Quote:
Originally posted by Jacek
Thank you guys for the warm welcome! I appreciate.
You are certainly right that oceangoing subs and destroyers and what we had of plans for battleships was a little bit weird.
I remember an issue of a long forgotten magazine "Liga Morska i Kolonialna"- mostly wishful thinking about obtaining some colonies.
I donīt know - it was sort of obsession to become a naval power. Or....who knows? Money under the table?
Anyways, the navy was a mess.
The AT rifles were there, but due to secrecy, they were issued too late and not many knew how to use them properly.
More glaring mistakes? Stellan?
What was exactly wrong with Polish HQs and military?
I had always a feeling that the Army was too poor because the country was new and poor. Add to it the Polish temperament and you are well underway towards a catastrophe.
Even if the country hadnt bought or built the ships it had, would it have been able to built enough tanks, prepare tank crews, read and understand Liddel Hart or whoever wrote about modern warfare?
Germany was preparing for war for years - remember the school for German tank crews and pilots on USSR? That was even before Hitler.
And USSR itself: I canīt remember how many tanks and planes they had in 1939, but it was much, much more than Germany. They began their war preparations in late twenties.
One can laugh at the debacle in Finland;
I had some discusions with Finns about their Mannerheim line: they underestimate it , imo. The Soviet breakthrough was a real achievement, not to be ashamed of. They were able to break a heavily fortified area with awful natural obstacles as part of the system, in minus 30-35 gr. Celcius. Smething nobody had done before. A costly victory - yes, but an invaluable school for the future conquests.
So, it was not a cripple who was stabbing Poland in its back.
The Soviets have been buying complete factories in the US: Staligrad, Charkov, Chelabinsk - was it from Ford?
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Yes Jacek,country was too poor to build a modern army like Wehrmacht or Soviet Army,but why polish General Staff hold the program of building TKD?It was tank destroyer based on TK tank,armed with 37mm Bofors ATG,at that time only Russians were building tank destroyers.Why was hold the program of development of Fighter PZL-50 Jastrzab(Hawk),after the war gen.Rayski(till the 1938 Head Commander of Polish Air Forces) told that till the September 1939 polish factories were been able to produce 50 Hawks or even more,propably PZL-50 was compare to Hawker Hurricane.
I agree Poland wasn't been able to formed 4-8 tanks divisions,but maybe without that "brilliant" ideas of colonies there would be 4-6 motorized Brigades?
At 1939 135 polish PZL-7 and PZL-11 shot down 124 german planes,add to that 135 planes 50 PZL-50,or even Poland wasn't been able to built them so much ,they could be replaced by Hurricanes or Spitfires,or US made planes.Money were been saved by leaving the colonial dream.