FoW: Pioneer and Sapper Teams Obrona Narodowa (National Defence)

So by all accounts this is going to be a very brief blog post for the simple reason that there is just no information that I can find out there concerning the Sappers and Pioneers that fought in the armies of the Polish Second Republic in 1939 much less those that were attached to the Polish National Defence forces... although I have seen a photograph of a bridge that they destroyed! :D

A complete Obrona Narodowa Sapper/ Pioneer Section of two teams

What little I know can be summed up in this single paragraph. Each Type III, Type IV and Type 'S' Battalion was provided with a force of Sappers and Pioneers. The Type III battalions had a full platoon provided whilst the Type IV and Type S Battalions were provided only with a team.

The only photo of Polish Sappers in action laying mines that I've ever found...

Throughout the pre-war years they drew their stores and equipment from their parent administrative regiments although when hostilities broke out the battalions had to provide for themselves.

A closer look at just the Sapper section

The tasks that they were set was to create as much obstruction for the enemy as possible hy destroying bridges, laying minefields and creating roadblocks and anti tank obstacles for example.

Short... and succinct!

A rear view of the Sapper section

The modelling for these was also pretty standard as far as the modelling for my Obrona Narodowa goes.

A Museum Miniatures Engineers Wagon

 The wagon in particular was a bit of a different one. I chose a Museum Miniatures Engineers Wagon with Spoked Wheels (WG04) and gave it the same paint job as for all of my other wagons. I used the AK Interactive Wood paint sets (More Set 1 than Set 2) whilst the metal parts on the wagons were the usual Molten Metal 'Steel' paint with a combination of rusty brown and black washes over them to give a used and old feel.

A close up look at one of the Sapper Section bases.

The actual sappers themselves were represented by a mixture of figures from a variety of sources. As with my Piechoty and 10th Cavalry Brigade armies the same holds true of the Obrona Narodowa and that is the fact that whilst the Polish had actually invented the Mine Detector by the time World War 2 began it had not yet entered into production and as such the fact that one of my men on each base is using a mine detector is most definitely artistic licence... I don't think anybody can argue with the satchel charge toting hero though! If its not a bayonet the Poles were slinging something explosive!

As per usual the majority of the troops are Peter Pig Spanish Civil War Carlist Requetes but the Satchel Charge and Mine Detector wielding nutcases are both actually Peter Pig WW2 American Marines. 

I chose the marines as opposed to the regular army because of the size of the Marine gators which would be painted as the wrap around puttees that were a part of the Obrona Narodowa uniform although in retrospect this may have been a mistake as I have something at the back of my mind from my Black Brigade project indicating that all Sappers and Pioneers were issued heavy duty boots!

... and so I think that just about covers everything... except of course the WIP page for the above mentioned hardcases:

The WIP page showing the Pioneer Section (and the Mortar Team if you hadn't already seen it!)

So there we are ladies and gents; yet another Polish extravaganza finished and put to bed.

I'll be incognito for the next week as Im flying out to North Spain to see a couple of battlefields tomorrow morning. In the near future you poor souls will be hearing all about the battles of Espinosa de Los Monteros leading to the collapse of the Spanish Army of Galicia and the battle of La Coruna where a British hero, Sir John Moore laid down his life to save the British Army (we seem to be really good at that!)

These two battles are both Napoleonic so there will be masses and masses of bayonets!

Wanna get involved? 

...FIX BAYONETS!

FoW: Supporting Artillery Obrona Narodowa (National Defence)

Only three more modelling posts about the Obrona Narodowa and we can move onto something new... which I'm sure will have some of you breathing a sigh of relief. 

This one errs on the side of interesting though because it covers the artillery platoons that were provided to the Obrona Narodowa... and as it happens there weren't that many and those that there were required some digging around to find any evidence of them at all!

The complete Obrona Narodowa Mountain Gun Battery

When I started out on this epic journey of unknown troops as far as a I was aware the Polish Obrona Narodowa had no organic artillery available to them in 1939. The majority for certain fought without any artillery in their makeup at all and instead had to rely on the regular army artillery battalions that were assigned to their sectors of combat.

A Mountain Gun Battery in action in Palestine in WW1

As it turns out however, there was one area that actually did have artillery assigned to the Obrona Narodowa. Army 'Karpaty'! 

I'd long been aware that there were a couple of artillery platoons fighting alongside the 10th Cavalry Brigade and specifically supporting the National Defence and Border Defence Corps troops fighting around Jordanow and Wysoka but I no matter where I was digging around I couldn't find any references to old WW1 vintage 65mm mountain artillery pieces being provided to either the ND or the BDC... that is until I translated Kazimerz Pindel's 'Obrona Narodowa 1937-1939' when I stumbled across the details quite by chance.

Schematic of a deployed artillery piece

In July 1939 the idea of providing the Obrona Narodowa with its own organic artillery support was finally addressed. Initially a paltry four old 65mm wz.06 mountain guns were transferred from the stores for use by the ND. There were still another 21 guns left in the stores from a former total of 26 due to the fact that one of these pieces had been removed from the stores in order to conduct field trials to gauge their suitability for inclusion into front line organisations and to train the artillery crews before they took receipt of their guns.

Schematic of a limbered piece

On 27 August 1939 the creation of a couple of artillery platoons using these venerable 65mm howitzers finally took place in the "Podkarpacka" and the "Podhalanska" National Defence Brigades. The organisation of these platoons was along the principles of 20 December 1938 and of 12 june 1939. The platoons offices were drawn from the reserve pool and assigned by the commander of the Corps District. A decision was reached to provide professional non commissioned officers from existing artillery regiments to give some expertise and experience in the use of the pieces. A completion target for the creation of these platoons was set for 1 September 1939 with the training to have commenced no later than 5 September 1939 in the city of Krakow.

A view of a 65mm wz.06 with a gun shield probably taken about 1921

Now, as it happens at least two of these platoons were providing a vigorous resistance to the Nazi avalanche on 1 September 1939 so I haven't quite reached the bottom of the mystery of this chronological drift has come from... another story for another post maybe. 

The organisation of the platoons was determined to consist of the following elements. A single platoon was set to consist of a command post, a gun section (2 guns) and rolling stock. The platoon was to consist of a total manpower of 37 individuals. These comprised one professional officer, one professional NCO, 11 Reserve NCO's, and 25 serving soldiers.

A good view of a deployed 65mm wz.06 Mountain Artillery Piece

At the headquarters of Corps District No.V a total of three artillery platoons were formed. Two were to be established in Nowy Sacz which would use Nowy Sacz and its surrounding poviat (district) as its recruitment base whilst the third platoon was to be established in Zywiec with the assistance of  the 12th Infantry Regiment as its administrative unit stationed in Wadowice. The city of Zywiec and its poviat provided the recruitment base. All three platoons were to be subordinated to the "Podhalanska" National Defence Brigade.

A Polish Mountain Gun Battery with their 65mm wz.06 taken at the time of the Russo-Polish War in 1921

In Przemysl a further two artillery platoons were planned on being established with the assistance of the 22nd Light Artillery Regiment. The manpower for the platoons was to be drawn directly from the city of Przemysl and its surrounding poviat. These platoons were to be subordinated to the "Podkarpacka" National Defence Brigade.  

An existing monument of one of these venerable artillery pieces.

What fragmentary data survived the war and was able to be collected together shows that by 1 September 1939 these platoons had reached full personnel establishment but had still not received either its equipment or any training. The "Zywiec" platoon took receipt of two cannon from the 12th Infantry Regiment stores just before the outbreak of the war although it can be stated with some certainty that by the outbreak of the war almost none of the newly established artillery crews had reached combat readiness owing to a lack of prompt delivery of their new equipment.

The WIP of the Mountain Gun Battery Page

As before I've provided a WIP of the intelligence briefing page that has the National Defence Artillery Platoons on it. I've yet to add that these platoons can only be taken if taking either Mountain Infantry or Motorised Cavalry platoons. 

A complete gun team with limber. One half of a platoon.

This limits the choice to those National Defence armies that are fighting in the Beskids and Karpaty. There are mistakes in the text and organisational level of this page currently in light of new information that I've found but this will all be fixed when I go through and edit the work.

A close up look at one of the Mountain Gun bases.

The reverse view of the above shown mountain gun base

Where the modelling is concerned fortunately the guns themselves were relatively simple to find. Battlefront's Gebirgsjager Mountain Guns are a close enough approximation to be useable if one ditches the gun shields and I just drilled holes through the trails to represent the swiss cheese look of the actual 65mm wz.06's

The Command, Staff and Spotter team with their accompanying wagon.

 The figures are a usual mix for my Obrona Narodowa. the gun crews were a mixture of French Motorised Gun Crews, French Motorised 60mm Mortars and Spanish Civil War generic Anti tank gun crew, all from Peter Pig of course.

A closer look at the Staff Team

The reverse view of the Staff Team

The Spotters were Peter Pig Spanish Civil War Nationalist Gun Crew and a True North Polish radio operator whilst the command base and the staff base were a mixture of Peter Pig Polish Gun Crew, Spanish Civil War Nationalist Officers and Carlist Officers and of course a True North miniatures Podhale Mountain Infantry Officer... all with the obligatory head swaps!

A close up view of the Command Team

A close up view of the Spotter Team

So there we have it. Another asset for use with the Obrona Narodowa.

...and not a bayonet in sight!

FoW: Reconnaissance Platoons Obrona Narodowa (National Defence)

So now we come to the battalion level support platoons that aren't the kind of run of the mill hotchkiss and mortar affair.

Now we start looking at the bits and pieces that can breathe a little bit of life into our Obrona Narodowa footslogger army!

Today I would like to introduce you to a small project, but a nonetheless a vital one. The Reconnaissance troops of the National Defence Battalions.

A full Obrona Narodowa Oddzial Zwiadowcow (Scout Unit)

A blind military force is a dead military force and few armed forces were as aware of this possibility towards the end of the 1930's as the Polish, seeing their neighbours not only outspend them on the race to create a modern armed force but in fact probably lap them more than a couple of times.

Realising that the Obrona Narodowa would have to have at least some way of keeping tabs on whats going on around them they decided that all battalions of the National Defence would have to have at least a token reconnaissance force to keep them in the know.

Rather than the actual troops choice which will be included within another post I though I would
share the WIP for the Type III Battalion army list which has the reconnaissance platoon included in it.

The Type I and Type II battalions were seen as fulfilling functions behind the front lines and as such were omitted from being seen as needing scouts in their composition but the Silesian Type III battalions (probably the best that the National Defence had to offer) and the relatively new Type IV battalions were seen as being indispensable in fulfilling shielding tasks on the flanks of the front line troops. These organisations were both provided  scout formations in their battalions.

A top down view of the complete Scout platoon

They had a simple composition of only three sections of ten men each with their platoon command. They were lightly armed, being equipped with nothing more than their rifles and to aid their mobility they were all mounted on bicycles.

The command team

The modelling for these was, as with the majority of the rest of the Obrona Narodowa project was pretty simple. The majority of the miniatures are Peter Pig's Spanish Civil War Carlist Requetes with the obligatory head-swaps for Adrian Helmets, and the occasional Czapka. The czapka's are a shame as the Poles would never have worn them in the field instead wearing slouchy kind of field caps called Rogatywka...  but nobody sculpts them so ho hum!

the rear view of the command team

Even though the Scout Sections are 10 men strong I decided that I needed to put some cycles on the bases just to reinforce the 'mise en scene' so I dropped the total figures to eight per section at four per base. This allowed a little bit of space for landscaping and the addition of one cycle per base. The cycles are all Peter Pig by the way.

A complete Obrona Narodowa Scout Section

Just to add a final reinforcement of the whole 'Im a scout, hear me roar!' thing I decided that each base needed at least one figure looking through binoculars and this is the one figure that hasnt come from Peter Pigs SCW Carlist Requetes.  Each of the binocular toting miniatures is one of Peter Pigs French WW2 motorised 60mm Mortar team miniatures. The top of the head was shaved off and an Adrian helmet put in its place.

The rear view of the above Scout Section

Finally, the painting is pretty standard as per the remainder of the Obrona Narodowa so I wont bore you with it again...

A close look at one of the Scout Section bases

But the point is my Obrona Narodowa will now not be caught on the back foot!

The rear view of the above Scout Section base

... and that's it folks.

As they are armed only with rifles and carbines there is plenty of opportunity for BAYONETS!!!!

FoW: Mortars and Grenade Launchers Obrona Narodowa (National Defence)

Following up from the post that I did on the heavy machine gun support platoons that Poland's National Defence force was equipped with, its time to take a look at what small provision of mortars and grenade launchers they were given.

Often termed the poor mans artillery Poland could barely even afford to give its National Defence any. However, ongoing financial crisis of the 30's notwithstanding they were able to provide their National Defence with at least a token provision.

Polish Obrona Narodowa Granatnik wz.36 Section

Poland had only one version of the medium mortar, and that was a license built version of the French Brandt-Stokes 8cm  M27/31 in Polish service termed the 8cm wz.31. It was a simple but effective and highly influential design that was licensed by over a dozen countries. 905 of these mortars were produced by the outbreak of the war of which 150 had been produced in France.

The Obrona Narodowa practising with their 8cm wz.31 mortar

It consisted of a smoothbore tube attached to a base plate that served to absorb the recoil of launching the projectiles and a lightweight bipod that carried the aiming mechanism. The mortar could be disassembled into three loads and had a basic crew of three men although an entire mortar team consisted of seven. When a mortar projectile was dropped into the tube it would strike the bottom of the tube. The impact sensitive primer would make contact with the firing pin and detonate firing the projectile back out of the tube. The mortars could fire about 20 rounds per minute and were typically equipped with four types of projectile. Light projectiles wz.30, which would weigh 3.25kg, heavy projectiles wz.31, weighing 6.9kg, multi purpose grenades wz.AR27 and smoke projectiles.

A detailed illustration of the License produced Brandt-Stokes 8cm wz.31

After Poland regained its independence in 1918 the experiences of the First World War highlighted the need for the front line troops to have a supporting weapon that had greater range than a hand thrown grenade but could cover the distance up to the minimum range of the mortars.

In the early days the former German Granatenwerfer 16 and French VB (Vivien-Bessieres) Rifle Grenades found a lot of favour but by the end of the 20's they had become obsolete and a need for a new weapon became pressing. 

a WIP battalion support page with the Granatnik Section details on it.

Work on a new grenade launcher was began at the Central Artillery School in Torun. The primary criteria for a new design was set at being lightweight, compact dimensions, simple construction and with a range up to 400m. Major Roman Jarzabkiewicz developed a prototype with a fixed 45 degree angled barrel with a range between 150-400m. Tests were carried out in Torun in November 1929. Whilst showing a collection of design flaws the prototype still outperformed the other foreign competitors such as the Italian 38mm and 50mm Breda grenade launchers.

Granatnik Section Command Team

The next stage of development was undertaken in the Institute of Armament Material Research in Warsaw where in 1931 three more prototypes were constructed. They were passed over to the Infantry Training Centre for field trials on the back of which 412 copies were manufactured and handed over to the infantry in February 1933 and titled as Granatnik wz.30

A single Granatnik 46mm wz.36 team

The military still highlighted a small number of defects, the most serious being that the range finding would drift after each shot due to a faulty fixing of the sighting spirit level, a jammed gas regulators, impractical folding and unfolding of the weapon and a faulty trigger system. Finally the operators submitted complaints that the baseplate was too small to provide adequate support to the weapon when firing.

A rear view of the other Granatnik 46mm wz.36 team

The Institute of Armament Material Research continued to develop the weapon and provided a number of revised prototypes for testing. Eight models in four different types. After further field trials the final development of the weapon occurred with it subsequently reaching production as the Granatnik wz.36. This model was deemed so successful that all other projects were discontinued.

The Granatnik Section supply and transport wagon

Production of the Granatnik wz.36 took place between 1936-1939 at United Fabryka Maszyn i Wagonow L. Zieleniewski and Fitzner-Gamper SA in Warsaw. By August 1939 just under 3,500 had been produced and turned over to the armed forces.

Another view of the same wagon

The 36 calibre 46mm stromotor weapon threw an 8.6kg projectile between 100 and 800m. Mounted on top of the barrel was a cylindrical gas regulator by means of which it was possible to adjust the range. A part of the powder gas would escape through a triangular hole in the barrel, the size of which could be adjusted by means of an adjustment ring. In this way the total range of the projectile could be controlled by releasing more or less gas, thereby controlling the pressure in the barrel.

 A museum example of the Granatnik 46mm wz.36

The sighting mechanism was a simple bow tie sighting mechanism mounted on the muzzle bead and a frame sight which was mounted on the gas regulator. In addition the weapon had a spirit level. Firing was conducted using a trigger mechanism situated on the foot of the grenade launcher which enabled the granatnik to be operated from an horizontal position.

An illustration of the Granatnik 46mm wz.36 with one of its projectiles

The Granatnik wz.36 had a crew of four people, the operator, the aimer and two loaders. Several types of projectile were provided to the Granatnik operators, mostly they were Fragmentation grenades wz.35, Smoke grenades wz.35 and training grenades wz.35. At a pinch older grenades from the previous Granatnik wz.30 could also be used and these were Fragmentation wz.30, Phosphate wz.30, Smoke wz.33 and Training wz.33 grenades.

An old photograph of the original Granatnik wz.30 prototype

The different types of Obrona Narodowa battalions had different provisions of mortars and grenade launchers supplied.

The Obrona Narodowa Mortar Team with its single 8cm Wz.31 team, command team and transport wagon

On establishment levels the Type I battalions were supposed to be provided with a single mortar although it is unlikely that they ever received any before hostilities commenced.

A rear view of the same mortar and command teams

The Type II, III and IV battalions each had a single 8cm wz.31 team provided. In the Type II and III battalions this was as a constituent element in the battalion support platoon that also held the HMG's whilst in the Type IV battalions this was as a team in its own right.

A closer look at the mortar team

A rear view of the mortar team

The Type S battalions were the exception to all of this and were provided with two mortars held in two sections in a battalion support platoon held at battalion level.

Supplies of the Granatnik wz.36 Grenade Launcher was a little easier to provide though. Each of the Rifle Companies in the Type II and Type III battalions had an attached Grenade Launcher section attached each provided with two grenade launchers. 

The modelling for all of this was relatively simple. The 8cm wz.31 Mortar is a standard Battlefront Mortar whilst the Granatnik 46mm wz.36 is only produced in 15mm by one manufacturer, and that's True North Miniatures now owned and produced by Old Glory. The command team is a couple of Peter Pigs Spanish Civil War Carlist Requetes with head swaps. All of the actual mortar teams are Peter Pig's French Motorised Troops with the obligatory head swaps and finally the wagon was provided by Museum Miniatures.

The paint schemes have been explained to death so I wont bore you with it all again...

...and that is, as they say gentlemen, that!

Thats the main support weapons for the Obrona Narodowa battalions dealt with. Now all that is left is the weird, wild and whacky troop types such as the extremely rare artillery pieces and anti tank guns, the sappers and the reconnaissance troops... but they are other stories for other times.

Fix Bayonets!

Remember: NOBODY loves a bayonet like a Pole!