FoW: HMG Support Platoons Obrona Narodowa (National Defence)

So in our latest installment of our tour around the nuts and bolts of the Polish National Defence we are going to take a look at some of the company support platoon options that are available to a National Defence commander.

All in all there were three main types of heavy machine guns that came to be used by the Obrona Narodowa in 1939.

A Type I battalion HMG platoon with its two HMG sections, command and wagon transports

For the battalions that were either new or were not considered to have a combat efficiency high enough older retired weapons were supplied. The Hotchkiss wz.14 & wz.25 and the Maxim wz.08 were the two weapons that were most prevalent in the states stockpiles. For those battalions that were the oldest types which has been refined and trained to the point where there was little distinction between them and their regular counterparts supplies of the Polish home produced Ckm wz.30 HMG may have been made available to some of these, most likely in the Type III Silesian battalions which were considered some of the best National Defence troops in the entirety of Poland.

A WIP of the Intelligence Briefing Page for some of the HMG options

In 1939 Poland had about 2,600 wz.14's and about 1000 wz.25's. There were many supporters of the Hotchkiss in Poland mainly because of the air cooled nature of the weapon and its simple, reliable and robust construction. Many of the extant weapons were used in the States armoured vehicles but the remainder largely went to equipping the Obrona Narodowa. The downside was a relatively sedate rate of fire of 400 rpm.

A Polish owned Hotchkiss wz.14 tripod mounted HMG being operated by a member of the National Defence

The German Ckm 7.92mm wz.08 version of the Maxim was the most popular version of this weapon anywhere in the world. Manufactured at the Spandau and DWM plant in Germany before the first world war Poland was able to retain almost 6000 units when the State was reborn. Water cooled and highly rugged the weapon was installed on a four legged sled. Heavy but owing to its 500 rpm rate of fire by 1939 they had long since been withdrawn from the front line infantry and cavalry and were left for the reserve divisions, anti aircraft companies and some of the independent cavalry units.

A Polish owned German Ckm 7.92mm wz.08 on four legged sled

Owing to the less positive reviews of the upgraded Hotchkiss wz.25's at the start of 1928 Ckm held a state competition for the provision of a new HMG for the armed forces. The winner was Browning with its wz.1919. A simple construction, water cooled with the ability to change mid operation, it was resistant to dirt blockages and jams. Able to operate over long ranges whilst being able to retain a high degree of accuracy it also had a respectable 500 rpm rate of fire. It was produced in such numbers with such positive reviews that it ended up being used in almost all Polish vehicles where available and supplying almost all of the armed forces. Only the most highly rated Obrona Narodowa battalions would have received any of these however and they were a rarity within the formation as a whole.

A Polish license produced Browning HMG labelled as Ckm wz.30

The lightest formations with regards to both manpower and equipment supplies was the Type I National Defence Battalions which were largely established as a reaction to Polands deteriorating international situation, the collapse of the Czechoslovakian state and Poland becoming hedged in by the Nazi's on three of its borders. 

A typical HMG platoon command element with its horse drawn supply cart.

The Type I battalions were seens as only having to supply support services behind the front line fighting, dealing with fifth column activists and ensuring the civilian panic was not getting out of hand behind the lines.

Another typical example of a Type I battalion HMG platoon

Because of these facts the Type I battalions were only provided with what amounted to a token support platoon of just two Hotchkiss wz.14 HMG's transported in horse drawn carts appropriated from the local populace.

A Hotchkiss wz.14 supplied Obrona Narodowa HMG base

The Type II and Type III battalions had their HMG support platoons held at Battalion level and were parsed out amongst the companies that needed them as circumstances required. They would be supplied with a combined HMG and Mortar platoon with three HMG sections and one Mortar section within the single support platoon.

A rear view of the above Hotchkiss wz.14 supplied Obrona Narodowa HMG base

The Type IV battalions would have a single HMG platoon within each of the battalions three rifle companies with each of the HMG platoons having three HMG sections providing each of the three rifle companies with some instant call up clout!

A combined HMG and Mortar platoon typical of the Type III & IV Battalions

The Type S 'fortress' battalions (of which there were only three by the time hostilities commenced in 1939) had an abundant supply of HMG's with each rifle company having two rifle and two HMG platoons, with each HMG platoon having three HMG sections.

An example of the many types of local horse drawn wagons and carts that were appropriated for use by the ON.

 All of the wagons and carts came from the same supplier; Museum Miniatures. In order to create a little more variety within the models themselves I added a few tarpaulins sculpted out of Magic Sculpt.

The rear view of the above wagon.

A cart piled high with baggage

 The painting on each of the wagons is pretty standard using one of the Vallejo Wood Paint selections and using their instructional book in order to create a well worn wooden look. The wheel rims and other metal attachments on each of the wagons were painted with Molten Metal Steel with a red brown wash thinly washed over them to give the impression of rusty metal.

Another rear view of the above cart

 The rest of the colours are really down to personal choice, but I opted to go for the washed out drab look for all of the bundles that were piled into the back of each cart and wagon.

...and yes another cart.

...and just to add some variety a wagon... piled high with ammunition!

Where the Type K companies were concerned, whilst the troops were all mounted on bicycles the HMG platoon would be provided with a small provision of Motorcycle and Sidecar combinations with which to ferry around their weapons.

The complete Type K HMG platoon with all of its accompanying Sokol 1000 motorcycle transports.

The command base with its personal votive means

The motorcycles were provided by a couple of packs of spare True North Miniature Black Brigade motorcycle troops. All of the original crews had been repurposed leaving the motorcycles spare. This finally gave me the opportunity to use them.

An example of the 7.92mm wz.08 heavy machine gun

 The German 7.92mm wz.08's were Peter Pig Austrian Schwarzlose HMGs from their World War One range with the usual head swaps that I keep doing. I've gone over the way that I paint Polish so many times now that I wont bore you with it all again.

Antother view of the above HMG team

A closer look at one of the motorcycle transport bases

A rear view of the above seen transport team

Another view of the complete Type K HMG platoon.

So there you have it. Loads and loads of heavy machine guns of different types to play around with, a WIP of an Intelligence Briefing Page and buckets of modelling photos... and not a bayonet in sight!

Next time we will take a look at the Mortar and Grenade Launchers that were present in the organisations.

Until next time gents... Fix BAYONETS!!!!

FoW: Infantry Platoons Obrona Narodowa (National Defence)

The Polish Obrona Narodowa (National Defence) was the Polish Second Republics equivalent to our Home Guard and existed between 1937 and 1939.

In this time the manpower for the organisation as a whole was drawn from politically reliable individuals who initially did not have call up papers for any other organisation or who were not already serving members of the armed forces, although as time went by these restrictions were loosened.

Three platoons of a Type IV Battalion National Defence Company

Different areas of Poland had different forms of National Defence Battalions and all of them went through an endemic process of adjustment and refinement right up until the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. Not all of these changes were for the good however with the Battalion command structure being marginalised in favour of the command process being undertaken by divisional or other allocated coimmanders who neither knew the quality of the troops he was representing or else were unable to grasp the combat limitations that the structure of these formations imposed upon them.

Because of the staggered establishment of these battalions and the constant modifications that the troops went through on their way to war, the net result was that there was a massive variety in quality of combat value for these battalions which ranged from troops being able to conduct operations of no more complexity than glorified behind the lines police duties which was common around the southern borders of the country to Lwow in the Type I Battalions, right up to the formations that were so well trained and with such high elan that they were considered the equal of any of the regular troops (albeit lacking somewhat in arms and equipment) such as the National Defence troops to be found in Silesia and with the Coastal Land Defence along the Baltic coastline such as the Silesian Type III battalions and the Baltic Type IV battalions.

There were two main formats that the infantry platoons of the National Defence took. Both types had three sections (or teams as they are termed in Polish) but the sections for each type took different shape.

A WIP of the Intelligence Briefing's Combat Platoons page...

With the first type of platoon, found in the Type IV and Type S battalions, there were three sections of equal size, 14 men apiece and with no LMG's although just before the outbreak of war it seems that some of these battalions started to have LMG's provided to them in order to give them more clout in the field. 

Three platoons of a Type I, II and III Battalion National Defence Company

The second type of platoon that was prevalent in the Type I, II and III Battalions also had three sections in each although in this case each section only had 10 men. In the second phase of the National Defence development these platoons were each supplied with one LMG fire team which was added to the first section of each platoon. This gave an overall structure of one section of 14 men with an LMG and two sections of ten men armed only with rifles.

A typical command base for my National Defence... defenders of faith and fatherland!

The next area to be looked at in a little more detail could perhaps be the weapons that the Obrona Narodowa infantry platoons were provided with then they were founded.

If anything told a story of how the ON fared in 1939 a lot of their troubles could be boiled down to this!

A typical Type IV infantry section. Nout but rifles!

Poland, by 1937, was very happily producing its own small arms but, being a largely agrarian country with a significant dirth of industrial capacity they were simply incapable of adequately providing for the needs of its regular armed forces let alone a new experiment such as the National Defence.

frontal view of the above

As a result of this when these battalions were initially established they were forced to supply them with weaponry gradually, and even then from retired stocks of ex world war one weapons such as the Austro-Hungarian Mannlicher M1895 which was widely regarded as having little practical use and were mainly retained by the Blue Police (Policja Państwowa ) or else the French Lebel wz.86/93's or Berthier 07/15-16's which were the most common weapons available to the National Defence due to the large amounts that had been purchased for use when Poland was fighting with the Communists in 1920.

...and the obligatory rear view of the above above!

One of the biggest problems encountered by the National Defence in 1939 was the supplies of ammunition with which they were given. Frequently they discovered under combat conditions that the ammunition that they had been provided with was the wrong type and couldn't therefore be used.

They would have to have a mad scramble to dig up usable ammunition from somewhere as a result of this...

A typical command section of a Type I infantry platoon. A blue Christ because they are feeling pretty blue about things!

Where the light machine guns was concerned the choices were limited here as well to retired stocks of barely functioning weapons.

The majority of the National Defence light machine gun requirements were fulfilled with the heavy but accurate and fast rate of fire German Lkm 7.92mm wz. 08/15 "Maxim" or in much reduced numbers the Rkm 7.92mm wz.15 "Chauchat". The Chauchat could fire both single shot and fully automatic although its rate of fire wasn't great. The benefit of this however was that this quality gave the weapon a greater longevity than other weapons accessible to the National Defence although the complexity of the weapon itself caused difficulties in cleaning the weapon and thus frequent jamming.

A view of a full Type I, II & III infantry platoon

There were very few handguns issued to the reserve officers and NCO's of the National Guard unless they were provided for by themselves and were instead usually equipped with the same rifles as their men.

A Type I second phase infantry section with its additional LMG team

A rear view of the same infantry section

Where uniforms are concerned the National Defence suffered the same problems as with their weaponry. There simply weren't enough stocks of modern pieces to equip this second tier force.

A view of a normal Type I, II & III infantry section of only 10 men.

At inception, they were frequently issued with the old pre 1936 uniforms with the characteristic leg wrap puttees and adrian helmets. It is this particular uniform that I have chosen to model my company on.

A rear view of the above infantry section

As time went by and new battalions were raised and established they would be provided with more up to date equipment as it became available. This meant that by the time the war started the majority of the National Defence would look almost identical to the regular army having been kitted out with the wz.1936 uniforms.

A close up look at one of the LMG bases

The two main things that these new battalions would be missing however, which were to have a sadly significant impact on them under combat conditions in 1939 is that they were not supplied with either helmets or entrenching tools.

A rear view of the same base.

Those battalions that were raised at the start and were later reorganised and upgraded were able to retain their adrian helmets, although they still had no entrenching tools provided.

If you want to field a force of Obrona Narodowa for your games its a simple case of just modelling the usual piechoty models that are wearing the Rogatywka. Even the Baltics Naval (Morska) brigade wore regular army uniforms by 1939 signified as ON and Naval only by the anchor on their collars.

So there we have it. Buckets of meat to throw on German, Slovakian and Soviet bullets!

Fix Bayonets gentlemen! I feel a charge coming on!

FoW: Command elements Obrona Narodowa (National Defence)

Last year I thought it would be a great idea to add a platoon of Obrona Narodowa to my Polish army as it would give me another little zingy modelling project with some differently funky uniforms as well as providing a troop type that are rarely seen on a wargames table...

.. of course me, being me, said to myself "Self'; this is an opportunity to do a whole new army..."

...and lo did a whole new army come into being.

All of the common command elements for all different National Defence formations all displayed together...

Now, the thing with the Polish National Defence forces is that there were numerous different types with different perceived tactical capabilities, based largely on the numbers of potential manpower that could be drawn, the Volhynian and Galician areas proving the areas with the greatest paucity of potential troops whilst the areas around Silesia and around the Baltic Corridor proving rich manpower areas, and arms, equipment and training facilities.

The Obrona Narodowa Battalions ranged from type I which were the weakest and least armed perceived as fulfilling security tasks behind the front line all the way up to the Type IV which were tooled up to the nines and were planned on being so well trained in the future that the Polish High Command could consider them to be of such high combat value that they could be collected together and renamed as Reserve Infantry Regiments.

By the time that the Type IV's started to come into being however it was already too late for them to achieve this state of readiness unless they were being converted from other types. When the war started the National Defence troops that were considered the best were the Silesian Type III battalions who had had a lot of attention paid to their development and the newly converted Type IV's along the Baltic Coast.

Sadly there was also a plethora of organisations that fell somewhere in the middle.

So this particular blog post outlines the different formats of the Company Commands that were found across the Obrona Narodowa organisations

A Wip for the Obrona Narodowa Headquarters Options

The Type I ON Battalions were the most poorly supplied of all of the Home Defence troops and were mostly positioned in the Carpathian and Tatra mountains to boost the manpower on the ground.

A Type I Battalion Company Commander

These battalions were only really envisaged as providing security manpower behind the frontlines freeing more qualified troops for front line service. Because of these facts these battalions were not seen as needing any provisions of specialist arms or services and as such the Company Command force for a Type I battalion is very skin and bones requiring only transport for the single command team (motorcycles) and for the medic team (a civilian car) as well as a wagon carrying supplies.

Another view of the Type I Battalion Company Commander

For the Intelligence Briefing I decided to make the Ammunition Wagon an optional alternative as there was a plethora of problems regarding the supply of suitable ammunition to the troops fighting for the National Defence.

A Type IV battalion Company Commander with all assets

For all other types of Company Command similar assets were provided to each with a variety of different functions being fulfilled such as Reconnaissance troops, the habitual medical team, ammunition wagons and such like.

Another view of the Type IV Battalion Company Commander with all attached assets...

Essentially no matter what type of National Defence Battalion you choose to field, all of the different formats can have their assets provided for by these common types:

The Company Command Rifle Team:

In keeping my Catholic nutty idea I decided to go the whole hog with the company command teams and have proper Catholic flags knocked up for them. Basically I just did some digging around to find what religious banners Polish organisations have been flapping around over the last 100 years or so and these are what I came up with. The uniforms are as per the previous post on the Obrona Narodowa platoon and the miniatures are all Peter Pig Spanish Carlist Requetes from their Spanish Civil War range with French WW1 Adrian Helmet and Polish Czapka head swaps.

The banner pole crossbar is made out of brass rod inserted into the pre existing banner pole whilst the banners are made from tin foil from butter which was cleaned and painted. Once all of the painting had been completed the flag was glued into place with the tabs and then contoured to represent movement in a breeze.

An hour or so's work to get each banner painted... but not too shabby. Admittedly they don't look very cloth-like but I'm just happy they are done and out of the way to be honest.

The Company Medic Patrol:


Medics in the Polish army is one of those things that few people will every consider but when I started digging around for information on the ON formations I found that one thing that they did seem actually well furnished with was people who could tie peoples limbs back on with string and keep them fighting. I decided that this would be one of those things that would be worth including in their Intelligence Briefing as another game gimmick.

I really enjoyed making this one because finding evidence of Polish medics uniforms in the Obrona Narodowa was a challenge in itself and once I had found images of these defenders of life I then had to find miniature analogues that could be put together convincingly.

The miniatures used were German stretcher bearers from Peter Pigs WW1 range with the habitual head swaps whilst the actual medics were one from Peter Pigs French WW2 Motorised Gun Crew and one from Peter Pigs Polish WW1 Gun Crew all with appropriate head swaps where necessary.

I haven't actually come up with  the rules for themedics for the Intelligence Briefing yet but Im digging around and I will see what I can come up with...

The Company Scout Team:

The Obrona Narodowa could never be considered a 'mobile' force, in fact despite the large distances that these formations covered in 1939 it could almost be assumed that they were no better than static forces with their lack of transport. However, no matter how static a force is (or isn't) they still need to be aware of what is going on around them, and for that reason the powers that be who were responsible for the development of the Obrona Narodowa supplied them with at least an element of reconnaissance troops so that they were not left completely blind on the battlefield.

Owing to an extreme paucity of appropriate troops to represent the Polish scout troops I opted to do two things. Firstly, as I usually do, I mounted one miniature with binoculars on each of my scout bases that I did and because the ON reconnaissance troops were usually cycle mounted I also placed at least one cycle on each base and in order to provide the extra room that this modelling would require I only mounted 4 figures on each reconnaissance base.

The majority of the miniatures are, as to be expected, from Peter Pigs SCW Carlist range whilst the miniature with the binoculars is from the Peter Pigs French WW2 Motorised 60mm Mortar pack with the top of his head cut away and replaced with an Adrian helmet.

The Motorcycle and Sidecar:

These were actually completed when I did my Cavalry Brigade troops... even though the Cavalry Brigades have no motorcycles (well, only one but you get the point!) and I realised that the uniforms are a good approximation of my chosen ON uniforms. Not much to say on this as you have probably seen them already so I'll just put the image here for the sake of completeness :)

Poland in the period of the Interbellum was a country with an extremely low level of motorisation but one thing that the Poles did actually manufacture within Poland in some numbers was motorcycles. Not only that but motorcycles were deemed as being much more suitable for the poor Polish transport infrastructure and because of this many of the Obrona Narodowa formations were supplied with motorcycles for the command elements to get around in.

The Civilian Car:


When the powers that be were attempting to come up with transport solutions they eventually arrived at the conclusion that there simply was not enough financial resources available to ensure that all troops that required transport could be supplied appropriately. To plug this shortfall they made it incumbent upon each respective formation that they should source their own transport and that the command function had the legal right to requisition civilian motorised vehicles for use during wartime.

Because the Obrona Narodowa were empowered by the government to requisition civilian motor vehicles and horse drawn vehicles for use on the field, instead of my usual casts of the Lazik command cars I opted to buy one of Peter Pigs Citroens from their WW2 French range.

Painting was a pretty simple affair with a black undercoat and basecoat and highlights applied with deep blue/ turquoise mix with an airbrush.

Job done!

The Ammunition Wagon:

The wagons were a bit of an issue for my Polish army as there was a certain model of wagon that the regular army used which of course nobody manufactures in 15mm. However the logistics tabors of the National Defence battalions requisitioned whatever they could get and because of this I opted to head over to Museum Miniatures' line of horse drawn wagons and bought 11 of them of mixed types.

The painting was a new one for me as I had bought AK Interactives two sets of paints for painting wood and this was the first time I would get to give them a field test. I'm OK with the results... from a distance! :D

The Ammunition Wagon is a high sided wagon with spoked wheels with a double baggage load (which conveniently represented the masses of ammo that they would be tasked with carrying) pulled by a tidy pair of draught horses.

Ammo wagons aren't usually a big thing in Flames of War games, however the issues with ammunition were quite a problem that the Obrona Narodowa faced in '39 so I wanted to make it a central issue for anybody fielding an ON force. Having your troops accompanied by ammo wagons is one of the ways to address ammunition running out.

Obviously if you opt not to have your troops accompanied by such wagons then it is more likely that your troops will run out of ammunition leaving troops little option but to fix their bayonets and run madly towards the enemy machine guns screaming at the top of their lungs... just as the Koronowo Battalion did in 1939!

So there we have it. All of the command elements for anybody who wants to field some of Poland's lesser known patriots.

All in all, quite a fun little modelling project with an abundance of....

...BAYONETS!!!!!