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!!!!!