Polish Army Museum

[Sea Skimmer]

Nice pictures. That anti aircraft gun appears to be an early version of the 40mm L56 Bofors gun. I believe Poland produced a number under license, as well as importing them. Its a shame they didn’t have more, as when firing AP ammo it could tear up almost any tank in the world in 1939 at 120 rounds per minute. It was much more powerful then the 37mm anti tank guns everyone had, though also far harder to conceal in its secondary AT role.

Goliath isn’t the first drone in combat though, whatever that museum might claim. That honor goes to the WW1 German FL Boot (Fernlenk Boot), which was a wire guided explosive motor boat. With a modest 50km spool of wire it could attack targets over the visual horizon and behind smoke screens by having a sea plane fly along behind it and radio corrections back to the shore station. A direct radio link was beyond 1915 technology. Most FL boot ended up destroyed by gunfire long before they hit anything, but one hit and damaged monitor HMS Erebus in 1917. Another pair damaged the breakwater at Dunkerque in a failed attempt to enter the harbor.

[PeZook]

Goliath isn’t the first drone in combat though, whatever that museum might claim. That honor goes to the WW1 German FL Boot (Fernlenk Boot), which was a wire guided explosive motor boat.

The museum didn't actually claim that, it was my own ignorant ass talking

I was simply unaware of the FL Boot. I guess I'll have to edit the post now

[Imperial Overlord]

On the subject of leopard skins one should remember that 16th-17th Century Poland covered a larger amount of territory than the modern country and that the range of the leopard in that time period was greater. Leopards survive in the modern day, albeit as endangered species, in Armenia and the rest of the Caucasus.

[Coyote]

Hmmm... this is awesome but I can't help but wonder, is this museum close to a large road bridge that spans the Vistula river in Warsaw? Close to the section where the big Soviet-built train station is? I think I may have been there. If it's the same, I'll get my pictures, too. I couldn't go inside, the museum was closed that day, but I took a load of pictures of the vehicle displays outside...

[PeZook]

Hmmm... this is awesome but I can't help but wonder, is this museum close to a large road bridge that spans the Vistula river in Warsaw? Close to the section where the big Soviet-built train station is? I think I may have been there. If it's the same, I'll get my pictures, too. I couldn't go inside, the museum was closed that day, but I took a load of pictures of the vehicle displays outside...

Yep, that's the one. It's right next to the W-Z road leading straight into Warsaw's centre.

Incidentally, I also have photos of the vehicle park, I just didn't get around to posting it yet. And damn, I didn't actually expect anyone from the board to have visited the place

[Big Orange]

Osprey books are superficial and often ignore controversies in favor of their pet theories, which more often than not turn out to be wrong. Not to mention they are often quite bad when it comes to primary sources.

The same problem is with the illustrations, especially with ancient history they tend to over-dramatize things and lump a lot of stuff together when there is little evidence for it. Kinda like "Oh, we have got chainmail from Dalmatia and look, on this columm in rome we have this shield, so let's combine the two".

Not to mention their debacle with the living eagle of the legio III parthica.

I think it boils down to ancient history by definition being harder to research and properly put together, since hard data is scarcer, so false yet popular memes and factual discrepancies are more likely to crop up. And Osprey being more fancible by depicting a living eagle pearched on a Roman standard is so that they could sell more copies and gave the late Angus McBride, a popular ancient war artist, something to do. I don't think Osprey is entirely bad, at the moment I'm reading through US Army Long-Range Patrol Scout in Vietnam 1965-71 and it was written by Gordon L. Rottman, a former US Army commando, so it was sourced from the horse's mouth.

PeZook, it seems like Photobucket's censors decided to delete your impartial photo of a Nazi German flag, which seems a tad draconian, even if fears of posting hate material on that site are perfectly understandable. They've got a fixation about pencil drawings of pubes and nipples as well.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Nice pictures. That anti aircraft gun appears to be an early version of the 40mm L56 Bofors gun. I believe Poland produced a number under license, as well as importing them. Its a shame they didn’t have more, as when firing AP ammo it could tear up almost any tank in the world in 1939 at 120 rounds per minute. It was much more powerful then the 37mm anti tank guns everyone had, though also far harder to conceal in its secondary AT role.

"Almost any tank" would not have included many French tanks, albeit that was not a major concern for the Polish army. In general you seem to little overstate the Bofors 40 mm as an AT gun. It was certainly better than the fairly mediocre German and Swedish (i.e. Bofors) 37 mm AT guns, but not significantly better than the British 2-pounder or the American 37 mm M3 anti-tank guns. In actual combat the high rate of fire would have helped somewhat, but the lack of gun shield to protect from machine gun fire1 and poor mobility2 would have been major shortcomings in addition to the high profile. Then there is the question of resource allocation: you need a lot of AA guns before it makes sense to use them in AT role except in self-defense. Since the Poles were not going to have air superiority or even air parity against the Luftwaffe, it would have made much more sense to use AA guns for their primary role only, even if they had much more of them than they historically did.

Not everyone had 37 mm anti-tank guns either; from major powers 37 mm AT guns were used by Germany, the US, Italy and Japan in significant numbers. The Soviet Union had some 37 mm AT guns nominally in service, but in practice they were very rare and by the time of the Winter War in 1939 almost entirely replaced by the 45 mm AT gun. The British and the French never had 37 mm anti-tank guns, although the French had both 37 mm tank guns and 37 mm infantry guns; the latter were WW1 leftovers, of course.

1 One of the reasons why the German 88 mm AA gun was so successful in AT role was that it usually engaged its targets beyond rifle-caliber machine gun range, which was not as easy to do with a 40 mm gun.
2 37 mm AT guns could be moved around by their crews with relative ease.

[Thanas]

I think it boils down to ancient history by definition being harder to research and properly put together, since hard data is scarcer, so false yet popular memes and factual discrepancies are more likely to crop up. And Osprey being more fancible by depicting a living eagle pearched on a Roman standard is so that they could sell more copies and gave the late Angus McBride, a popular ancient war artist, something to do. I don't think Osprey is entirely bad, at the moment I'm reading through US Army Long-Range Patrol Scout in Vietnam 1965-71 and it was written by Gordon L. Rottman, a former US Army commando, so it was sourced from the horse's mouth.

Being more fancible is no excuse. That said, the problem is not confined to ancient history alone. For example, in the book about german battlecruisers, there are many mistakes/omissions as well.

Osprey may be good for the casual user, but one should not use it for research.

[Sea Skimmer]

"Almost any tank" would not have included many French tanks, albeit that was not a major concern for the Polish army.

Many sure, but on the world scale those tanks are almost irrelevant in numbers, and have numerous other glaring drawbacks that made the tactical advantage of good armor impossible to exploit. Stuff like near worthless trench gun on many of them, no radio and an absurdly over worked commander/gunner/loader who often didn't even have a proper cupola or even decent fixed vision blocks to aid him.

In general you seem to little overstate the Bofors 40 mm as an AT gun. It was certainly better than the fairly mediocre German and Swedish (i.e. Bofors) 37 mm AT guns, but not significantly better than the British 2-pounder or the American 37 mm M3 anti-tank guns.

You do realize the American 37mm M3 is a direct licensed copy of the German 37mm gun right? The US imported two guns and had Aberdeen adapt the design to US manufacturing.

The 40mm Bofors had around 25% more muzzle energy then any of those weapons, which is no slight improvement. More importantly it had decent quality AP ammo, and the high rate of fire would produce kills much more quickly, because such small caliber rounds are highly prone to glancing off armor they could pierce, and they don’t necessarily inflict fatal damage should they manage a perforation. That high rate of fire and the AP ammo already in existence is why I like it. The advantage in ballistic performance is secondary.

In actual combat the high rate of fire would have helped somewhat, but the lack of gun shield to protect from machine gun fire1 and poor mobility2 would have been major shortcomings in addition to the high profile.

Dig the gun in, you can improvise a shield too easily for it to even matter, and those drawbacks are not so bad. Mobility is no worse then anything from 57mm on up, they all have to be towed to be moved any significant distance. Anyway if Poles had the financial resources to do this then they could have simply ordered the guns on simplified and lower mountings! Or hell built those locally, Poland had the ability to build many weapons domestically, lack of money for mass orders just limited everything. Its not hard to lift a gun from one mounting to another.

Its not like the idea of an anti armor automatic weapon was new either, just look at the .50cal Browning, or the Molins Gun automatic 6pdr of wartime development. Not to mention the shear hoard of cannon on modern IFVs, including the direct descendent of the 40mm Bofors gun on the Swedish CV9040.

Then there is the question of resource allocation: you need a lot of AA guns before it makes sense to use them in AT role except in self-defense. Since the Poles were not going to have air superiority or even air parity against the Luftwaffe, it would have made much more sense to use AA guns for their primary role only, even if they had much more of them than they historically did.

Disagree. The Luftwaffe was used primarily a battlefield air interdiction force. That means Poland needed to defend its entire transportation infrastructure, something not even the Luftwaffe’s own rather large flak arm could have done effectively at the time. Even reducing the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe by a large margin is just meaningless if German tank led ground forces overrun the whole country in the meantime. Since the German Army got almost no true close air support, the Luftwaffe is only an indirect contributor to the rapid ground advances. Stop the Panzers on the ground and the Poles might manage to hold out longer against the rest of the German armies infantry and artillery which cannot easily bypass Polish strong points. This gives more time to retreat behind the Vistula and try to establish an effective defence that might hold for a decent amount of time.

Probably the best thing Poland could have done to ward off the Luftwaffe within a remotely realistic budget would have been to invest heavily smokescreen equipment. The Germans did so and it worked out very well for them.

Not everyone had 37 mm anti-tank guns either; from major powers 37 mm AT guns were used by Germany, the US, Italy and Japan in significant numbers. The Soviet Union had some 37 mm AT guns nominally in service, but in practice they were very rare and by the time of the Winter War in 1939 almost entirely replaced by the 45 mm AT gun.

Main reason for the Russian 45mm was that Russia already had machinery to make barrels in that caliber, a rather large amount of it, the caliber already being in production for naval weapons. The 37mm guns were imported from Germany and partly copied to make the 45mm design. The performance of the upgraded gun was pretty pathetic for the upgrade, possibly because of low quality ammo but the end result was it was barely any better then a 37mm.

The British and the French never had 37 mm anti-tank guns, although the French had both 37 mm tank guns and 37 mm infantry guns; the latter were WW1 leftovers, of course.

Actually the British did, they imported 37mm Bofors guns in considerable numbers before the Germans totally clamped down on Swedish trade, and they used the American 37mm. Not in 1939 sure, but you seem intent to nitpick. Me, I don’t fucking always feel like typing out every last fucking detail. I kind of assume people get the point after a while.

The 37mm tank and infantry guns are the same gun in the case of the French BTW. They really ought to have just mounted a .50cal machine gun instead but I’d imagine they had about 10,000 of those little trench guns left over.

quote] One of the reasons why the German 88 mm AA gun was so successful in AT role was that it usually engaged its targets beyond rifle-caliber machine gun range, which was not as easy to do with a 40 mm gun.[/quote]

No its not, but that’s when the ability to fire at 120+rpm comes in. Lets you engage a huge number of targets quickly in an ambush, and very effectively suppress the firepower of the accompanying infantry whom are the main threat to the survival of anti tank guns. This is after all why we mount automatic cannon on so many modern AFVs, even though a manually loading gun is clearly always going to be superior firepower per individual shell within a given weight and size limitation. The British actually converted a number of older armored cars and recon vehicles in the 1970s to go from a manually loading 76mm to a 30mm.

[Shroom Man 777]

No it's not. I would've said that it's an AT4, but it isn't.

Yes it is! Orange got it in one, and gets one (1) Internet cookie.

What kind of rangefinder is that?!

Lovely pictures, PeZook. I particularly like that tank-killing bolt-action rifle.

It's very phallic, isn't it?

Yeah, though that anti-aircraft gun you were standing beside was way more phallic - since while both weapons are long and firm and armed with lethal ejaculations, the AA gun was also standing tall and proud and erect!

[Big Orange]

Being more fancible is no excuse. That said, the problem is not confined to ancient history alone. For example, in the book about german battlecruisers, there are many mistakes/omissions as well.

Making several factual errors in the books covering much more recent military topics is less excusable.

Osprey may be good for the casual user, but one should not use it for research.

Osprey Books seem more reliable than Wikipedia and the accuracy of the books depends on who the author is, and how much primary date they've got. I still see them as accessable introductions or digestible overviews to military topics, but I'll keep my wits about them now, and there are deeper sources out there.

I always knew that Germany's 37mm AT cannon sucked ass, even in comparison to other similar sized weaponry like the Bofors, and Heinz Guderian (the Heer general who resembled Sam Neil) was supposedly pissed off that his Panzer IIIs were initially fitted with the relatively pissant 37mm gun instead of the meatier 50mm gun that would've worked better against Char B1 or Matilda armour.

[Frank Hipper]

The reliability of Osprey books depends on the author more than the publishing company alone, as far as I'm concerned.

Greg VanWyngarden's work is particularly well researched from his collection of original materials, for instance.
He's made mistakes, but they're most often trivial, and do not detract from the quality of his work in any significant way.
The extreme nitpicking of those mistakes online has driven him to retire, sadly.

[Tolya]

Pez, did you take any photos on the outside of the museum? There is some interesting stuff there, vehicles, planes, helicopters, even a piece of M109 vietnam-era tracked artillery which was captured by the NVA, handed to soviets and then to polish museum.

Mainly there's a crapload of soviet stuff - from 2nd WW up to 70's-80's, even a SCUD launcher and even a Topol launcher if I recall correctly.

[PeZook]

Pez, did you take any photos on the outside of the museum? There is some interesting stuff there, vehicles, planes, helicopters, even a piece of M109 vietnam-era tracked artillery which was captured by the NVA, handed to soviets and then to polish museum.

Mainly there's a crapload of soviet stuff - from 2nd WW up to 70's-80's, even a SCUD launcher and even a Topol launcher if I recall correctly.

Oh! I totally forgot about this thread

Yeah, I have plenty of photos of the outside. I didn't find the M109 though, it might've been taken somewhere for renovation. Will post them soonish.

[Tolya]

The M109 is right to the left of the entrance. I think it's the first of the second vehicle in that row.

[Sea Skimmer]

What kind of rangefinder is that?!

It looks to be a one meter base length rangefinder, no idea on the specific model, but a rangefinder of that size would be used by either a light 20-40mm anti aircraft gun , or possibly by low caliber field guns or anti tank guns of about 75mm or smaller. It could also be used for heavy infantry mortars, but I don’t think Poland used any heavy mortars at the time, most people didn't except the Russians. Anything heavier then about 75mm and you'd most likely be going to something with a bigger base length mounted on a tripod rather then hand held.

One guy would be assigned to carry and use the thing, continuously calling out new ranges for the gunners. This could be reasonably effective.

[Shroom Man 777]

How big is that thing? From my first glance, I thought it looked like something big enough to be shoulder-carried like some MANPAD. But upon closer inspection, the same picture also has what looks like the muzzle of a rifle in it, and comparing both objects... it doesn't seem THAT big.

But it still looks uncannily like some kind of anti-tank weapon.

[PeZook]

And now, for a very, very late last batch of pictures. The vehicle park outside!


An actual-factual Mig-29 (And my face, again. Wearing my wife's Snoopy handbag. I feel publically emasculated ). I have a couple of close-up photos if anybody's interested.


A Su...22, I think. Another Soviet-made fighter-bomber that served in the polish armed forces post-war


Selection of artillery guns, from the interbellum period to post-wwII


A JS-2 heavy tank, T-34 in the background makes for good size comparison: the motherfucker is HUGE up close, let me tell you.


Yak-9, one of the best fighters of the war. Also served in large numbers in the polish air force


"Kubuś" (Jake) armored car. Built by the AK in secret for use in the Warsaw Uprising, based on a Chevrolet truck. Hence, Warsaw partisans became the only insurgency in history capable of domestically developing and deploying armored vehicles next to the Danish


Il-2 or 3, I'm not sure, and there was no plaquette. Also in Polish air force colors


A TP amphibious reconeissance tank.


Mi-8 heavy lift helicopter


Umm...T-62 tank, I think. Never became very popular in the Polish army due to technical problems that were never solved before the T-72 arrived in large numbers.


A Su self-propelled gun. I lost the plaquette photo, so I can't give any more details. Sorry

I was told there were SCUD and Topol launchers in the museum, but they were taken out of the display for renovation. Bollocks.

So...that's all. Quite an epic necro, but I had those pictures processed and ready to go for ages - so instead of gathering single-bit errors on my hard drive, they are here now for your perusal.

[Thanas]

Was the Mig-29 one of those we sold to you for nothing?

[PeZook]

Was the Mig-29 one of those we sold to you for nothing?

Yup. Tail number 4111, delivered in 2004. It's still operational, apparently, save for the cannon. Though since it ended up in a museum, it's likely it won't ever fly again without an overhaul.

[Tolya]

Was the Mig-29 one of those we sold to you for nothing?

Yup. Tail number 4111, delivered in 2004. It's still operational, apparently, save for the cannon. Though since it ended up in a museum, it's likely it won't ever fly again without an overhaul.

I've been there recently. It seems they changed some of the stuff on the premises. The M109 howitzer from Vietnam used to stand where that Mig-29 now is.

[Shroom Man 777]

Awesome planes! Though I think it's an Su-17 with those odd-looking wings.

[PeZook]

Awesome planes! Though I think it's an Su-17 with those odd-looking wings.

No, it's a Su-22M4. I think there's a Su-20 there as well, but my memory is hazy and I have no picture of it anywhere, so I may be wrong.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Awesome planes! Though I think it's an Su-17 with those odd-looking wings.

No, it's a Su-22M4.

Well, the Su-22 was an export variant of the Su-17 and the differences were fairly minimal especially in the later generations.

Other guesses:

The prop-driven ground attack plane is probably an Il-10 (or Avia B33) judging from the wings and the shape of the cockpit. The Il-2 had a different shape cockpit, since the rear gunner's position was added as an afterthought. The Il-10 had a fully armored position for the gunner. I suppose they were running out of young GULAG prisoners to man the machine gun by that point (Just waiting for Stas Bush or fgalkin to correct my gross oversimplification)

The tank you identified as T-62 is probably a T-55AM2P (or some such, I never remember which T-55AM2 variant was which and where). It does not have the bore evacuator of the 115 mm gun and it has the tell-tale gap between the first and second roadwheel. The add-on armor also looks very much like the T-55AM2 series (pretty effective armor by the way compared to its low price and weight).

[Pelranius]

Just as a nitpick, the Mi-8 is a medium lift helicopter and I think the Su SP gun is a 76. Very good photos.