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!!!!!

Why do we do it to ourselves?

Thats a question that could (and probably will) open up a whole can of worms for a lot of people out there!

On the surface to an outsider we are a group of people who spend far too much of our lives immersed in alternate realities and/or events of the past and not enough time living in the real world...

She who must be obeyed hates that this is my hobby, ney; my raison d'etre! She resents the space that all of my gear takes up (and she hasn't even experienced the mountain of stuff I have in storage yet). She hates the time that it takes out of my day and resents that even when I'm not 'doing it' I'm spending my time thinking about it, slowly forcing her into a waking coma by caving in her eardrums banging on about 'it'.

In truth I think that most of my girlfriends from my past have had similar feelings.

...and I couldn't care less!

Contentious huh? Let me explain:

Roxi is probably one of the best things that has ever happened to me, providing more stability in a very stormy life than I have ever known. Every day that I get up I expect to find her kneeling down, sporting a wimpole, hands clasped together in prayer, desperate for relief! She actually does have the patience of a saint (I should probably qualify this point by highlighting the fact that based on the never ending conflicts that the Vatican state has found itself in with all manner of European powers through the ages, it seems to be very clear that Saintly patience is at best a cosmetic slap on to the deeper truths of power and greed!). I am lucky to have a partner who, even when hating what I do, more often than not leaves me in peace to attack my relentless list of self imposed deadlines without being stupid enough to get in the way of this flagellation.

There seems to be an issue of allegiance here; the Confederacy or Cymru? You decide!

When all is said and done however, history and wargaming are such an integral part of my character that if these two elements were stripped away I'm really not sure there would be much left behind that would be worth talking about (and its an obvious point that most human beings don't think that history and wargaming are worth talking about). I think I would probably end up being defined by my job, and whilst I love what I do for work (engineering on the railways) I am a staunch egotist when I state that there is more to this book than its cover! I would always rather talk about a tank than a train!

Just having an interest in models and/or history is not enough however. Just a passing interest does not, a wargames fanatic make! I would like to submit to you, the audience, that this particular cross that needs to be carried requires an addictive personality (Roxi keeps resolutely informing me that I have 'a problem' and that I need to go and seek specialist help!?!?!?) and a character predisposed to forming habits...

A Great looking Great War game going Great guns!

Whatever the reasons I am now deeply obsessed with completing painting and modelling projects, spend my waking hours reading, watching, digesting anything related to pushing pointy objects into soft things that breath or else blowing things up!

One of the things that really reinforces this love of history, well for me anyway, is keeping tabs on what others in the gaming community are doing. I love seeing what other people are painting, and talking to them about it. I love getting asked questions about what I am doing and sharing how I do things. Its a remarkably satisfying thing to have this self affirming and mutually reinforcing community packed with individuals, male and female, young and old who you may never even meet, but through social networking have a modus vivendi whereby you always have a wide and deep resource of knowledge that you can tap at any hour of the day.

Nice!

But still it is not enough. If the limits of our experiences were based on what I have said then wargames would be crammed with accountants and clerks, pushing numbers around a piece of paper and congratulating themselves on a good algorithm well done! Fuck that!!!!

There are a lot of facets to a love of wargaming. The aesthetics, the statistical probabilities, the technical innovations of the eras and/or genres and of course the raw competition of pitting yourself against others, but these on their own I do not believe are enough to keep us all coming back and flaying ourselves on the altar of wannabe warfare.

No caption needed!  Dougie Howser MD says it all!

So just what is is that keeps us all coming back to this?

Story...

Narrative...

The Tales of what happened...

They say that the history of warfare is the history of man. Story is, I believe, the greatest gift that the human race ever gave to itself. We know people, or as well as we can do, because of stories that are passed on down.

For me personally, story is probably the single iron rod at the core of my personality. I am obsessed with it. How to structure one, how to tell one and how to receive one. What works and what doesn't. A 10 year career in the film industry before leaving in disgust at many of the people I had met had at its most fundamental base a love, ney an all consuming obsession, with the method by which good stories are told.

How to tell a good story digitally...

Storytelling is some of my earliest memories with my mother reading me books such as Gullivers Travels and the Three Musketeers. The Hobbit was the first book I ever read on my own when I was four and starting to write and illustrate my own stories from a year earlier.

I even piss Roxi off by refusing to turn off bad films as I feel a story that has been laboured over, no matter how bad, deserves the opportunity to finish once started.

I love EVERYTHING story related...

... and it is at this point I would like to introduce you all to House of Hengist Comics, and their secondary site Achtung Panzer!

Their titular head Mark Landymore put this group together a couple of years ago with the express purpose of telling the story of the Second World War through war gaming but by focussing on the narrative dimension of gaming as opposed to concentrating on 'equal points' etc etc. Largely inspired by the 40-something generation cornerstone; Commando Comics this pulp history has provided a VERY fertile garden of possible stories all surrounding the events of the Second World War.

Now THATS what Im talking about!!!!

I came across these guys when I was drowning in Polish as they had just started their magnum opus with each battle they fought highlighting a different part of the Polish campaign.

Their methodology has evolved since then with news reports being given, introductory videos to the next battle and what actually happened in history.

A photo from one of Hengist's games with a motley rabble bulldozing their way through a checkpoint!

Its a committed process demanding of its players BUT I believe that THIS is the way forwards for wargaming if we want to keep attracting new blood to wargames market.

Every one of their videos I watch drooling about what they are doing wishing that I could be a part of it.

The videos may not be professional level quality with a lot of rough edges, but these 'flaws' only add to their charm.

You should all head over to their channel and start following the story of the Second World War. It will inspire you to achieve and create.

House of Hengist Battle Reports

You are, remember, only human!

P.S Pack a bayonet for personal use!