Polish Army in CMBB- a lot of mistakes

[sturmowik]

I have started to design some scenarios with Polish troops in the east. During work I have encountered a lot of mistakes which makes game unhistorical and make me ........at least disappointed. Pls follow topics.

1) Period when polish troops are available.

In the game Jan 1945 - End

-False

Historical True

By September 1, 1943 the 1st Division was on its way to the front line. Although not ready, it continued training and readying for it's baptism of fire. In early October 1943 it was attached to the Soviet 33rd Army. On October 9, 1943 it replaced the Soviet 42nd Infantry Division. The Poles were positioned against the heavily fortified positions of the German XXXIX Panzer Corps under general Martinek near Smolensk. The division was ordered into battle on October 12. After a short artillery bombardment the 1st Division went forward and in two days of bloody fighting in the Lenino area the Poles managed to break through the German lines, inflicting heavy casualties on the Germans.

http://lwp.armiam.com/pictures/lenino1.JPG

Despite the troops which had left USSR and went to Persia. By the summer of 1942 the entire Polish army was evacuated to the Middle East, later becoming the Polish 2nd Corps and distinguishing itself throughout the Italian campaign.

So Sep 1943 - End

2) Uniforms

In the game

In the game Polish troops share uniforms with Russians. Most irritating matter is cup which are used by Russian officers (round red cap) which never been used by polish army. Also tunics used by polish troops were copy of pre-war wz.36 Polish uniforms.

Historical True

True polish cap

http://lwp.armiam.com/pictures/rog.JPG

Similar caps were also used by LWP (Polish army fighting along side Soviets), difference was the eagle.

True polish uniform

http://www.armiam.com/polska/amundur2.JPG

This type of tunic was also used by LWP (Polish People's Army which fought along side Soviets).

And in the 1945 during fights for Festung Kolberg.

http://asgaard.w.interia.pl/mun_pol.htmhis

3) Polish eagle.

In the game polish troops use polish flag eagle from pre war times. Crowned eagle.

in the game system uses picture described as: "Herb Polski od 1927 roku"

http://akromer.republika.pl/orzel.html

Historical True

On the same site below U can find true sign of polish troops In USSR described as: "Orzeł Janiny Broniewskiej dla I Dywizji Piechoty im. Tadeusza Kościuszki"

http://akromer.republika.pl/orzel.html

4) Used weapon

Almost correct, but lacking of 152mm gun-howitzer often used by polish troops as close support (as german 150mm gun). Guns were used in such manner in punching Pommernstellung and during Kolberg Festung assault at least.

Lack of PO 2 planes from 2nd Regiment of Night Bombers "Krakow".

5) Polish scenarios

On original CD there is only one scenario for polish side "Reluctant Warriors", Polish troops fighting against Hungarians. Yeee.....S-F worth Gorge Lucas films. For those who knows Polish - Hungarian relationships(and attention nations each towards other) such fight is really unimaginable.

examples of polish scenarios which could be

- Battle of Lenino 1943

- Crossing Vistula River 1944

- Capture of Warsaw 1944-45

- Warsaw Uprasing 1944

- Breaking Pommersstellung 1945

- Assault on Kolberg 1945

- Battle for Berlin 1945

and much more.....

3 of my old scenarios U can find at:

http://www.dragonlair.net/combatmission/

as follows:

"Der Fast Kampflose"

"Die Pommernstellung"

"Pommern 1945"

Now I am working on scenario Pack consisted 6 scenarios describing biggest polish town battle fought by polish troops in 2WW. "Festung Kolberg 1945".

6) By the end for all of those who want to get some closer to true polish history of 2WW I would like to suggest to read at least two famous books wrote by English speakers.

"Upraising 44" by prof. Norman Davies

and

"A question of honor" by pair of journalists Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud.

BEST REGARDS

sturmowik

[sturmowik]

Found some more lack of weapon for polish troops:

no 12,7mm HMG

no MG Carriers

no self prop guns M16

[DEY]

It's unfortunate but does seem to be the case, that there doesn't seem to be any unique hardcoded stuff for the Poles, other then the flag.

What Polish units there is use only the same hardcoded stuff as the Russians, so use the same bmp textures.

As far as when the Poles appear in the game, you can always set the date in the editor to the time the Poles appear,which is Jan/45, get what units you want, then reset the date too whatever time period you want the scenario to have.

[sturmowik]

Thx, for advice on changing date in editor. But it looks work only in one direction. When I tried get partisan (from 1943) as polish Home Army in scenario from Warsaw Uprising 44 I found impossible to play singiel palyer mode.

Also starnge to me that they coded soviet partisans but not Polish Home Army. Shoud not to be the problem becouse they used captured germans weapons and uniforms (mostly).

[sturmowik]

Nothing is coded for polish troops but flag (by the way also wrong, flag used be CMBB is flag designated for polish navy - called "bandera") and that is the case.

[Philippe]

In my Little Semiotics mod (which I posted on CMMODS a while back) I included an unachieved victory location marker that uses an uncrowned eagle.

I drove myself nuts trying to figure out exactly which uncrowned eagle to use, but finally decided that I had picked the right one, or one that was very close.

And if you looked at my Warsaw Ghetto pack you'll notice that the small unit flag that appears onscreen is a Polish flag rather than a Russian partisan flag. At the time I made that mod I decided that the Zionist organizations involved in the fighting would probably have been more comfortable with a crownless eagle, so I made the appropriate adjustments to the mod. I suspect that what they were actually using for a Polish flag was a simple red and white bicolor, which was flown alongside various Zionist organization flags (one of which eventually became the flag of the State of Israel).

My mod files (which I haven't posted anywhere) include several crownless polish symbols, including a Hidden Unit Marker and a rippled crownless Polish flag. I'd be more than happy to contribute them to your Polish scenario pack.

But I have a few reservations about the symbols. I agree that the crown is wrong, and that's why I don't use it. One could make a slight argument that my version of bmp 426 could have a crown, but there's a stonger case to be made for no eagle at all, or a crownless eagle. [bmp 426 is the tiny polish unit flag that appears on the scenario interface in the place of the russian partisan symbol]. But I still have some residual doubts about exactly which eagle got used by Soviet-aligned Poles. Most of the ones you see are post-war, and the representation of an eagle on a medal is going to be a bit different from what happens on a flag. To put that in plain English, I suspect that the eagle that I use on the unachieved victory location marker may be a post-war eagle. What's at issue here is the shape of the top of the eagle's head (I would have normally said crown of the head, but in this context that would be confusing), the shape of the tail feathers, and the negative space formed by the gap next to the spot where the wings join the body.

If you don't know the unachieved victory location flag I'm talking about, I think I posted it (or a flat version of it) when I was working on the Little Semiotics mod. You can probably find the thread if you do a text search for Little Semiotics (the thread had a different name).

Your uniform issues need to be discussed with Andrew T. Fox, who may have addressed the problem already.

[DEY]

The partisans have a tunic color change starting in may/43 that is reflected throughout the rest of the war.

So the tunic color is blue before may 1943 and then brown after may/43 until the end of the war.

This is some of the rare exception to that suggested trick, I didn't say that method was flawless.

The polish flag is the only unique hardcoded entity that the poles have in the game that isn't shared with anything else in the game.

I believe there are some mods of the polish flag out there somewhere that are different at least from the original game artwork. Now whether they are correct also, is another matter.

By the way the germans are the only country in the game that have any real on map artillery guns.

[Filip von Izabelin]

Polish Troops in the East use the uncrowned eagle (or no eagle on the flag), as commie vassals, in the west, crowned eagles, as the true flag had for 900 years and is now.

The problem with uniforms is baaddd, PL troops use russian uniforms, and if you change that, the ruskies run in polish uniforms

[sturmowik]

This is true eagel of polish army in the east 100% (nothing else)

This is pre war polish eagel used later only on the west.

And that what left aftr war till 1989.

[sturmowik]

And about Gheto uprising Philippe.

U can easy use crowned eagel for ghetto fighters. They were polish citizens and they felt as polish. Uncrowded eagel in 1943 in Pland is overinterpretation of situation wchich hapend afterwards.

[DEY]

When I tried get partisan (from 1943) as polish Home Army in scenario from Warsaw Uprising 44 I found impossible to play singiel palyer mode.

I don't understand about this impossible to play statement, what was impossible!!??.

If it was me making a warsaw uprising scenario, I'd just use the regular polish army units as much as possible.

That way you would get polish tank hunter teams, flamethrower and pioneer units.

As far as captured german stuff, you would have to use the russian stuff, so in 1944 you can get the panther and then you have to go to 43 to get the stug, though it's the F model but it would do.

As far as captured guns a lot of the russian guns use the german hardcoded ones, say mostly all of the AA guns use the german coded guns.

The russian 76.2 mntn gun is the grey german 75mm inf gun, and things like mortars all use the same coded ones.

So if it was me I'd use regular polish and russian units.

[Philippe]

My memory is playing tricks on me.

I apparently made two different Polish unachieved victory objective flags, one for the Little Semiotics mod, and one for the Warsaw Ghetto.

The Little Semiotics mod (the usual case) is the 'correct' communist eagle that I suspect of being post-war. The Warsaw Ghetto flag uses the crowned eagle.

The Warsaw Ghetto mod also has the tiny unit flag without the eagle. Checking through my notes I think I did that out of whimsy, on the grounds that some of the fighters were communists. On reflection, I think I probably agree that it is over-interpretation. However, it works perfectly well as the normal Polish side indicator, so it should be pulled out and relabeled accordingly.

Of the three images that Sturmovik posted, the top one may be correct, but it looks like a metal pin. I suspect that the differences in treatment of the tail feathers has to do with the dimensional requirements of the object itself. On a flag the image governs, so the tail feathers can be a bit more baroque.

I realize that I was never too happy with the overall shape of the eagle on my Polish unachieved objective flags, and that's one of the reasons that I didn't produce a full set of symbols. Next week if I get a chance I'll make a full Polish set (Unachieved Victory Flag update for Little Semiotics, new regular Polish Victory Flag, the small unit national identity marker from the Warsaw Ghetto relabeled, and a new hidden unit marker. Not sure when they'll get posted with CMMODS down, but everything will be sorted out in a week or so.

In the meantime you should send Andrew Fox an e-mail to get him to weigh in on the uniforms.

[Philippe]

On a related note, it really bothers me that the partisans in the Ghetto Uprising scenario speak russian. In a perfect world they would be speaking polish or yiddish, or perhaps a mixture of the two.

The simplest solution would be to relabel a set of polish .wav files and substitute them for the russian ones whenever you're about to play that scenario. The problem is, I haven't checked to see if there is an exact correspondance between the russian and polish language files. That kind of switch wouldn't work in CMBO without sitting down and figuring out what each file was supposed to be talking about (the issue came up in the battle of Glieres scenario where both sides are supposed to be speaking french). I suspect that there may be a tighter correspondance in CMBB. So if there is an identical number of russian and polish language files (which there probably isn't) does anyone (like Madmatt, if you're reading this) know if you can just bait and switch, or do you have to actually figure out what you're doing?

[sturmowik]

As far as captured german stuff, you would have to use the russian stuff, so in 1944 you can get the panther and then you have to go to 43 to get the stug, though it's the F model but it would do.

[sturmowik]

By the way. Do somebody knows wheter BF is to make next game from CM series. For example from 1939 till 1940 - invasion of Poland and France. That could nice conclude all series of games. I am really wainting form such game. But on the other hand it is clear to me that such a game will be politically incorrect in US. Just imagine USSR as ally to Nazi Geramns invaiding Poland and Finland.

[flamingknives]

No further games with the current game engine.

BFC are working on the new engine (CMX2, do a search in the CMAK forum) but haven't specified a time period.

[Philippe]

I'm still uneasy about these, partly because I have a nagging suspicion that the appropriate flag should probably be a simple red and white bi-color. But here are two crownless shield flags. One of the eagles is probably too post-war to use. When I'm convinced that this isn't going off on an ahistorical tangent, I'll produce the other pieces.

[sturmowik]

The flags above are polish post-war navy flags, and are supposed to be used only by navy units till 1989 when eagel get crowned again. My military service I spet in polish navy under this flag. So using them for other purposes is misundrestending.

"appropriate flag should probably be a simple red and white bi-color"

Yes that is true. Plish flag state official flag is simlpy white & red. And used as such by polish troops on the Eastern front.

[Philippe]

But do we have any idea what flag, if any, was actually used by the East Front Polish troops in WW II ? My current inclination is to go with a simple bicolor as the Victory Flag.

We still have to nail down the eagle for the hidden unit marker. I've shown two shields on the flags I won't use, one with an eagle that probably dates from the 'fifties, the other with the same eagle that you showed a few posts above. Another candidate is the Bronkowski (?) eagle that you also posted.

Since I can't read the source material, could you explain the differences between them? The first (metal pin) eagle is a strong contender in theory, provided that a) it works visually when turned into a marker and is appropriate for communist sanctioned troops. What exactly were the circumstances and time frame of its use? Your third eagle looks archaic enough to date from WWII -- could you give us its history prior to 1989? I'm only really interested in it if it can be traced to the war or the immediate post-war period. I can't read anything written about it, but it looks right for 1944-45 stylistically.

The crownless eagle in my other shield flag (based on the FOTW site) may be from a style change ca. 1956 and thus too late to be appropriate. I have to double check this, but I think the eagle got scrawnier in the fifties -- if so I can't use it.

I've already made some preliminary markers that need to be refined through testing, but that will need more work. Please provide a little more historical feedback so I can reject one of them definitively. I like using the red background, but since several of the other CMBB hidden unit markers are derived from physical objects (especially if you're using the ones posted on Mark Gallear's site, or my versions of them), I may take a shot at the metal eagle.

[Moon]

sturmowik, thanks for all of this information. This will be very useful in the future, no doubt. I was born in Gdansk, so I always had a weak spot for the Poles in CMBB, but there was only so much we could do (there are way too many nations in CMBB as is)...

Martin

[Philippe]

Too many nations? I'm still pining for Czechs, Slovaks, and Bulgarians (and Serbs and Croats, if they don't belong in CMAK instead).

[David I]

Sturmowik,

I started a 1944 Warsaw Uprising (not to be confused with the 1943 Jewish Ghetto Uprising) of the Polish Home Army Mod Pack but never finished it.

I did a complete uniform mod by replacing the Late War Russian Partisans with Polish Home Army. They wear SS Smocks with red and white armbands, German Army Sidecaps with Polish eagles and they turned out bitchin! However, all Russian late war faces have collars around their necks. Looks cool on the Russians but sucked out loud on the Polish Home Army, so I added collarless faces as part of the mod. That done, none of the late war Russians in the game had high collars, now that didn't bother me too much but it caused me to make a replacement face mod.

My Warsaw project kinda fizzled as the uniform mod continued to grow combined with my inability to find a good, scaled map of 1944 Warsaw for making scenarios.

If you would like a picture or even the mod drop me an email and I'll send them to you (Never did figure out how to do screenshots on this forum :confused: ).

DavidI

[Philippe]

To do a screenshot you go to imageshack and open an account. Then you upload a jpeg to imageshack from your computer -- their instructions are very clear.

Once you've gotten uploaded to imageshack, if you look at the codes associated with each image there you'll notice that there's one specifically designed for linking to forums. It just happens to be the first one that they list, and it has the word "forum" next to it. Copy the code, and paste it into the text of the message here exactly where you want the image to appear. And it's much easier to do than to describe.

If you mean how to take a screenshot, simply hit your "printscreen" button, which is usually located towards the top and to the right of the main keyboard. [Mine is located directly above the "insert" button, which is part of a group of buttons above the directional arrows]. Once you've hit print screen, close CMBB and open Paint (which you can find by going into Programs after clicking on the Start button in the lower left of your screen). Open Paint, click on Edit, and then hit paste from the drop down menu. You'll get queried as to whether you want to expand your image, so say yes. Make sure the image takes ( = make sure the dotted line around it goes away), then save the image as a jpeg ( = File then Save As). Somewhere along the way you'll probably want to crop the image down to make it smaller.

I'm hoping that whatever part of the above you don't need will be useful for someone else.

Now that you're armed with knowledge, please oblige by showing us some screenshots.

[junk2drive]

I'll add to the above. You click "Full Reply Form" below the message box on this page. That will take you to the page with buttons for quotes and images etc.

[Philippe]

I've found that you can dispense with those buttons altogether if you just copy the correct line at Imageshack.

Imageshack accounts, by the way, are free.