Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 1939?

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#16

Post by phylo_roadking » 25 Sep 2014, 20:00

What is more, these were arguably the best fighters anywhere in the early 1930s and retained some potency in the air even against the Luftwaffe in 1939. (If I remember rightly, German and Polish losses in the air were pretty even in 1939. There were just far fewer Polish machines than German.)
Depending on how they were used ;) The Poles rapidly identified the weak point of the Bf110, for example...and later, in France, exiled Polish pilots taught the French - who later taught the RAF! And they attacked bomber formations without or avoiding German fighters.
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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#17

Post by gebhk » 27 Sep 2014, 09:29

To some extent it also depended on how the German fighters were used :wink: A litle digression into (a grossly oversimplified) history of 'professional thought' on the subject of the role of the fighter plane in the interbellum may be of use here. Immediately after WW1 folk saw fighters carrying on much the same way they had in that war, fighting for aerial domination by engaging in personal twisting duels with their opponents trying to catch them in the crosshairs for an accurate burst. Priorities were manoeverability ie an easily destabilisable flightpath to enable the plane to be steered easily onto target and out of harm's way and a goodly supply of ammunition. The P11 was, as Sid said, the apotheosis of this breed, as good as (and indeed arguably better) than any in the world.

The bombers requirements were almost diametrically different - it needed a stable flightpath for an accurate bomb run, the ability to go as fast as possible to target and back again to avoid trouble and a reasonable bomb load. Unfettered by the need for manoeverability, bomber designers squeezed as much speed as they could out of an airframe and before too long substantial airframes were flying considerably faster than the fighters. As the same time strategic thinking turned to air-delivered high explosive and firestorm as a potential war-winner, in turn making stopping enemy bombers the poriority for ones own fighters: a job they were pretty much useless at beacuse they couldn't keep up with the bombers let alone chase them down. This then led to a scramble to develop 'pursuit craft' whose job was exclusively bringing down bombers. This spawned a range of designs, but what they had in common was the necessity to sacrifice manoeverability for the sake of speed. Given the massive speeds of both pursued and pursuer, it also meant that the window for bringing fire to bear on the enemy was miniscule - split seconds. That meant ammo carrying capacity had to be sacrificed for a greater number of guns which should be as big as possible. What it also meant was that duels would be short - a few passes and that was your lot. Because the bomber wasn't going to start chasing you, that wasn't a problem.

Initially the concept spawned a range of types, often starting with fairly large machines such as the ME110 (to carry sufficient fuel, guns and ammo). To cash strapped small countries this approach presented the tempting image of a universal aircraft that could be a pursuit fighter, light bomber, recce, ground attack, etc aircraft. Much effort was wasted (including in Poland) on developing this sort of airframe. However it soon became apparent that best suited to it or not, the new fighters would still have to fight each other if for no other reason than that the bombers now needed an escort of pursuit fighters of their own. The single seater craft was still the best option for the job, but it had to be a low wing monoplane with a suitable gun array and speed.

It no doubt, rapidly became apparent that the techniques for downing bombers with the new generation fighters (approach fast, blast away with everything you've got and bug out of reach once you've shot your load) could be just as effectively used against the 'classic' fighters, leaving them at a major disadvantage. Germany was the first to rearm completely with the new generation fighters leaving everyone else scrambling to catch up. By 1939 not even major powers like France, the UK and the USSR had fully reequpped their fighter forces while the less developed armaments economies were left behind in the wake.

What has any of this to do with our discussion? Well firstly, relating to my first comment, in September '39 if German fighters could keep a good eye out for ambushes and avoid getting involved in duels they had little to fear from Polish fighters. However some got overconfident, forgot to keep a weather eye out and paid the price. Others got carried away and having missed in their first pass, decided to play the Red Baron. Given they faced planes made for this game and piloted by men much better trained for it, unless very lucky, they were dogmeat. No doubt those who survived would have learned the error of their ways and had the campaign lasted longer this type of behaviour would have been stamped out quickly enough.

Secondly it helps understand the PZL P24 question. The extra 30-40 kph would not have made a 'fast' fighter out of the P24. While on a good day it could just about keep up with the Dorniers and Heinkels (but not catch them from a distance), against Me 109s and 110s this made little difference. It wasn't particularly better armed with 4 MG or 2 Mg and 2 autocannon vs the 4 MG of the P11. Its only advantage against those fighters was superior manoeverability and I don't think it was better than the P11 in that regard. Furthermore the engines that powered it were not produced in Poland. It made little sense to sink vast amounts of money into a project that would not raise the level of the game significantly even if it was possible at all (and that depended on availability of suitable foreign-purchased engines, something that was far from guaranteed) and at the same time ipso facto put further back in time something that did.

In any case, given the engine availability issue, it made little sense to produce the P24 for the PAF. It made a lot more sense to upgrade the P11 and that was exactly what was first mooted in 1937 to replace the ageing P7 fleet and again in 1938 (P-X design). Both projects involved a projected modest increase in speed and an increase in armamanet to 6 MGs. They were both rejected for the reasons given above. Finally given the (it was hoped temporary) failure of the Jastrzab project, the obvious ageing of the existing aircraft beyond the level of economic repair and the sudden acceleration of the timetable to war in March 1939, the P11g (Kobuz) project was given the go ahead - a project taking much from the P-X design but also utilising the engines which were available from the Jastrzab project setback - a pragmatic approach. This project was overtaken by events but in any case given that the PAF obtained access to a decent quantity of reasonable fighters from France and the UK on credit terms shortly thereafter, puts a question mark over the amount that would have been buiilt in reality, even had the war not broken out.
Last edited by gebhk on 27 Sep 2014, 13:56, edited 1 time in total.


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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#18

Post by jednastka » 27 Sep 2014, 13:13

One aspect of these discussions that is often overlooked is the re-armament cycle, particularly for Germany. They were forbidden to maintain an air force in 1918, and their first truly major re-armament began in the mid 30s, under Hitler. All other European nations had full armed forces, and the economics of the time (depression) discouraged major re-armament programmes. Therefore, Germany gained a step on everyone by re-arming when they did so, and the first years of WWII were catch-up. Poland was simply the first victim of that war. Although I believe that the PZL11c and the Polish pilots themselves were far more capable than usually given credit, they were not numerous enough to deal with the German forces, let alone the combined forces of Germany and Russia. This imbalance could never have been corrected through simple equipment purchase.

Look at today. Poland's situation is not dissimilar to the between wars period. Poland has actively pursued both EU and NATO membership to provide some sense of security in what it believes to be a somewhat insecure world. Same reasons as 1918-1939.

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#19

Post by wm » 27 Sep 2014, 21:18

Still, it wasn't like the Poles didn't understand the changing times, didn't foresee, or lacked the resources needed for a couple of hundred fighters. After all it was possible to build 120 modern, twin engine medium bombers PZL.37 in a year.

As gebhk wrote, there were multiple planes in development - but random events, inevitable delays conspired to deny Poland modern fighters.
- PZL.38 Wilk, a multi-role heavy fighter-bomber, was ordered in 1934, first prototype flew in 1937,
- PZL.50 Jastrząb, a multi-purpose fighter, ordered in 1936, flying prototype at the beginning of 1939,
- PZL P.11g Kobuz, an emergency fighter, its production started at the beginning of the war.

One of those events was the death (in a climbing accident) of the leading Polish aircraft engine designer.
Then much time was wasted working on the PZL.44, twin-engine airliner, that was in the end rejected by the Polish Airlines anyway.

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#20

Post by phylo_roadking » 27 Sep 2014, 23:04

PZL.38 Wilk, a multi-role heavy fighter-bomber, was ordered in 1934, first prototype flew in 1937,
...and was sadly plagued by delayed engine development; the second prototype didn't fly until 1938, with Ranger 12-cylinder engines...and the first aircraft with its intended Foka engines didn't fly until 1939 - by which time the design had been superceded anyway by the more-developed P.48 Lampart, and the Poles were IIRC planning to go with this although no prototypes had flown before September 1939.
PZL.50 Jastrząb, a multi-purpose fighter, ordered in 1936, flying prototype at the beginning of 1939
The first prototype did fly in February 1939 - and a batch of 30 was under construction as of September 1939. It's "successor", the uprated Jastrząb II prototype, was still awaiting its powerplant at the start of the war.
PZL P.11g Kobuz, an emergency fighter, its production started at the beginning of the war.
The Kobuz wasn't a new fighter, it was really only restarting production of the P.11 but with a PZL-built Mercury VIII engine. Was production even started? One flew - but it was really a P.11c with a Mercury VIII fitted.
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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#21

Post by gebhk » 28 Sep 2014, 04:15

And that is the crux of the matter. The Poles were able to design and produce a decent airframe. The virtually universal problem, the root cause of the failure of the first two projects described above and necessitating the third 'best of a bad job' solution, was the hardly surprising inability of a young industry to produce engines of adequate power to size ratio independently. Those industries abroad that could, were too busy supplying their own states and therefore no one was selling either. So, pax WM, Poland did not have the resources to build a couple of hundred modern fighters in the timeframe.

This incidentally was not a new problem. The P7-11-24 family was itself a botch job. Ironically the whole point of the signature gull wing was to afford the pilot excellent vision over an inline engine. In the end a radial engine had to be used because a suitable inline could not be sourced. This necessitated the complex manoevres of dropping the engine down and raising the pilot's seat in the later models to improve visibility, particularly during take-off.
it was really only restarting production of the P.11
I would concur that the P11g was not a new airplane. However the modifications carried out were somewhat more extensive than you suggest. It was an amalgam of the P11 body with an enclosed cabin, modified to take the Jastrzab engine and with P24 wings mounting 2 rather than just 1 MG in each wing (for a total of 6 Mgs including the fuselage mounted ones). It would appear that one most certainly did fly in 1939 and claimed two German bombers. Its pilot believed he was flying a 'Kobuz' and the fact that it was for many years confused with the P24 suggests he was correct.

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#22

Post by durb » 28 Sep 2014, 19:56

What I have read is that PZL P 11 entered in service in 1934. The need of update must have been obvious by 1938. The PZL P 50 project was launched but it progressed too slowly - maybe Polish had not enough technical resources to get the project going smoothly. With this I mean that the time between prototype and series production became too long - the PZL P 50 would have been available somewhere around 1941 like Yugoslav IK-3 or Romanian IAR 80. Maybe the premature death of main Polish aircraft designer Zygmund Pulawski had also some delaying effect.

The problem of PZL P 11 airframe was that it could reach top speed of only 390 - 400 kph in ideal conditions - by the way too slow to catch Heinkel 111. The armament of 2 x 7,7 mg was insufficient already by 1938 standards - for example Soviet Polikarpov fighters (I-15 bis, I-16 type 10 and I-153) had at that time already 4 mg armament. By September 1939 only 30 % of PZL fighters were equipped with four mg. Too little too late. PZL P 24 was probably the only realistic option to modernize somehow Polish Air Force fighter force in late 1930´s. It is noteworthy that Germans thought that Polish Air Force would surely have the best possible equipment available - by this logic they thought that Polish fighter squadrons were equipped with PZL P 24 and thus German pilots identified the encountered Polish PZL fighters as PZL P 24!

Whatever the logical reasons of bad decisions, I think that there should be a room for criticising Polish Air Force and Polish decision makers. They made mistakes, ignored unpleasent realities and the truth is that Polish Defence Forces were equipped with outdated/obsolete equipment in 1939. Also the tactical doctrines were outdated - Polish had both outdated planes and outdated fighter tactics. It speaks for the skills, fighting spirit and improvisation ability that Polish Air Force was able to shoot some Luftwaffe planes down.

Of course the position between Germany and Soviet Union was difficult for Poland and it might be that any effort would have been futile. But thinking that way also any resistance was futile - so why to fight at all? As Polish wanted not to be Czechoslovakia nr. 2 and decided to defend themselves, this policy would have required more strong defence forces with better equipment. Maybe there was not enough money for defense budget - but is this enough justification taking in account the precarious position of Poland? And was the money of defense budget allocated in good way? Should we consider Polish decision makers simply as victims of unfavourable circumstances and thus consider them free of any responsablity?

And thinking afterwards, was too much money invested in PZL P 23 and PZL P 37? - they could do little in September 1939 and were thrown against Germans without fighter escort. Heavy losses, small results.

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#23

Post by gebhk » 29 Sep 2014, 00:24

I sometimes wonder why we bother to post responses :roll:
The PZL P 50 project was launched but it progressed too slowly - maybe Polish had not enough technical resources to get the project going smoothly
There is no mystery or 'maybe's here - the 'technical resource' Poland lacked was a suitable engine. And until one could be procured the PZL Jastrzab project was not going to deliver.
Maybe the premature death of main Polish aircraft designer Zygmund Pulawski had also some delaying effect.
No, the lack of a suitable engine was the primary delaying factor in Poland and every single other country other than UK, Germany, France, USA and the USSR. While Pulaski was undoubtedly a talented designer it is debatable if he was the 'main' designer of interwar Poland. Both Dabrowski and Jakimiuk can lay equal claim to that title - the former the designer of the Los and the latter of the Chipmunk - an aircraft so well designed it is still in widespread use today. Of infinitely greater significance was the premature death of Stanislaw Nowkunski, Poland's main aircraft engine designer.
I think that there should be a room for criticising Polish Air Force and Polish decision makers.
There is plenty of room, however to make your criticism a bit more credible you should present some suggestion of how things could have been improved ie offer some constructive criticism. That in practice means explaining how you would have procured suitable engines to power a modern fighter.
They made mistakes.
The only way to avoid making mistakes is to do nothing
They ignored unpleasent realities
That accusation can be levelled against every human being that ever lived. No offence - but so what? One thing they did not ignore was the fact that fighter force was absolete. However being aware of something and being in a position to do something about it are two different things, I'm afraid.
the truth is that Polish Defence Forces were equipped with outdated/obsolete equipment in 1939
As was every air force on earth to a greater or lesser degree in 1939 - even the Luftwaffe. Hardly news to anyone then or now. Again, do you have any credible suggestions how in the absence of availability of suitable engines, this problem could have been overcome by Poland when every nation on earth with the exception of Germany perhaps, failed to do so?
PZL P 24 was probably the only realistic option to modernize somehow Polish Air Force fighter force in late 1930´s
Not really, modernising the P11was more realistic which is why it was done. In any case the P24 offered few advantages over the P11. It had the same firepower and the types the P24 could catch (eg Henschel, Stuka etc) the P11 could catch, while the types which outpaced the P11 (eg Heinkels, Dorniers, Meserschmitts) also outpaced the P24. It was hardly a modernisation in any meaningful sense, rather a replacement of like with (new and slightly improved) like.
Should we consider Polish decision makers simply as victims of unfavourable circumstances and thus consider them free of any responsablity?
Responsibility for what exactly? Until you can present a credble alternative there seems little point in finger-pointing. And yes the Polish decision makers in military aviation had little control over Poland's geo-political situation, the country's economic poverty, the inadequacies of an inexperienced manufacturing industry and the unprecedented and unrepeated rate of military aircraft development which disadvantaged developing contries dramatically more than it did established military and economic powers. Even if they had done everything right that could have been done right, it seems doubtful in the extreme that the outcome would have been significantly different.
It speaks for the skills, fighting spirit and improvisation ability that Polish Air Force was able to shoot some Luftwaffe planes down.
Nothing to do with the 'outdated fighter tactics'?

I apologise for the sharp tone of this response but it is frustrating to see accusations being levelled when no credible alternative is being offered. Please don't be offended but one could just as profitably criticise Poland (and every other country other than the USA) in this vein for not putting a man on the moon 8O

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#24

Post by durb » 29 Sep 2014, 14:13

Lets see, if there were any possiblities to equip PZL 50 fighter with better powerplant than the Mercury VIII, which was shown to be a wrong choice and leading to rather slow prototype with 420 - 430 km/h. How about 1050 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830-17 Twin Wasp air-cooled radial piston engine, license-build it and build also a replica of Hawk 75 - an airframe well tested and reliable meaning less time-consuming slow development work. In French tests combat ready (armed etc.) Hawk 75 achieved a top speed of 486 km/h and had good handling qualities - Hawk 75 was almost 100 km/h more than PZL P 11 and 50 km/h faster than PZL 50. In the Battle of France Hawk 75 units were quite successfull against Luftwaffe and had better kill/loss -ratio than Morane units.

Another engine choice for PZL 50 in 1936/1937 would have been the 950 hp Wright R-1820-22 Cyclone radial engine. License-build the engine and the plane around it. But the wrong choice had been already made, and the whole PZL 50 project turned out to be a complete waste of money. I think that PZL overestimated their chances to produce modern planes in late 1930´s and the idea that Polish-designed and Polish-manufactured planes would satisfy all needs of Polish Air Force was too ambitious. This long-term strategy trapped Polish decision makers and they went astray. Too many fruitless projects like PZL P 38 took also resources away from PZL 50 idea and there was not enough to be invested in modern fighter project, which suffered repeatedly of delays.

And what did Polish Air Force achieve with PZL P 37 bomber fleet in September 1939? Heavy losses against German flak and fighters for little results. Can not be considered as a good investment in retrospect. Less PZL P 37 and more AA equipment would have been a wiser choice, but the "bomber blindness" was a common disease also in other air forces, which should have invested more money in fighters or AA. For aggressive great power like Germany it made sense to have a big bomber fleet, but for Poland bombers proved to be a wrong investment.

By any means Poland was going to be at defensive position against potential enemies (Germany, Soviet Union). That being the situation and being there no (?) practical chances to modernize the fighter force of Polish Air Force in late 1930´s, the best investment would have been to buy more AA equipment and train more AA units!

By the way, when it comes to "outdated fighter tactics" of Polish Air Force, to my knowledge Polish fighter units flew still in inflexible ´vic´ three plane formations. The individual skills of pilots were good/satisfactory and they excelled in aerobatics, but that did not compensate the technical equipment inferiority and the weaknesses in cooperation/communication between pilots. But if I´m wrong, please correct.

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#25

Post by wm » 29 Sep 2014, 22:58

gebhk wrote:Those industries abroad that could, were too busy supplying their own states and therefore no one was selling either. So, pax WM, Poland did not have the resources to build a couple of hundred modern fighters in the timeframe.
The resources for building engines were available: the Polish Škoda Works, the license agreements with the Bristol Aeroplane Company (both companies with impeccable pedigrees), the money (a couple of hundred fighters weren't any more expensive than a single large destroyer or submarine, and Poland bought several of those - rather pointlessly, without a mission in a defensive war).
The resources were meager but sufficient, the more expensive and complex PZL.37 medium bombers were built rather fast.

As to the lack of engines - the US hadn't entered the arm race yet at that time, so its almost unlimited industrial power was available. And the Poles tried this route too, testing in 1937 the Ranger V-770 engine made by the Fairchild Engine & Aircraft Corporation.

PZL.11 entered service between 1935 and 1937.
But a year earlier, in 1934, the PZL.38 ( planned max speed 520 km/h) was ordered.
In 1936 the problems with PZL.38 were became apparent, so they ordered another fighter the PZL.50.
As its development proceed slowly for various reasons and lots of time was wasted doing nothing, it still wasn't available in 1939 - when the war finally was seen as likely.
The answer to that problem was the emergency fighter PZL.38. Like the German emergency fighters in 1945, an attempt to do something, anything in a desperate situation.

So it was't like they ignored unpleasant realities, they reacted reasonably fast but as usual there were problems.

One reason for the delays was the failed attempt to design an indigenous, light inline air-cooled engine. A technologically advanced project but too ambitious.
And both the PZL.38, PZL.50 projects progressed slowly because they was no political pressure to do it as fast as possible, as they believed both potential aggressors wouldn't be ready for war till 1941/42.

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#26

Post by durb » 30 Sep 2014, 16:38

wm wrote: the money (a couple of hundred fighters weren't any more expensive than a single large destroyer or submarine, and Poland bought several of those - rather pointlessly, without a mission in a defensive war).
The resources were meager but sufficient, the more expensive and complex PZL.37 medium bombers were built rather fast.
Here we come to the problem of "bomber blindness" - the erroneus thought that the bomber offensive was the best defense and best investment, which was so common due to "douhetism" of 1930´s. This also meant the allocation of limited financial resources in wrong planes. These bombers were thought to be speedy enough and enough armed to survive any interception of enemy fighters. There was no idea of provide them with fighter escorts (not enough fighters for that and PZL P 11 was not speedy enough to escort PZL P 37). Polish Airforce general Józef Zajac wrote in winter 1938/1939 a report, in which he warned that Polish Air Force would be crushed in 2-4 weeks if war started before 1941. Zajac had earlier wanted to stop the development of PZL P 37 and invest more in fighters. We know that PZL 50 project failed and the upgrading of PZL P 11 was not enough.

However, I´m not sure if PZL 38 would have been the right or best available alternative to PZL P 11. It was also a product of controversial 1930´s idea to have a long-range twin-engined dayfighter much like Bf 110 - excellent nightfighter against bombers, but not so good as a dayfighter. The prototype of PZL 38 achieved only 400 km/h - not much advantage compared to PZL P 11 and less nimble. Single-seated and single-engined modern fighter was what was needed. However, for ground attacking purposes PZL 38 would probably have been better than PZL P 23 and PZL P 37.

Of course the main problem was that Poles were not expecting German aggression on 1939 until it was too late. The traditional "would be enemy" was Soviet Union (for historical reasons) - this was probably one of the reasons why so much money was invested in warships, which had very limited prospects in war against Germany. The threat coming from Germany was realized too late when only little could be done. By that point (late 1938/early 1939) the wisest move would have been to invest more in AA defence. Difficult to imagine anything more reasonable in short term.

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#27

Post by steverodgers801 » 01 Oct 2014, 03:28

Remember Hitler did sign a treaty with the Poles prior to the Czech crisis and even let Poland have a small part. I would suggest the Poles thought they could play the Germans against the Soviets and factor in he belief that the allies would after all come to their aid. It must have been an even bigger shock for the Poles then the west when the Germans and Soviets signed their treaty

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#28

Post by durb » 01 Oct 2014, 12:56

When Molotov-Ribbentrob pact was signed in August 1939, it was far too late to do anything to improve Polish Air Force. The impression that I have is that Polish considered Germany to be lesser evil than Soviet Union/Russia (the history of Polish/Russian-Soviet rivalry was a long one). Thus the war game scenario was Poland vs. Soviet Union while the Germany was considered unlikely to attack.

However none of the German governements in Inter-War period really approved the border arrangement forced with Poland. When Göring in 1936-1938 visited Poland, he hinted that Poland should make compromises regarding Polish-German border (corridor, Danzig) and then could ally herself to Germany - he offered a junior partnership in "Lebensraum" for the Poles who could get their share of land in east (once German-Soviet war would take place - it is obvious that German troop would have needed a transit via Poland to conquer Russia). Polish foreign minister Beck refused as he realised that Poland would in this scenario become a satellite fully controlled by Germans (who would have their troops in Poland). Soviets offered back-up against Germans but with the condition that they could bring their troops in Poland - but there was good reason to believe that once Soviet troops were in Poland, they would not leave for good. It was a position worse than to go between Scylla and Charybdis - Poland was at a narrow path between two Charybdis.

The first German-Polish negotiations with direct demands on Danzig and Corridor question took place in October 1938 - and againt the partnership (in form of Anticomintern pact) was offered. It is noteworthy that in Warsaw the reaction was negative without any hesitation. In 24.11.1938 Hitler first time ordered German armed forces to prepare to take Danzig by force - at this time there were already rumours that Germany would attack on April 1939. I´m pretty sure that by this point Polish recognized that Hitler was deadly serious with them and the German attack could take place almost anytime in near future.

We have already outlined some mistakes made by Polish decision makers - the expensive but secondary PZL P 37 bomber fleet, money invested in "wrong war" (Naval war vs. Soviets in scenario in which Germany would not attack). Those mistakes were long-term decision made in 1936/1937 when geopolitical situation was different from 1939. There was logic in them in their own time and they may be understable, but nevertheless they turned out to be wrong.

What there was to be done to correct or improve the situation of Polish Air Defence in the period between November 1938 and September 1939? Too little too late?

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#29

Post by wm » 01 Oct 2014, 16:43

At that time the Soviet Russia was a terrorist, rogue state.
A state that actively and aggressively was trying to subvert the constitutional order and the democratic institutions all over Europe and Asia. And murdering those who stood in the way.
At the same time Germany hosted Olympic Games and promoted peaceful cooperation.

Poland signed non-aggression pacts simultaneously with Germany and the USSR, five years before Munich. There was no other treaties later.

In the case of Czechoslovakia, for several months before Munich the Poles had been pointing out to the French that an ally deserves the same treatment as the enemy. And any beneficial to Germany agreement should have extended its benefits to Poland too.
Later Poland went to Germans with its grievances. In both cases was ignored, so after the Munich Agreement had been signed, and there was a real possibility that the small part would be annexed by Germany, Poland acted unilaterally.

The Poles were solemnly assured many times by the leaders of Germany, including Hitler himself, there would be no demands against them. This is why the Polish reaction was so negative at the end of 1938. It was obvious that at least Ribbentrop was a lying female canine. A month later it was obvious der Führer himself was a lying female canine too.

And for Germany, a reasonable course of action was to acquire an access to strategic resources (like oil), before embroiling itself into a prolong war. So people expected Hitler to do Southern Europe first. There was no worthwhile resources in Poland.

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Re: Why Polish Air Force kept old parasol fighters up to 193

#30

Post by steverodgers801 » 01 Oct 2014, 20:48

Silesia is a major industrial area and there was a small oil field that was taken over by the Soviets

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