What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?

[JasonC]

(1) Bryan P. is simply making it up, repeating theory rather than any real operational action. That is an example of exactly the "wish-history" unreality we are denouncing. Citing Goering is even sillier.

(2) The Luftwaffe spent most of its time raiding airfields and Warsaw. They believed nonsense about decision through air. Neither had any real effect on the ground campaign. Armed recce probably did, but not a significant one because it wasn't close enough to matter. The Poles were already mobilized and in fact their army was too far west for sound defense.

(3) Of course the motorized units advanced faster than the infantry ones, *after* the Poles had been smashed at numerous points and large holes created. Faster exploitation was the main mobile warfare point the campaign featured. This largely consisted in driving through undefended Polish towns. 24th Mech covered more miles than the Marines did up the coast, too. But the Marines went right up the coast - and the German infantry defeated the Poles everywhere.

(4) The Poles were not "forced" into wooded areas by air, they sought it out once the Germans broke through. They sought locally defensible terrain and Poland is a flat sandy plain. The only major barriers are the rivers. Between them, woods are what you can defend in. Once the Germans made holes everywhere, they owned the road net, and any Polish unit being bypassed had only one tactical option.

(5) As for Guderian, he did one thing in the whole campaign that was actually important mobile warfare doctrine. On one occasion, he shifted several mobile divisions through a hole another had created, instead of each bashing ahead making its own - which left to themselves, his division commanders were attempting. The rest was a road trip.

So no, it is not remotely enough to show anything of the kind. The Polish campaign was a deterministic smash in which the outcome was a foregone conclusion, due to the overall military strength of the parties. (So was Rumania, that was the point. One battalion's capture of bakeries having precisely nothing to do with it).

Yes motorized ground forces made holes, infantry made holes, motorized forces exploited, infantry advanced on a broad front, yes trucks are faster than legs so motorized units lead after breakthroughs everywhere. As a result the first week might have done what two weeks would have otherwise, and the whole thing with mop up included took five weeks intead of the 2-3 months it might have. Mostly because of trucks not tanks.

If there hadn't a single tank or a single plane on either side, the outcome would have been the same. Germany was ten times as strong as Poland.

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410:

The Germans were able to renegotiate for this because of their startling fast campaign. They had not just won a guaranteed victory but a lightning fast conquest. This was because it was a Blitzkrieg campaign, in which the Luftwaffe and the Panzerwaffe played the significant role in breaking Polish resistance on the operational scale with stategic results.

The campaign was lead by armoured thrusts from the start breaking through Polish defences faster than the infantry and penetrating deep into the interior always leading.

These were not armoured thrusts in any way shape or form. Tanks did not concentrate, blast through the enemy and then exploit freely into the enemy's rear while working closely with air and artillery. Even calling these formations "spearheads" is misleading. The tactics and the equipment simply weren't there to merit the use of such a word.

I'm sorry Zalgiris, but you are dead wrong here. You are talking about the movements of two corps as if they were the actions of panzer armies in 1941. They were not. In general, tanks were distributed piecemeal in support of the infantry, were never allowed to operate freely until Polish resistance was effectively over and were never the significant factor in any significant battles.

JasonC is quite correct in his assessment. This was an infantry battle won by traditional tactics.

The Germans simply didn't yet believe in the tactics you are describing. The main proponent of CAS, Von Richthoffen, spent nearly the whole first day of the campaign sitting around his camp waiting for someone to request his assistance. Nobody did. The fact was that "requesting air support" was still a very new idea to the Germans. Remember that before the Spanish Civil War there was no such thing. These were all new ideas that had never been tested in a real campaign.

And tested is what some of them were in Poland. But only tested and with great care. The fact that they were successful led to their acceptance and later inclusion on a larger, more significant scale. But in 1939 they were a sideshow at best. The Germans had no need to risk the success of their war effort on newfangled, untried tactics. Why would they do anything so extreme? There was no need of it. There vast superiority in men and material insured them a rapid and decisive victory tanks or no tanks.

I will only agree with you on one point. I believe the Luftwaffe to have been an important factor in the campaign from at least a psychological standpoint. However, I do not believe their assistance was critical.

The Germans were able to maintain a fluid front in 1914 until they marched too far beyond their railheads. They were able to do the same in 1939 using virtually the same methods, except they were never realistically in any danger of having their offensive grind to a halt due to supply problems.

P.S. The best general description of the tactical methods employed by the Germans in the Polish campaigne that I've come aross is this quote in Bryan Perretts' "A History of Blitzkrieg".

"The German system consists essentially of making a breach in the front with armour and aircraft, then to throw mechanised and motorised columns into the breach, to beat down its shoulders to right and left in order to keep on enlarging it, at the same time as armoured detachments, guided, protected and reinforced by aircraft, advance in front of the supporting divisions in such a way that the defense's maneouverability is reduced to immpotence."

It comes from a French observer in Poland, the French Airforce Gen Armengaud. When making his report to the French General HQ upon his return before the end of 39 he added that "It would be madness not to draw an exact lesson from this pattern and not to pay heed to this warning!"

(It sounds like a very good description of Blitzkrieg to me and it comes from a French Officer who witnessed the campaigne and in an official reported soon after it!)

I'm not sure what that French general was referring to, but it wasn't the system the Germans employed on any large scale in Poland. Once again, there were hints of the blitzkrieg but they were not significant to the campaign itself.

I haven't read anything from the author you refer to, but if he is arguing that the Germans carried the day by the clever use of armour and air he is misinformed as would be, logically, many of his readers.

Cheers

Paul

[JasonC]

The French officer probably read it in the newspapers, which were making it up just like historians have ever since. Imagination, not fact. There was, for instance, zero "guiding" of ground forces by air. He is clearly just making it up.

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Germany was ten times as strong as Poland. [/QB]

This statement would entail a campaign of some 250 German divisions in case White.

[JasonC]

False. In manpower, as I already stated, Germany outnumbered Poland by 2 to 1. But personnel numbers were Poland's only long suit. Germany had 10 times the economy of Poland, more than 10 times the industrial potential, more than 10 times the capital invested in major military equipment, etc. Military power is not a head count. Which was more powerful in WW II, the US or China? Hint, one got its tail kicked by Japan and the other kicked Japan's tail - with one arm.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by JasonC:

(1) Bryan P. is simply making it up, repeating theory rather than any real operational action. That is an example of exactly the "wish-history" unreality we are denouncing.

[JasonC]

Z - The statement I am saying Bryan P. is just making up, was this -

"The German system consists essentially of making a breach in the front with armour and aircraft, then to throw mechanised and motorised columns into the breach, to beat down its shoulders to right and left in order to keep on enlarging it, at the same time as armoured detachments, guided, protected and reinforced by aircraft, advance in front of the supporting divisions in such a way that the defense's maneouverability is reduced to impotence".

This is imaginary doctrine, not historical fact, about any operation being described. It is an ideal in the mind of the writer, generalized over facts not in evidence, ascribing far more forethought to the means the Germans employed than there actually was. He is describing his ideal of Blitzkrieg and afterward tacking that ideal onto the Germans, not discovering in the actual conduct of the Germans what they in fact did and how each element of it worked or failed to work.

To see this must be the origin of the passage, notice he alleges the penetrations were "guided" by aircraft. There isn't the least evidence anything of the kind ever occurred. You can read every scrap of memoirs of the German commanders and not find a single instance of it.

He is making it up. He thinks it would be neat, and effective. He sees something that is effective overall, and he makes up causes for that effectiveness that he imagines would be adequate to explain it, feasible, and clever. The actual participants did nothing of the kind and we know it.

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by JasonC:

False. In manpower, as I already stated, Germany outnumbered Poland by 2 to 1. But personnel numbers were Poland's only long suit. Germany had 10 times the economy of Poland, more than 10 times the industrial potential, more than 10 times the capital invested in major military equipment, etc. Military power is not a head count. Which was more powerful in WW II, the US or China? Hint, one got its tail kicked by Japan and the other kicked Japan's tail - with one arm.

I am not arguing the importance of industrial power. I am wondering what difference it made in the Polish campaign. You claim it made the whole affaire a forgone conclusion. It is this I cannot understand. I feel you are shooting from the hip really, and I cannot for the life of me understand why you are in such a rage to dismiss sources conflicting with your personal views.

Industrial power has no bearing in a one-month campaign I am sure you agree. Neither side added to their initial Ordre de Bataille. So any such advantages must have had been brought to bear before the conflict broke out.

What was brought to bear before that date? Your stating of "ten times" and "more than ten times" I take as a figures of speech. Unless you are speaking modern day GNP and military spending of course, but we weren't. Here is how it actually went between the wars:

German armament spending was around a percent of Polands in 1926. In 1933, Germany began her rapid rearmament programme, but it took her until 1937-38 to reach European levels of investment. By then she had expanded her investments 184 times as compared to 1933, illustrating just how vast the gap to close was for her. Using 1928 as index year (100), investments dropped to 75 in 1932, up to 87,1 in 1933, 399 in 1934, 622,7 in 1935, 1088,30 in 36, 1312 in 1937 to reach 1874,20 in 1938. In terms of billions of marks, between 1936 and 1937 she thus outmatch Polish investments, and between 1937 and 1938 she passed France in military spending. (And she spended almost twice as much as Britain did, but Britain has always spent very little in peacetime).

Of course, in 1938, Poland (and France) had maintained a fairly steady level of investment for two decades, reached by Germany only that year. In figures, Poland spent around 800 million zloty, plus the 2.6 billion French Francs loaned to her.

The summed total volumes from 1930 to 1939 invested in defence are not to Germanys advantage. And quite a way away from ten times Polish investments.

The question of Germany's national economic superiority speaking GNP (almost six times the Polish) stands uncorrected. But as the vast US economy showed in the first year of war against the retarded and crippled economy of Japan, economic and industrial potential is quite useless in any war until realised in military power. By 1939, Germany had almost realised a third of her potential.

Leaving us with the two armies as they actually were at the outbreak of hostilities.

As I understand you, you claim that Germany's modern arms (aircraft and armour) and her modern doctrine aided her very little in the campaign. Your words exactly were "If there hadn't a single tank or a single plane on either side, the outcome would have been the same. Germany was ten times as strong as Poland." Your "ten times" you explained had nothing to do with numbers but investments. I have shown that you cannot mean the size of investments as such, since these were not ten times superior. Regardless of size of investments, Germany's investments were focused on new systems and doctrine. Poland made a brave effort at the same, spending the majority of her immediate investements on her new Air Force, but the rest of it went to WWI units. But this, as I read you, matters naught anyway, since even in the absence of these investments, Germany would have won.

Leaving us with the comparing of infantry and artillery then. More precisely, the units actually taking part in the fighting, since they remained the same throughout the campaign.

German infantry divisions were not significantly better equipped than their Polish counterparts in 1939 (I leave this open for your disagreement of course). Except perhaps fo the minute amount of motorisation, which you write had no significance anyway. I fail to see how the industrial advantage of Germany is brought to bear here. Please elucidate.

Polish infantry had the benefit of a successful war in their recent history, and the experience of a not so successful low intensity war as well. It was Polands estimate that she would be able to move the war to German soil within five days. Polish intelligence services were arguably better than the German counterpart in the interwar years. Obviously they missed entirely the forgone conclusion of their imminent demise, and so I might add did the intelligence services of France and the UK.

My studying the 37 German infantry divisions (two Slovak), equipped by German arms investments, versus the 23+1 Polish does not lend me the ability to immediately draw the conclusion that Poland will fall within a matter of days. If I am to exclude the presence of modern doctrine and weapons, that is.

So, back to you. How do you mean, "forgone conclusion"? In what way do you feel Germany was so vastly superior to Poland - being quite concrete about it I mean. How did the tenfold superiority manifest itself in the field?

If you will, the second phase of the campaign in France lasted only a week longer than Poland, and the same argument of German industrial superiority can be tried on that campaign.

Cheers

Dandelion

[Michael Dorosh]

Looking forward to JasonC's reply.

I stated early on that the campaign in Poland was a "near run" thing; I also think JasonC has been "shooting from the hip", though he may well be right about the unimportance of motorization.

[roqf77]

just a minor point. if germany didnt spend money on the luftwaffe and tanks they would be able to have equiped more infantry. so in jason c's own context of ww1 tactics then the german force infantry wise would of been larger than it was. not strictly agreeing with him but just pointing that out.

One question though do you realy think in the long run poland could have won?

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

So, back to you. How do you mean, "forgone conclusion"? In what way do you feel Germany was so vastly superior to Poland - being quite concrete about it I mean. How did the tenfold superiority manifest itself in the field?

This whole discussion really comes down to one thing and one thing only. Where were the new tactics used and how did they determine the outcome of the campaign? If I see one example of an armoured formation contributing in some significant way to the destruction of the Polish army I will happily recant everything I have said.

I see nothing wrong with the figures I already posted as evidence of German superiority. Between 1935 and 1939 Germany spent around 24 billion dollars on defence. Poland, in the same period, spent about 750 million dollars. That is 3%. If you add in French contributions (a battalion of tanks and some cash) the Poles gain an increase of 12% annually. Overall, this bumps them up to about 4 or 5% of German spending.

How does this manifest itself on the battlefield? In superior maneuver and firepower. A German infantry division, according to Zaloga in "The Polish Campaign", had about double the firepower of its Polish counterpart.

A German regiment had about three times the indirect firepower of a Polish regiment. A Polish division had 48 artillery pieces and 101 mortars compared to 74 pieces (54 being 105mm or larger) and 147 mortars on the German side. German divisions had around 1400 motor vehicles compared to the almost entirely horse-drawn Polish division and a signal battalion of twice the size. Not counting superior training, this gives the Germans at least a 2 to 1 advantage in firepower, mobility and communications.

Now, if you count superior support at the corps and army level you begin to see a growing gulf between the two sides. In fact, with numerical superiority taken into account and no chance of stretched supply lines, I have little trouble understanding why the Germans elected to use the tactics they did in Poland.

Cheers

Paul

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by roqf77:

One question though do you realy think in the long run poland could have won?

Absolutely not. There could never have been a "long run".

According to Zaloga in "The Polish Campaign"...

"The infantry division -the only type of Polish division in 1939- had men and weapons adequate to defend a front of ten to twelve kilometres. Unfortunately, the Polish-German border stretched for about 1500 kilometres. So even if all the Polish divisions could have been mobilized and in position on the frontier (an absurd cordon defense that was never even considered) they would still have been stretched more than three times beyond their capability. Thus there was never a realistic chance that the army could conduct more than a delaying action, given existing limitations on manpower and equipment."

And, on a separate issue raised by Dandelion, Polish artillery at the divisional level consisted of a platoon of infantry guns per regiment, 39 light artillery regiments and 30 heavy artillery sections.

A light regiment consisted of 24 75mm guns and 12 100mm guns. A heavy artillery section consisted of 3 105mm guns and 3 155mm howitzers. For comparison, the Polish division had 45 pieces of 105mm or smaller (representing 94% of their total allotment) while the Germans had 54 pieces of 105mm or larger (representing 73%).

A shortage of signals equipment (only 19 radios per division amounting to 1/7th that of a German division) further increased this disparity.

Maybe some of Jason's statements have been a little strong, but he is not wrong in his assessment of the campaign as a whole.

Cheers

Paul

[JasonC]

First to clarify what I am and am not maintaining. I maintain that Germany had such great military superiority over Poland that it would have won and easily even if neither had tanks or planes, using WW I style tactics and such other advantages as Germany possessed. I also think the real disparity in military strength was about 10 to 1.

I have not maintained and do not maintain, that Germany would still have a 10 to 1 superiority without tanks or planes. She would have had a lesser superiority, but one still large enough to win and win easily.

I have not maintained and do not maintain, that Germany having trucks made no difference. In fact I explicitly stated they probably cut the length of the campaign in half, by speeding exploitation once the initial breakthroughs were made.

I have not maintained and do not maintain, that German armor and motorized formations were not useful in Poland, or did not make breakthroughs, or did not lead the way in exploiting them. On the contrary, I explicitly said each of those things were true. I just added, the disparity in power was so great even that coming from other factors, the Germans would still have won (and easily) without these additional strengths.

I have not maintained and do not maintain, that no modern mobile warfare tactics were used in Poland, or that they failed. On the contrary, I explicitly said that some of them were tried out and succeeded. I added that everything else succeeded, too. I gave one example of good command applying a reinforce-success principle with mobile divisions and called it useful. I just added that otherwise, the campaign was largely a road trip for that particular commander.

Now to the other strengths Germany possessed that Poland did not.

Poland had no rational military plan.

No large Polish units showed the slightest capacity for coordinated operational action until a week into the campaign, when exactly one army did so for less than a week, and failed in its attack.

The Poles possessed virtually no signal equipment. What they did have was static and lost as soon as the front became fluid. Guns were employed direct fire at a depth of 3 km because they had no fire direction.

A German signal battalion possessed more trucks than a Polish infantry division. And more radios than the Polish high command.

German rail and road logistics kept a rapidly advancing army of a million and a half men flawlessly supplied, including abundant ammunition (on which more below). Polish rail was marginally effective at the mobilization stage. No other element of Polish rear area services functioned at all.

Morale sucked because everybody knew they were going to lose, within 72 hours at the outside.

The typical German infantry division included abundant MG34s, large numbers of 81mm mortars with abundant ammunition, 75mm infantry guns for direct fire, well coordinated on call 105mm and 150mm artillery support. The typical Polish infantry division had heavy Vickers style HMGs transported by horse wagon, BAR style automatic rifles as LMGs, adequate numbers of 81mm mortars, though about 30% of them were WW I models with half the range of their modern counterparts, ineffective 37mm and 47mm infantry guns, WW I era 75mm field guns firing direct as the main field piece, without adequate communications to direct them, with a modest portion of 100mm howitzers deployed the same way.

The Poles did have other artillery better than that, both 105mm guns with long barrels, and French 155mm howitzers. They had 500 of those combined in service, deployed them about 5 km behind the front, and used them for counterbattery and prep fire. Map fire rather than reactive, in other words.

Then we get to the effect of industry on artillery firepower. Here are the available amounts, Polish and German -

Polish 155s - 288k rounds

German 150s - 6 million plus 105k/month

Polish 120,105,100 - 1.3 million

German 105s - 11.5 million plus 192k/month

Polish 75s - 2.5 million

German 75s - 12.9 million plus 193k/month

German 81s - 11.7 million plus 250k/month

German 7.92mm - 7.3 billion plus 190m/month

(comparable Polish figures not available for 81s and small arms ammunition)

The Poles had too much front to defend, were outnumbered in major formations and total manpower almost 2 to 1, had half the firepower per major formation, worse supply, communications, and command in every respect, and could not remotely expect either to absorb aggregate German artillery firepower nor to replenish their own as it was expended.

In the event, the Polish artillery was neutered even compared to the figures above, because the far west and linear deployments, shallow positioning of the guns, and horse transport only, meant they failed to get away once the initial lines were breeched. Which took all of 2 days. (Trucks helped the German open those gaps certainly).

The result was a handful of uncoordinated and unsupplied guns in this or that pocket, when they weren't lost outright. A week later they have no ammo at those guns and the men are fighting with rifles. The same happened with hastily formed units in the operational rear. In a few spots, an organized stand was made with full positions and all the trimmings - for a few days at most.

Put a green company of partisans with 2 on-map 76s and 1-2 mortars, up against 2 companies of regular Germans with 8 MG34s, 4 81mms, 2 on map 75mm IGs, plus 1 150mm and 3 105mm spotters.

You will notice right away that a strafing Me-109 is superfluous. While a couple of Pz IIs added to the German OOB balanced by a single 45mm added to the "Russian" one, would marginally help the Germans, it would not have anything to do with who won, nor with how dead the Poles are the instant you hit "go".

And that is if the Germans don't get more fights out of their guys by fighting and winning cleanly in sequence, than the Poles get out of being stomped on and outmaneuvered by men with numbers, trucks, and radios coming at them from 3 sides.

It was a bug on a windshield, already.

[Bigduke6]

Another factor contributing to the German superiority, I think, was that the Germans had small-unit infantry fighting down to a "T". By this I mean a German company was ready and able to use section fire and movement, support weapon shifts, and artillery strikes to get the tactical job done.

The Poles, by comparison, had in general WWI-style infantry trained to hold the line and to advance or fall back as ordered by higher command, rather than as a company commander figured the tactical situation dictated.

There are lots of reasons for this German superiority; among them the condification of von Hutier tactics in German interwar infantry doctrine, a Reichswehr focus on infantry small unit efficiency when the worldwide trend was massed warfare, and Nazi Germany's celebration of military service (attracting better quality recruits into the infantry), and indeed Germany's greater development compared to Poland (giveing Germany a dramatically larger pool of educated youth to convert into soldiers.)

Factor in the pretty much inherent superiority of German officers and NCOs to just about any other army on the planet, and the result of fight between a German and a Polish infantry company is almost a foregone conclusion.

Unless the Germans happen to attack right into the Poles' defenses, without preparation, the Germans are going to win. In any kind of fluid situation, the Germans are going to win. If the German staff does its job right - as was generally the case - the Germans could concentrate overwhelming force at the point of attack, meaning the Germans would win. If the Poles attempt any kind of maneuver, odds are the Germans are going to react faster than the Poles can put their plan into effect, even though it was the Poles initiating the action. Meaning, again, the Germans are going to win.

Multiply that over an army, and you get a German force absolutely convinced it can destroy whatever it is the Poles can throw at it, and a Polish force quickly convinced that no matter what they do, the Germans are going to win.

This is not to say the Poles would give up; of course they didn't. But confidence in victory, or the lack of it, has a dramatic effect on how units perform. The longer the campaign went on, the more confident the Germans became of winning small unit actions, and the less confident the Poles became of the same thing.

What's more, the entire Polish strategy - which was very logical - consisted of holding on until England and France intervened against Germany. Every day the British stayed home and the French on their side of the Maginot line, was another day of Polish national morale undermined.

There is another issue I think that is being missed here, also on the level of soldier morale. It is often forgotten that Poland in 1939 was not a homogeneous country, but rather a state with big ethnic minorities generally convinced Poland had no right to rule them.

These included, especially, Ukrainians and Romanians, with a smaller helpings of Germans and - in the terms of the region - Jews. I have seen studies saying up to 40 per cent of people considered Poles by the international community in 1939, didn't think they were Poles themselves. The Poles obviously admit to lower number, I think around 20 per cent.

But whatever it was, that's a significant proportion of recruits and civilian support that were less than solidly committed to fighting to the last drop of blood for Polish independence. I am not arguing the Polish army was done in by a Ukrainian 5th column, but rather suggesting that situation be contrasted with the German army, which in 1939 was at one of its peaks of motivation.

It is a lot harder to quantify motivation than it is numbers of divisions or rifles, but discounting a factor like that is nothing less than ignorant. Morale was overwhelmingly on the German side in 1939 - and I think both sides knew it.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Z - The statement I am saying Bryan P. is just making up, was this -

"The German system consists essentially of making a breach in the front with armour and aircraft, then to throw mechanised and motorised columns into the breach, to beat down its shoulders to right and left in order to keep on enlarging it, at the same time as armoured detachments, guided, protected and reinforced by aircraft, advance in front of the supporting divisions in such a way that the defense's maneouverability is reduced to impotence".

This is imaginary doctrine, not historical fact, about any operation being described. It is an ideal in the mind of the writer, generalized over facts not in evidence, ascribing far more forethought to the means the Germans employed than there actually was. He is describing his ideal of Blitzkrieg and afterward tacking that ideal onto the Germans, not discovering in the actual conduct of the Germans what they in fact did and how each element of it worked or failed to work.

To see this must be the origin of the passage, notice he alleges the penetrations were "guided" by aircraft. There isn't the least evidence anything of the kind ever occurred. You can read every scrap of memoirs of the German commanders and not find a single instance of it.

He is making it up. He thinks it would be neat, and effective. He sees something that is effective overall, and he makes up causes for that effectiveness that he imagines would be adequate to explain it, feasible, and clever. The actual participants did nothing of the kind and we know it.

1) Firstly JasonC you are wrong if you are thinking that Bryan Perrett made this quote up. I think that you must have read my origional post incorrectly. I wasn't quoting him, since this was a quote from an origional second hand source that he quoted, though he probably also had to translated it from the French.

I have this in Bryan Perrett's "A History of Blitzkrieg", published by Hale, London, 1983, its on page 79. I copied exactly the entire notated quote he made from somebody else's first hand report in full in that post. (Most of which JasonC has above.)

As I expained it in that post it was actually put in a report given to the French General HQ in late 1939. It was made by a French observer who was in Polad during the campaigne, the General A. Armengaud of the Armee de L'Air and delivered when he returned to France from Poland.

In his native French, Armenguad included this report in his "Batailles Politiques et Militaires sur l'Europe" published in Paris, 1948. So I fail to think of Bryan Perrett as 'just making it up'! :eek:

I for one consider it immpossible for Bryan Perrett to have ghost written for Armenguad in 1948 or 1939 either, how about you JasonC?

2) Secondly, JasonC I'm beginning to think that you ought to start to provide evidence that proves your questioning of what Bryan Perrett / Armengaud are referring to in the quote regarding armoured detactments being 'guided' by aircraft, rather than emphatically just stating that it was not the case.

Indeed JasonC, of course I had noticed that the author alleges in the quote that the advance of armoured detactments in the front of the supporting divisions were "guided" by aircraft. I kind of liked that term being applied here from when I first came acoss this passage and still do appreciated it, actually.

You claim in relation to aircraft having 'guided' the armoured detactments that there isn't the least evidence anything of the kind ever occurred and delcare that one could not find a single instance of it from reading every scrap of memoirs of the German commanders.

(JasonC, please take this advice into your consideration, asking questions alone is a fine thing to do in any inquiry or discussion, but you absolutely should not argue with statements that are utterly false or at least that you can't back up by providing evidence for. You can express your opinions as much as you want by all means for sure, even if they are based on assumptions or inferrences or without any knowledge at all, but put them forward as such.)

Now getting back to my issue with JasonC on the subject of armoured detatchments being 'guided' by aircraft as described in the quote first calls for definitions. At least I hope to explain here how I interpret the terms and there by be followed by the reader clearly enough what I'm saying.

The two terms and their relationship to one another here are 'armoured detatchments' and there being 'guided' by aircraft.

AIUI, the term 'armoured detatchments' does not just refer to units of Panzers only, but to bodies of forces that include all of the elements combined as mechanised manuoeuvre groups. By this I mean Kampfgroupen (Battlegroups or Task Forces) that have actual Panzers in them as well as the Light and Panzer Divisions more so than the Korps.

The term 'guided' here applied to something that the Luftwaffe's aircraft were providing for these 'armoured detatchments' on the ground for which there is a broad definition and a narrower one. The broader general sense being referred to with this term is arial reconnaissance. The narrow one is restricted to a concept of somekind of a more directly overhead 'spy in the sky' direction commentary / immediate information liassoning.

There are examples of arial reconnaissance providing information to Panzer incorporating Kamfgroupen and to Light and Panzer Divisions and the Korps that they were serving in during the Polish campaigne. First to start things off, in von Mellenthin's "Panzer Battles" he relates, while indicating the the jumpiness of German troops in the first few days of the War, how the troops all shot at an approaching aircraft to find out later that it was the Luftwaffe commander of the air liasson for their 3rd Korps which was deployed on the right (southern) wing of Guderians XIX Korps against the corridor.

The guy didn't see any joke in what had almost just happenned to him.

Mainly though, in a book called "Battlegroup" by James Lukas, 1993 there is the first chapter on the 4th Pazer Divion. In it there are exaple of air recce providing information on Polish movements on the flanks or across the front of the 4th Pz Div as well as reporting such things the next town or village or the flank is clear of the enemy.

For the narrow more later sorry.

[JasonC]

So the guy who made it up is different from the guy who copied what they other guy made up. Still made up.

Did the Luftwaffe do air recon? Sure. Did the ground forces get info from it a day later? Undoubtedly. Did planes fly ahead of every PD and tell them to turn right at the next intersection? Not a chance.

Ground commanders did not take orders from airmen, period. Often the Luftwaffe did not know how far their own ground forces had advanced. Several friendly fire incidents attest to it. Nobody arranged to tell the airmen in real time how far they had gone.

The writer implies a degree of air ground coordination that we know did not exist on the German side. And a planned role and effect for that coordination that they did not plan at all. There was any pre-fight coordination only when individual officers on their own initiative worked it out, for a single case.

Liason officers did not radio planes in flight where to go, they told ground commanders what to expect of air operations. Read Guderian if you doubt it. He worked out the details of the famous instance of coordination at the Meuse crossing, and the role of air was artillery suppression while infantry made a river crossing. It took days of prep and was almost mucked up by Luftwaffe higher ups trying to change it to one big raid.

The first true real time air ground coordination of the kind described occurred in France in 1944, with US and Brit tac air running relays to keep squadrons above particular armored columns. It was quite difficult to arrange and used tons of air assets. Even then the pilots were going after targets of opportunity, not true CAS. A uniform true CAS system of actual called airstrikes, as in "ground commander to pilot, give me everything you've got on hill 318 right now" - was only developed in Korea.

Lots of people *imagined* that the Germans already had such systems in 1939 or in 1940, in Poland or in France. But it isn't true. The impression arose simply from lots of armed recce during a motorized exploitation. That had a morale effect and appeared more dauntingly coordinated than it actually was.

Oh and incidentally, ground troops firing at any aircraft first and asking questions afterwards is par for the course. (They were returning a favor, like as not.) But hardly supports the notion of close real time air ground cooperation.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

There is another issue I think that is being missed here, also on the level of soldier morale. It is often forgotten that Poland in 1939 was not a homogeneous country, but rather a state with big ethnic minorities generally convinced Poland had no right to rule them.

It is a lot harder to quantify motivation than it is numbers of divisions or rifles, but discounting a factor like that is nothing less than ignorant. Morale was overwhelmingly on the German side in 1939 - and I think both sides knew it.

The Poles reputedly had one of the best, most professional armies in the world in 1939 - this according to German soldiers who fought there. I once personally interviewed a gentleman in his own home who had been platoon commander in the Panzer Lehr, who had fought from 39 to 45 as a machinegunner, then infantry platoon commander in PzGrenLehr Rgt 901, including Poland, France 1940, Russia, Normandy, the Bulge - of all the armies he faced (Polish, French, Russian, Canadian, US) he had the most respect for the Poles.

Your information doesn't seem to jive with my own reading - what are your sources? I think Cooper describes the Polish campaign as being a much closer run thing, but of course, he had his own axe to grind.

[Bigduke6]

Offhand, my main source some classes I took from Piotr Wandycz way back when. He was there during the campaign as well, and went on to write history books, from a civilian/diplomatic point of view, admittedly. I'll dig up some written sources and get back to you.

Are you arguing the Poles were the Germans' equal at combined arms warfare, especially at the small unit level?

[roqf77]

im in over my head. but one thing if it were such a close run thing? why did poland surrender and last for such a short time?

[Sergei]

Originally posted by roqf77:

im in over my head. but one thing if it were such a close run thing? why did poland surrender and last for such a short time?

You seem a bit confused of who's arguing what...

[roqf77]

no im following it all, you seem confused at what i said. i mean what is jasonc dandelion etc basicly arguing? think about it.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by roqf77:

i mean what is jasonc dandelion etc basicly arguing?

Jason is saying that Germany won the campaign because it was far more powerful than Poland, so differences in doctrine had little to do with it.

Dandelion is arguing that the Polish and German armies weren't as inequal in strength as Jason claims.

[roqf77]

i know. hence my question. plus dorosh said he thinks the campaign was a close run thing to qoute him. i asked if this was true i.e it was a close run thing, why did poland performe so badly.

[Sergei]

Duh, different people have different opinions on that. JasonC, Dandelion and Dorosh are not the Borg. Try to direct your question at someone.

The argument here, anyway, is not about why Poland lost, but if Poland ever could have had any chances to hold out at least a tiny bit longer if her strategy hadn't been so poor against attacks coming from all directions.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

Are you arguing the Poles were the Germans' equal at combined arms warfare, especially at the small unit level?

No, but I really don't know how good or bad they were, either. I meant from a morale standpoint they are generally regarded as professional. I'll look at my Cooper again and see if there is any grounds for that. One interview with a Panzer Lehr vet isn't much to go on. He was also convinced the Russians were planning to attack first.