respect mate, I waiting for Polish AAR starting in 1936
Originally posted by Kasperus
@Mijk
as for tanks I don`t know how much they had, but I guess some cavalry could have been there... would have made the AAR more heroic perhaps
Polish army had about 900 tanks at the start of 1939 campaign. Germany used about 2600 tanks in that campaign.
Of those 900 Polish tanks, about 570 were light, turretless tankettes TK-3 and TKS armed with 1 heavy machine gun or 1 20-mm automatic cannon. Those were Polish constructions based on famous British Carden-Loyd Mk VI tankettes. Additional 100 tanks were completely outdated Renault FT-17 tanks.
On the other hand Polish army also had 130 modern 7TP tanks with 37-mm antitank cannon (from Bofors) and respectable armor. They were vastly superior to Pz-I's and Pz-II's that constituted vast majority of German force.
Apart from being vastly outnumbered Polish armored forces suffered from the fact that Polish Supreme Command relied on outdated tactics for using armored forces as a support for infantry or cavalry units. Thus majority of Polish tanks were used in small detachments (15 companies * 13 tankettes each were assigned to infantry divisions and 11 squadrons * 13 tankettes each were assigned to cavalry brigades). There were also 3 independent tank batallions (50 tanks each - 2 with 7TP tanks and 1 with french R-35 tanks) assigned as Army HQ reserves.
Finally there were 2 large size armored units: 10th Armored Cavalry Brigade and Warsaw Armored-Mechanized Brigade. Both were in fact mechanized infantry brigades with some tanks (2 tankettes companies each with 13 tankettes and 1 tank company with 17 Vickers-E light tanks).
So surprise, surprise, Armored Cavalry Brigade had smaller number of tanks of inferior quality than independent tank batallion.
Hmmm, also I read once that those brigades were bulit on the basis of Cavalery Brigade where horses were replaced by trucks. (perhaps the source wasn't so reliable after all, I am sure you know those little books of "Pantera" series? )
Originally posted by Longinus
hmmm strange, I could have swear that Maczek and his 10th Armoured Cavalery Birgade had at least company of 7TP.
Nevertheless, it was long time ago when I was rather young
