks to the timely arrival of the armored train Hurban and a company with modern German-made anti-tank guns.

Notes
We have another tank battle, or at least a battle involving tanks on both sides, with the German Pz35t light tanks outclassed by the Slovak LT38, the model that replaced them. And we get an armored train; all games are made better with an armored train.

Scenario Ten
Brown Battalions
21 October 1944
The Horst Wessel Division, composed mostly of Hungarian ethnic Germans, went into action against the Slovaks as soon as it arrived from Hungary.  The Slovaks committed most of their remaining armored forces to trying to stop the SS militiamen, whose advance on Slovak army headquarters appeared unstoppable.

Conclusion
Though the Horst Wessel Division was not a particularly good combat formation, the Slovaks were nothing like the Red Army and the SS rolled over them after some hard fighting. The Slovak forces now began to fall apart, with the partisans directed to return to their hiding places and prepare to wage guerilla warfare while the regular troops made their final stands.

Notes
This time the Slovaks are under attack by the motorized criminals of a division named for a murdered pimp, an outfit made up of teenaged, ethnic German “volunteers” from Romania, Hungary and, yes, Slovakia. They’re not very good, but they are motorized and have armor. The Slovaks have tanks, too, and an armored train.

Scenario Eleven
Uniformed Criminals
22 October 1944
For their “final offensive” against the Slovak Uprising, the Germans brought in several new formations. Among them stood the most loathsome group of criminals in an organization devoted to racism and murder: the SS Dirlewanger Brigade. Recruited from rapists and other felons by convicted child molester Oskar Dirlewanger, the brigade had been busily raping and murdering civilians in Poland when summoned to fight the Slovaks.

Conclusion
The Germans had numbers and firepower on their side, but were not used to fighting enemies who actually shot back at them. The Slovaks held their ground and inflicted heavy casualties on the poorly-trained Germans, who fell back in some disarray. Dirlewanger was undoubtedly one of the most evil men serving an evil regime, but was not a physical coward and fought in the front lines with his men—doing little to improve his unit's overall coordination. It would take several more tries and many more dead before the Ploska Height fell to the SS men.

Notes
And we wrap up with the Slovaks fighting the worst of the worst, the convicted child molester Oskar Dirlewanger and his band of convicts. Their moral depravity is matched only by their combat ineptitude; this unit ties the Albanian Fascist Militia and Ethiopian Provincial Irregulars as the least capable in the Panzer Grenadier universe.

And that’s the second and final chapter of Uprising.

You can order Uprising right here.

Puppet Brigade
Nine scenarios and 88 new pieces bring the Slovak Army’s role in Operation Barbarossa to Fire in the Steppe. The Slovak Army was not very large, and not very good, but it was there! You’ll need Fire in the Steppe and Broken Axis to play all of the scenarios.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published an uncountable number of books, games and articles on historical subjects; a few of them were actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children. He misses his dog, Leopold. Leopold enjoyed gnawing his deer antler and editing Wikipedia pages.

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