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

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

#31

Post by Sid Guttridge » 02 Oct 2014, 11:17

Poland was then largely an agrarian society and did not have the resources of a major industrial power. It therefore couldn't be strong everywhere and all the time.

It, and several other similar states, such as Romania and Yugoslavia, managed to develop single-seat, single-engined, low-wing monoplane fighters in the late 1930s.

Generally the prototypes were reasonably competitive internationally. However, due to more limited industrial resources, they could neither put these types into serial production fast enough to keep them competitive or develop them further at the same speed as the major industrial powers.

There was certainly more that might have been done to further develop the basic PZL11/24 airframe, as the Romanians proved with their single-seat, single-engined, low-wing monoplane IAR80 fighter, but this, too, suffered from the limited developmental potential of its French engine.

Cheers,

Sid.

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

#32

Post by durb » 02 Oct 2014, 16:57

Sid Guttridge wrote:Poland was then largely an agrarian society and did not have the resources of a major industrial power. It therefore couldn't be strong everywhere and all the time.
Poland was predominantly agrarian country as most of the European countries were in 1930´s. However she had industrial capacity to produce in late 1930´s a up-to-date PZL P 37 bomber and PZL company had capacity to export airplanes to various countries. There was money in defense budget, but it was not well allocated. A good example of this is the Polish Fleet, its most important role in WW2 was to be a evacuated for the needs of British Royal Navy. Partly it was interned in Sweden. It is questionable if the Polish Navy would have had any meaningful role in possible Polish-Soviet war, for which it was built (also the Poles understood that Polish Navy would have had no role in Baltic Sea in war against Germany - for that reason Polish vessels were evacuated to serve in Royal Navy).

In retrospect it would have made sense for Poland to have some kind of military alliance with Czechs - specially in matters of military industry. However, politically that was impossible as there were issues like Teschen question. When Czechoslovkia as a state was eliminated, Poland was taking her share of the corpse and did not realize that her turn would be next.

And last but not least was it wise to trust in such allies as Britain and France in 1939 and think that they would act rapidly? Make the national defence and destiny depend on foreign powers and specially on someone like Neville Chamberlain? It is noteworthy that British and French delayed the full mobilisation of Poland even at last minute because they did not want Poles to "provoke" Hitler. For same reason Poles were not able to use their expensive PZL P 37 bombers effectively in 1.-2.9.1939 as it would have "provoked" Hitler.


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

#33

Post by wm » 02 Oct 2014, 20:01

Well, the Czechoslovak planes weren't all that modern in 1938 too, some of them were positively ancient.

Poland war ready to forget Teschen, and tried a few times to come to terms with Czechoslovakia ( as shown here - the Skirmunt-Plitz rapprochement ) - unsuccessfully, because both countries didn't really have common political goals. Specifically Czechoslovakia wasn't afraid of the USSR, and blindly put its trust in the Western Powers.

But later Czechoslovakia was seen by the Poles as a politically fragile state (there was a German per two Czechs there, and other rather serious political problems), a state that would disintegrate at first good opportunity. And as we know it happened - twice.

After the Teschen area had been annexed by Poland, Czechoslovakia existed just fine. It lost some territories, and most of its Germans, nothing more. It wasn't eliminated as a state. And the geopolitical situation of Poland wasn't affected by that.

The Poles expected a rapid reaction because that was promised by the French. Earlier they informally assumed it would be months not weeks.
steverodgers801 wrote:Silesia is a major industrial area and there was a small oil field that was taken over by the Soviets
That's correct but the oil field was exhausted and falling, after all it was one of the oldest oil fields in the world.
Silesia partially was in German hands at that time. Anyway it was mostly coal there, and coal was one of the least important of Germany's problems.

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

#34

Post by durb » 07 Oct 2014, 14:15

Once Poland decided to say definitive "No" to German demands on Danzig/Corridor question it meant that there was a chance of war at Polish western frontier. This meant also that Poland would be cut from her Western Allies (Polish Fleet not able to hold sea routes open and the Corridor likely lost). No Hurricanes or French Moranes would arrive by sea and PZL P 11´s were all what were at hand. There was little to be made in spring and summer 1939 for the Poles. When it comes to modernizing fighter force it was too late . Maybe few more PZL P 11´s could have been equipped with a extra pair of guns. Maybe little more AA equipment and training hurriedly men to use it.

It is easy to be critical afterwards, but here a German (general Kurt v. Tippelskirch) analysis of Polish defense on Sept. 1939:

1) It was not possible for Poles to keep the industrial zones of Upper Silesia, Western Poland and Lodz, but they tried it. An attempt to keep these territories of Poland was doomed to fail due to too little resources compared to German attacking forces. It seems that the HQ of Rydz Smigly tried to secure all provinces of Poland but as a consequence the defense was not strong in any direction. Polish troops were scattered around the western borders and were soon forced to retreat - the retreat process was not easy and thus many Polish troops were surrounded and isolated. (further note is that Poland had not fully mobilised by 1.9.1939)

2) the above was apparently consequence of ignorance of the power relations and capacity difference between German and Polish armed forces. Poles overestimated their chances.

3) Polish probably believed in old tactical doctrines that the combat would start as in earlier wars after the concentration of troops and skirmishes between light front line units - after that conclusions could be drawn and changes could be made in troops concentrations. This was outdated tactical thinking as Germans had much more mobile forces and Luftwaffe could effectively harass the movements of enemy troops which lacked adequate air defence (both fighters and AA units were too few)

4) the only chance for Polish HQ to put up a successful defence for a longer time would have been to accept territorial losses in western part of Poland and put up a defensive line alongside the rivers Narew-Wisla-San and fight effectively back all German surrounding attempts from Eastern Prussia, Silesia and Slovakia. This kind of defense line would have demanded more time preparation and thinking of the longtime supply reserves for Polish Army. However nothing indicates that this would have been in Polish plans.

The Poles invested lot in cavalry - IIRC, it was not so much to make old-style classical cavalry attacks but a chep way to have a "mobile infantry" - horses were cheaper than trucks and more available. Not so bad idea, but when it comes to defense budget I have read that Polish invested in air force fighters only 10 % of what they invested in cavalry.

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

#35

Post by Pavel Novak » 07 Oct 2014, 20:20

durb wrote: 1) It was not possible for Poles to keep the industrial zones of Upper Silesia, Western Poland and Lodz, but they tried it. An attempt to keep these territories of Poland was doomed to fail due to too little resources compared to German attacking forces. It seems that the HQ of Rydz Smigly tried to secure all provinces of Poland but as a consequence the defense was not strong in any direction. Polish troops were scattered around the western borders and were soon forced to retreat - the retreat process was not easy and thus many Polish troops were surrounded and isolated. (further note is that Poland had not fully mobilised by 1.9.1939)
Decision to defend or not to defend part of country are much more complicated than just comparing strengths and abilities. The decision of not to defend these western parts of country could actually mean that polish war army would be significantly smaller. Because if you do not plan to defend it you can not count on mobilisation on these territories and your peace time garrisons and depots would not be positioned here which mean less area for position of whole military organisation in time preceding to war.

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

#36

Post by wm » 07 Oct 2014, 20:49

durb wrote:1) It was not possible for Poles to keep the industrial zones of Upper Silesia, Western Poland and Lodz, but they tried it. An attempt to keep these territories of Poland was doomed to fail due to too little resources compared to German attacking forces. It seems that the HQ of Rydz Smigly tried to secure all provinces of Poland but as a consequence the defense was not strong in any direction. Polish troops were scattered around the western borders and were soon forced to retreat - the retreat process was not easy and thus many Polish troops were surrounded and isolated.
Really, what's the point of an analysis by an analyst without access to facts.
Of course it wasn't possible for the Poles to keep the industrial zones, unfortunately located so close to the border with Germany. The Poles knew that, the reason was they needed a true, bloody war from the day one. A war that would trigger a general European war. Without fighting Germany could have annexed the industrial zones, halted the war and asked for another Munich Agreement with the reluctant Allies.
That decision was made consciously, it wasn't a mistake, it was in the plan.

BTW the extra pair of guns in the PZL.11c slowed them down - pilots frequently removed the extra pair because of that.

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

#37

Post by durb » 07 Oct 2014, 23:15

Yes, I have read that the extra pair of mg´s were considered more weight and less advantage by Polish pilots. Just shows how difficult/impossible it was to update PZL P 11 airframe. Something better would have been necessary but by spring 1939 it was too late to have it. It depended on long-term decisions which should have taken place in 1936 or 1937 or at least by the early 1938. After that it was too late to do anything significant to improve air defences before the war started in September 1939. What was tried to improve the situation simply failed (PZL 50 etc.). Was it a question of limits of Polish defense budget? No, not in my opinion. There were resources, but they were allocated in other things (fleet, PZL P 37, cavalry).

Tippelskirch´s analysis of Polish defense was to see the German-Polish war only in military way and only by military logic. He tried to reason some way how Poles could have made more prolonged resistance than they did. But one must take in account political, prestige and propaganda factors and thus warfare more often than not gets "irrational" nature. For example we know that Poland should have been fully mobilised and prepared to meet enemy by 1.9.1939, but for foreign policy reasons the full mobilisation was delayed and this certainly helped Germans to win. The Polish plan to trigger a whole Europe in a war and get Western Allies to do something unfortunately did not work - they were not enough mobilised either and the modest Saar Offensive did not help Poles. I´m afraid that French and British well knew that they could not in practice help Poles, who thus were on their own.

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

#38

Post by gebhk » 08 Oct 2014, 12:43

We do seem to be straying wildly far from the subject!

To straighten out at least one myth, the running costs of the air force and the cavalry were comparable, with the AF having approx 80% that of the cavalry. However given that the AF would have had a substantially larger share of investment budgets - construction, R&D, equipment reserve etc, I think we can probably say that more was spent on the AF than the cavalry. Whether that was enough is another matter, however given that the cavalry consumed around 5% of the budget, even liquidating it altogether and turnung the cash over to AF development would have made little or no difference to the AF but would have deprived the Polish Army of the only viable rapid response units it had at its disposal. So if it is budgetary savings you are looking for, you need to look elsewhere - I would suggest the infantry and the navy for starters. However I rather doubt even massive increases in the AF budget could have overcome the fundamental qualitative problem that arose in 1936-39 in fighter development.

I'm afraid both WM and yourself paint an overly rosy view of Polands immediate post WW1 situation and of the aircraft industry generally. The fact is that Poland was more or less deliberately kept as an agrarian backwater by the three partitioning powers - illustrative is the development of the optics industry. Poland's largest pre-war optics (including military) concern, FOS was moved lock, stock and barrel to St Petersburg as soon as it started being a significant player. During the war the front rolled over 4 times causing massive damage to the infrastructure and economy of the country. Thus after the war the nascent state inherited a shattered and divided (due to the pre-war partitions) economy which was particularly deficient in mechanical, elctrotechnical and chemical branches of industry essential for aeronautical development. There was not even the germ of an aeronautical industry and not even a motor vehicle factory to base one on. No component materials of adequate quality were being produced anywhere in the country and almost entirely no engineering personnel was to be had - the first generation was still learning its trade. That from these dire beginnings a world-class fighter plane could be produced in quantity in 12 years was little short of a miracle.

Durb, I hope you don't mind me asking whether you have ever been responsible for the procurement and implementation of technical equipment, essential for preventing catastrophic consequences to large numbers of people, for a large organisation? The reason I ask is because you don't seem to grasp the complexities and myriad reasons why such projects never run to schedule. In this regard Poland's neofite a/craft industry was particularly disadvantaged. The large, developed economies could afford to and therefore ran a number projects in parallel for each specification (eg Me 109 + He 112) as an insurance against the failure of one or more of them. By 'afford' I mean not just having the financial but also the design resources to do this, which Poland did not. Furthermore there was never any question but that in any foreseeable future war Poland would be fighting a numerically vastly superior enemy. This meant that Polish equipment had to be not only equal to but in fact superior to that of the enemy, for Poland to be able to hold her own. This pressured the Polish armaments industry to search for novel, untried solutions which compounded the risk. Polish design teams made up for lack of resources with talent and extraordinarily hard work but Edward Malak makes a very good point that what was also required was shear dumb luck. This luck held out for the P1-24 family and the Los but finally ran out in the next stage of the fighter development process.

Of course decisions should have been taken in 1936 as you say and they were - on 13th October, outlining the development plan for 1937-1940/41, although arguably these were merely the logical development of the previous 3-year plan. The new plan envisaged the development of the Wilk as a high-altitude bomber killer or 'pursuit fighter'. Given the P11 was still a reasonable proposition in 1936, replacing this was a lesser priority compared to developing the new type which was missing from the inventory altogether (incidentally neither the Wilk nor the Jastrzab were envisaged as replacements for the P7 and P11). At this critical point the run of good luck that helped produce the Los and P1-24 family ran out and the development of the Wilk was plagued by problems with locating a suitable engine. Despairing of obtaining the Wilk in a reasonable time, the Jastrzab project was almost certainly intitiated to substitute for the Wilk.

Moving onto the engines you mentioned. The 1050 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830-17 Twin Wasp was a non-starter, as discussed earlier, because it used fuel that was not available in Poland. The Cyclone family present an altogether more intriguing history. As early as the summer of 1937 Curtiss-Wright commenced pressuring the Polish authorities to invest substantial amounts in the construction of a factory in Poland poroducing Cyclone engines. They were not keen to sell the engines as such. Infortunately we have, to my knowledge, no record at present of the Polish side of the negotiations in this matter. One can therefore merely speculate why, although not rejected outright, the Americans failed to secure a positive response either. Firstly it is likely that with the costly Frankopol fiasco in the back of all aeronautical authorities' minds, there would have been strong reservations about getting involved in what seemed in many ways, a carbon copy of the earlier affair. Secondly Poland had a range of other options in the pipeline, all of which were closer to home than the other side of the world and politically more closely alligned as well. There was no reason to expect that the French and British firms would fail to deliver to expectations in the way they did and, as I said before, Poland was not in the position to run parallel projects. In the event once the successive failures to deliver of the Foka project, Gnome-Rhone and Bristol became apparent, supplies of American engines were secured, unfortunately too late to make any difference.

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

#39

Post by wm » 10 Oct 2014, 20:48

durb wrote:The Polish plan to trigger a whole Europe in a war and get Western Allies to do something unfortunately did not work - they were not enough mobilised either and the modest Saar Offensive did not help Poles. I´m afraid that French and British well knew that they could not in practice help Poles, who thus were on their own.
Some say it worked quite well.
gebhk wrote:That from these dire beginnings a world-class fighter plane could be produced in quantity in 12 years was little short of a miracle.
Although Romania was able to pull it off ( IAR 80 ), and its economy was 3.5 times smaller than Poland's.

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

#40

Post by gebhk » 10 Oct 2014, 21:21

Although Romania was able to pull it off ( IAR 80 ), and its economy was 3.5 times smaller than Poland's.
And which was no more ready in 1939 than the Jastrzab, which rather supports the point that Sid made earlier, namely that when there is a steep evolutionary curve, smaller economies will be severely disadvantaged.

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

#41

Post by wm » 10 Oct 2014, 23:10

Certainly but they started in 1937, three years later than the Poles. And the plane was production ready at the end of 1939.

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

#42

Post by gebhk » 11 Oct 2014, 21:19

I think you'll find work on Jastrzab also commenced in 1937. If the IAR 80 was production ready in 1939, why did production not commence in 1939? The answer is that, like with the Jastrzab, the powerplant proved unsatisfactory and it took a further year or so to locate a more suitable one and to carry out the major rebuild that was required to accommodate it in the airframe. Also, given that it was armed with Belgian weapons, it would not have gone into production as a warplane when it did if Romania had not been forced to join the Axis - illustrating the political risks of being reliant on foreign suppliers of war materials.

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

#43

Post by durb » 13 Oct 2014, 16:20

"Furthermore there was never any question but that in any foreseeable future war Poland would be fighting a numerically vastly superior enemy. This meant that Polish equipment had to be not only equal to but in fact superior to that of the enemy, for Poland to be able to hold her own."

The result of the overambitious, delayed and erroneus projects was then that Polish Air Force was equipped with less equipment and also technically inferior than the enemy in September 1939. Polish PZL fighters were inferior compared to both German and Soviet contemporaries. Polish fighter pilots of course flew with PZL P 11/P 7 that their country gave them, but they would have deserved something better.

The question of Polish aircraft industry is complicated one. By the one hand it did provide Poles with home-made machines and had even export capacity. On the other hand "made in Poland" -policy forced Polish Air Force to seek technical improvement through home-made design and production process, and then there were troubles with engines etc. The sad truth is that PZL was not able to provide Polish Air Force with a modern low-wing monoplane fighter by 1939. When the unarmed PZL 50 prototype at last flew in February 1939, it failed to keep the promises - PZL 50 was slower (max. 430 kph) than some I-16 types, Morane 406 or Hawk 75. In other words Polish aircraft industry was not competitive enough. Polish Air Force would have needed another supplier or PZL a license-building contract of some decent foreign fighter available in 1936/1937/1938. But this was also difficult and expensive choice - to recognize that PZL was unable to do the job. Politically impossible. And the "plan" was that war would start probably in early 1940´s, not in 1939.

Polish Air Force had to go war with PZL P 11 / P 7 in September 1939. The reasons above and in other posts suggests that it was the unavoidable destiny and there were no possibilities for Polish Air Force to have more modern fighter equipment. Poland was destined to have both less numerous and technically inferior air force when the country was invaded by Germany. In a way the air war over Poland was lost even before it started.

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

#44

Post by gebhk » 13 Oct 2014, 17:33

Polish Air Force would have needed another supplier or PZL a license-building contract of some decent foreign fighter available in 1936/1937/1938
And what would that have been?

In the end you seem to be determined to blame Polish decision makers for failing to achieve what no other country, let alone one remotely similar to Poland in industrial capacity, managed - which is to develop a fighter force capable of tackling the Luftwaffe on equal terms by 1939. From this wider perspective, it seems an odd viewpoint.

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

#45

Post by durb » 14 Oct 2014, 01:54

The question is not about Polish Air Force being 100 % equal to Luftwaffe in September 1939 but if it could have had somewhat better equipment than it had. You seem to answer categorically that there was absolutely no chance for Polish Air Force to have anything better than PZL P 11 and PZL P 7 with which fight against Luftwaffe. This may well be so and Polish decision makers probably did their best with the knowledge and resources they had. It was the unavoidable destiny. Or was it?

What modern fighter planes there were to be bought from foreign market in 1936/1937/1938? I have already suggested Curtiss Hawk 75 - but maybe too expensive. Other possibility could have MS 405/406, which Swiss did license-build - too latecomer? Hurricane also good - although it was very new plane to RAF too in 1939. License building Fiat G 50? I´m not saying that these planes were equal to Bf 109 E, but they were clearly better than PZL P 11. Maybe someone has more knowledge and comes up with a better idea. Maybe Polish Air Force people thought of these possibilities and ruled them all out by thinking that PZL team would come up soon with something much better.

What I have read that Poles made hurriedly orders of both Hurricane and MS 406 in summer 1939, but it was too late by then. These undelivered hasty orders show that Poles were well aware of the unsatisfactory situation of their fighter force. It also confirmed that ambitious projects based on the idea of "designed and made in Poland" had failed and Poles also recognised that. The engine problem does not explain it all - it feels like an excuse of a designer team which tries to explain all of its shortcomings with one all-covering reason. How did other foreign manufacturers find good or decent engines which made it possible to build good or decent fighter planes in late 1930´s?

Also the allocation of resources is a legitimate question. The PZL P 37 was perhaps a nice bomber but as Zajac pointed out it would have made more sense to stop the bomber development altogether and invest more in fighters. Even more PZL P 11 and less PZL P 37 would have been a better choice.

There was no chance for Poland to be equal by military terms with Germany by September 1939, but there were some chances to put up more prolonged war and cause more losses to enemy. Claiming that there was nothing that Polish Defence Forces could have done better than they did in late 1930´s leads us to determinism.

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