"Polish Army in WW3" Topic

Assuming the Warpac decide on a massive conventional attack on West Germany in the early 1980's, can anyone point me to plans for where the Polish army would have been committed ?

Best place to start:

link

In my scenario unrest in Poland kicks off the war and they are swiftly 'disarmed' by the Soviets. It's a device to limit the stuff I need to buy and enables me to field a Free Polish Brigade led by my old art teacher, Stan Motyka!

LOTS of uncertainty about the attitude of Polish forces in the 1980s now. Although the officer Corps was heavily communised and remained so till c1989, there was a lot of concern about the rank and file.
Also- the Polish army had a strong (by WP standards) professional NCO cadre. But many of these apparently were children of Katyn victims. From strong military families but disbarred from officer rank- they nevertheless entered the armed forces in numbers and became quite influential- but while maintaining peacetime military decorum, were very anti-soviet at heart.

By the mid-1980s, for a variety of reasons, the Sovs thought it unlikely that the Polish army as a whole would be reliable partners in a general war.

They were supposed to take the Danish isles, and the rest of Denmark, plus perhaps deploy along the Northern frontier of Germany, either via land, or in the case of the former, via amphibious and helo assault.

Denmark's defenses/major cities were supposed to be "softened up" via nuclear warheads hitting key strongpoints, prior to, or as Warsaw Pact and Soviet forces were deployed.

No doubt, use of those would have been blamed on NATO, in retaliation for the latter's fictitious "first strike" on the Warsaw Pact, and/or Soviet Union.

There were about even chances that the Poles would form up facing North, then Right Face and march into Russia…

A good TO&E PDF link

Thanks for the info. It confirms what I read elsewhere.

The reliability of Poland was quite significant to Soviet planning, especially when you consider its position, straddling the supply lines west. At one point they considered letting Poland go, so long as they guaranteed the link to East Germany. God knows how that would have worked!
It's in need of updating (and better grammar) but my thinking is here:

link

I've based my war in 1978, bringing the Solidarity troubles forward a few years: I wanted a pre-Afghan USSR when they were stronger politically and there was a greater parity of kit for gaming purposes.
Personally, if I was to include Poland in any adventure, I would just have them as a follow up/occupation force as I cannot see them being an effective spearhead. Unless, as Lion points out, they point east…

11th ACR,

That orbat is great do you have a link to the site where they are all on?

Do they have the same for all major combatants?

Thanks

Soviets/Russians are/were masters of misdirection and misinformation.

Nuke a Polish, or East German city, port, or base, and blame it on NATO, in order to secure hatreds and alliances?

I suspect it might have been part of their planning to do that, and blame NATO for starting the war.

The Polish untis were structured as part of whateveer Soviet army they were close to. They would have been committed right off the bat.

Frostie:

link

Mako

We're quite good at that too. Still no WMD in Iraq ;-)

Dropping a nuke anywhere in what will be your own rear area is not the best way of getting your client nations to do what you want. I think there would be enough trouble getting the evil commie hordes and their supplies to the front line without the literal fallout from a self-inflicted wound. That includes the resources you would have to divert to deal with casualties etc.

The solution is more likely to be political: who you can rely on most and how they would fit into your strategy. Getting Germans to slaughter Germans is not smart. Getting them to follow up and help the recently liberated workers get their country back in order is more persuasive. And it releases Russians for front-line duties.

But that's my take on things – it never happened so WW3 is your oyster!

I can only add a joke going around Poland when Solidarity was making waves. There was concern that the Soviets would engineer a Czechoslovakia-type invasion a la 1968. The question was whether the Polish Army would resist such.
It went like this:

A Polish soldier is in a trench, and he's down to his last bullet and his bayonet. The trench is being rushed by an East German and a Soviet. Who does he shoot?
The East German. Business before pleasure.

"Still no WMD in Iraq".

There were tons of WMDs discovered in Iraq, and many/most were destroyed. ISIS captured some, and are still using them today against Americans and others.

Many American soldiers came down with Gulf War Syndrome, due to exposure to those WMDs, many of which Saddam used to attack Kurds and Shiites in his country, before he was thrown out of power.

You're reciting inaccurate, out of date, misinformation, put out by the media, and others, including the US government, to cover those facts up. They didn't want the bad guys to know stockpiles there were still in existence, but obviously, they've found some of them, and are using them up to today, I suspect.

Reportedly, some were being fired at troops in Mosul, just the other day – mustard gas, I think.

You are correct that there were no nukes, but there were literally tons of chemical weapons captured and destroyed, and/or abandoned in Iraq.

Jefthing,

Thanks for the link much apppreciated

Mako

Appreciate Saddam maintained chemical weapons and used them prior to GW2 but UNMOVIC didn't find anything during their inspections. How much WMD was found by coalition forces during and after GW2? Blair did not mention WMD or chemicals of any kind being used against coalition forces in his Chilcott evidence. Seems odd to me that the architect of the Dodgy Dosier would miss a chance to prove himself right.

Still, I don't want to hijack this thread to go over the Iraq war. I think we all have entrenched positions on this one.

Frostie

No problem. The author used to be quite active on the forum but seems to have left. It's a tremendously useful resource and I regularly refer to it.

For your edification, Jefthing:

"A new report says the Bush administration concealed the discovery of chemical weapons in Iraq that had been developed with U.S. support in the 1980s — and then denied medical care to the wounded American soldiers involved. According to The New York Times, U.S. troops secretly reported finding more than 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or bombs after the 2003 invasion. All of the chemical weaponry predated 1991, just one year after Saddam Hussein stopped being a U.S. ally and recipient of the Western military aid that helped build his arsenal. At least 17 American and six Iraqi troops were wounded in their handling of the munitions in six separate incidents between 2004 and 2011".

Bio-weapons were also taken too.

I suspect some of the cover-up may be due to the fact that the elder George Bush helped Saddam obtain the ingredients to make the chemical weapons, back in the day when they were our ally against Iran.

link

link

link

link

link

The perceived unreliability of the Poles was one reason I believe tha the Soviets upgraded the port at Mukran on the Baltic coast, on Rugen Island. This being an attempt to by-pass the rail lines through Poland and ensure a link with the DDR.

Mako

I know. We also trained his officers and supplied him with parts to make a 'super gun'. He was once our chum in the Middle East and we were happy to ignore his depredations. Bit like we do with the Saudis now.

My point was that we (the UK) were taken to war on the basis of Iraq having rapidly deployable WMD which was a direct threat to the UK. This was based on faulty and fabricated intelligence and presented to us in what is now known as the Dodgy Dossier. If any were found I suspect we would see Mr A Blair crowing vindication all over the world. But we don't.

If you have evidence to the contrary I suggest you pass it to the UN or Mr Blair.

Guthroth: apologies for going off-topic.