That joke was pretty funny, but you could have built it up more before delivering the punch line to enchance the comedic effectiveness and element of surprise. Consider using close air support next time as well..
A Mathematics teacher to my friend.... "Congratulations! You have doubled your previous mark.2 x 0 = 0".I shat myself laughing.That has stuck with me for 37 years.Funnily enough my friend applied himself ,went to post -high school college and got an Engineering Degree.You could have knocked me over with a feather.
@@TomLaios ive realised education is a delusion well qualifications are, i have a friend with a masters degree in history yet he only done it because hes a doley bum and doesnt want a job, literally at 50k of debt i think because he didnt want to work after finishing college. not sure what hes up to now havent seen him for a while.
@@Dockhead I too got a History Degree in 1989.I have never used it.Total waste of time.Well thank fuck it wasn't a completely useless degree like,say ,gender studies or Sociology.
Considering Germans lost almost thousand tanks and armored cars, and of it over 200 tanks as irrecoverable losses against enemy barely equipped with antitank weapons (Polish infantry division had just 36 bofors antitank guns in ToE) it is hardly suprising High Command was dissatisfied with performance.
if you see the video, you can say that the germans werent underestimating anyone, they expect Poland to resist even more. The ones whom said "Poland was not a real enemy" were the French
In one of the two german military history magazines i read, there also was noted, that older officers, who had been young officers at the start of the first world war, said, the german soldiers of 1914 had been better trained than the soldiers of 1939. So they critisised that, compared to 1914, the soldiers had more problems, what to do when unexpected things happened.
I can believe that, the imperial german army of 1914 was a standing army ( ofc with mass mobilization when WWI was looming ) but the Reichswehr of 1933 had to begin from scratch and had not enough time to train everyone thouroughly .... thus the german High Command stated to be ready not earlier than 1942 ( they knew that ofc ).
Next month on Military history not visualized: Is Hannibal the worst general of the ancient world? Trafalgar 1805: Nelson's greatest defeat D-Day 1944: Hitler's victory?
See, what people find funny in the west is what makes the Germans so great. If you re loosing 1000+ armoured vehicles in a war against Poland in the most favourable of conditions and with help of soviet Union, how can you be optimistic towards tackling France and Britain which have four times as much artillery and tanks as Poland had? Never mention the arsenal of USSR.
Thanks for the insight as always man. I work for a premium auto manufacturer and this reminds me of my boss who is German, he is always so critical and of course (I hate to say it) always focused on efficiency haha. Hilariously tho, he is not great dealing with logistics and I said to myself, hmmm this strangely all sounds familiar.
Every manufacturer is focused on efficiency. The real problem is when excel figure is more important than ppl hard work and devotion to their duties. In many, many corporations you can work your ass off and if by unrelated events KPIs aren't good enough you get reprimand anyway. And then excel engineering magic comes, improves nothing except some formula but KPI rises and he get bonus cash just like that ;)
Franz Halder Chief of the German General Staff of the Army documents this fact in his war diary. "The Wehrmacht had been on the verge of a military logistical catastrophe in the Polish campaign. The happy ending after a few weeks saved her from having to stop the fight because of insufficient ammunition." Incidentally, it was claimed in the video that Poland was technologically far inferior to the Germans is nonsense! Many lies and myths are spread regarding Poland and WWII. A lying myth is that the Polish army was technologically completely inferior. In fact, I've already read that it has been absurdly claimed that the Polish Army was technologically at WWI level in 1939. In fact, the lie about technologically inferior weapons is being spread about all Polish weapons, including tanks. But it is a historical fact that German tanks were no better than Polish tanks in 1939. In any case the problem was for Poland not the quality but the quantity of weapons. The Polish 7TPjw 37-mm gun tanks were on the same technological level as the best German tanks in 1939! With zhe 37-mm gun the Polish 7TPjw tanks were able to destroy all German tanks from a greater distance. The German were not superior to the Polish 7TPjw-37 mm gun tanks. By the way, " jw" was the single-turret 7TP version in contrast to "dw" which was the twin-turreted version of the 7TP. But only 24 of this twin-turreted 7TP infantry support tanks were still in use in 1939. The 7TPjw was of course clearly superior to the most used German infantry support tanks Panzer I and II in 1939. The Panzers I only had a machine gun and no anti-tank gun. The Panzer II had a 20 mm auto-cannon, but it was primarily intended for firing explosive grenades against infantry and the gun was too weak for combat against tanks. Therefore the Panzer II with its 20 mm gun was not dangerous for 7TPjw! By the way, the polish 7TPjw tank, was 1st tank with diesel engine in Europe. So this tank was with lower fire risk if the tank was hit. In the upgraded version, the crew compartment was larger and the air-conditioning system was improved. The Poles learned from their experiences with regular 7TPjw, when used in training exercises, that crew comfort was important. Also the Polish radio type 2N/C of the Polish 7TPjw tank was superior to the German radio at range with of 25 km. The radios used in German tanks had a range of 4 km. Tanks with radios were also fitted with an intercom for the crew, who were equipped with new type helmets with integral headphones. But only shortly before the war it was decided to equip all tanks with radio, but then it was already too late. Furthermore all polish tanks were equipped with the revolutionary reversible periscope G wz. 34. The Periscope was a revolutionary because it was the first device to allow the tank commander to have a 360-degree view from his turret. This was a decisive advantage due to a much better overview of the battlefield. Because if I see the enemy tank before the enemy sees me, I can destroy the enemy tank first. The German soldiers in the German tanks, on the other hand, mainly used five viewing slits to observe the battlefield. Americans and British have taken over the Polish tank Periscope then for their own tanks too! Unfortunately, the Germans also took over the Periscope from the captured Polish tanks after 1939. The Sowejtes did the same! Indeed the Germans actually used more Czech-made main battle tanks in 1939 than German-made ones, but they weren't technologically superior to the Polish ones either. Consequently, the main battle tanks deployed by the Germans during the raid oo Poland in 1939 were not technologically superior to the Polish main battle tanks. But were the TKS tankettes used by the Polish army proof of the backwardness of the Polish army? No, because the Polish 2 men machine gun tankettes were just as useful for infantry support against infantry as were the German Panzer I and II. The disadvantages compared to the Panzer I and II were outweighed by the advantages compared to the Panzer I and II. By the way, Polish tankettes with 20 mm guns were also useful against all German tanks. Like the Panzer II, these Polish tankettes were equipped with a 20 mm gun, but the Polish Nkm wz.38 FK 20 mm autocannon was much more powerful than the 20 mm KwK 30 autocannon of the Panzer II. Therefore, the tankettes with the Polish 20 mm Nkm wz.38 FK autocannon could destroy all German tanks and this Polish gun has proven to be very effective against the German tanks during the September 1939 German raid on Poland. So this kind of polish tankettes were able to shoot all German tanks in 1939 also Panzer III und Panzer IV. This tankettes were only armored against machine gun fire and shrapnel but compared to the big tanks they were much more manoeuvrable and had a small silhouette thereby they were they were quick and small so hard to hit. So the Polish tankettes were not only difficult to hit by the enemy tanks but also by the German anti-tank defense and Air Force. The tankettes also had the advantage that the Commander had a much better view outside the vehicle. Because he had the revolutionary G wz. 34 periscope to disposal with advantages of which I have described in detail above. Only Polish tanks and tankettes had this decisive improvement in 1939. How dangerous these special Polish tankettes were one can see by the example of tankette's commander Roman Orlik and his "wingman". During the raid on Poland by Germany in September 1939 Roman Orlik and his "wingman"destroyed in one day 10 German tanks, including Panzers IV with TKS tankette armed with a 20mm autocannon. This UA-cam video describes the action of these Polish tank commander Edmund Roman Orlik and his "wingman": THE VERY 1ST TANK ACE OF WW2 - NOT A GERMAN OR RUSSIAN -SURPRISE Edmund Roman, Orlik World War II tank commander. ua-cam.com/video/szSiajjY20Q/v-deo.html The TKS tankettes armed with machine guns were just as useful for infantry support as the German infantry support tanks! So in 1939, the German tanks were not technological superior to the Polish tanks and tankettes as is often false claimed. The decisive factor was not the qualitative superiority but the numerical superiority of the German infantry support tanks. Because Poland had, the number depends on the source of information, only 500-700 TKS infantry support tankettes . (Wiki.588) In addition to infantry support, the Polish Army had also 24 twin-turreted 7TP tanks, 16 twin-turreted Mark E Type A, 102 Renault FT-17 and 24 NC27 53 R-35. So Poland had 719-919 tanks and 100 armored cars as well as for infantry support. The Germans, on the other hand, had as infantry support tanks 1,026 Panzer I 1,100 Panzer II and 198 Panzer IV and 1076 armored cars for infantry support when they raided Poland. The Germans outnumbered Poland more than 3 to 1 in armored infantry support vehicles. In fact, the Germans were victorious due to superior numbers of infantry supported by superior numbers of infantry support vehicles and supported by a superior numbers of air forces. So the Germans didn't win because the Germans had technologically superior weapons and also not because the Germans used blitzkrieg tactics in the fight against Poland, which is often falsely claimed. Because in order to fight with Blitzkrieg strategy, the German army would have had to use many more main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. So comparing the German stock of main battle tanks with the Polish stock in 1939 makes it clear that the Germans could not fight a Blitzkrieg with so few main battle tanks. Poland had in the war against Germany, the number depends on the source of information, 149-170 (Wiki 149) 7TPjw, 13 9TP and 22 47-mm gun Mark E Type B main battle tanks. The 9TP was a modified 7TPjw other tanks were also being developed in Poland, which shows that Poland was not inferior to the Germans technologically in tank construction in 1939. So when the Germans were raided Poland, the Polish army had 184 main battle tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, used a total of 267 main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. That was 98 Panzer III and captured 112 Czech Panzer 35(t) and 57 Panzer 38(t). So in 1939 against Poland the Germans didn't have enough main battle tanks for a blitzkrieg. The Germans also had 198 Panzer VIs bu this were for fighting infantry. Because the Panzer IV had as main armament, the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm gun which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells against infantry. The Panzer IV's main ammunition was to be high-explosive shells, designed to engage enemy anti-tank artillery and infantry from long ranges of up to 6 km. Due to the low initial speed of the projectiles due to the short barrel and the resulting strongly curved trajectory, destroying a 7PT hardly possible. Although the Panzer IV was able to destroy Polish tankettes, they were difficult to hit due to their small size and maneuverability. Also, the Panzer IV's gun was not designed to aim accurately at moving targets. So because the Germans did not have enough main battle tanks, a blitzkrieg against Poland was not possible either! Indeed, the Germans were superior in terms of infantry support tanks Panzer I and II. In fact, the Germans defeated Poland with the use of infantry supported by Panzer I and II additional support from the numerically superior German air force. The comment continues below!
But were the TKS tankettes used by the Polish army proof of the backwardness of the Polish army? No, because the Polish 2 men machine gun tankettes were just as useful for infantry support against infantry as were the German Panzer I and II. The disadvantages compared to the Panzer I and II were outweighed by the advantages compared to the Panzer I and II. By the way, Polish tankettes with 20 mm guns were also useful against all German tanks. Like the Panzer II, these Polish tankettes were equipped with a 20 mm gun, but the Polish Nkm wz.38 FK 20 mm autocannon was much more powerful than the 20 mm KwK 30 autocannon of the Panzer II. Therefore, the tankettes with the Polish 20 mm Nkm wz.38 FK autocannon could destroy all German tanks and this Polish gun has proven to be very effective against the German tanks during the September 1939 German raid on Poland. So this kind of polish tankettes were able to shoot all German tanks in 1939 also Panzer III und Panzer IV. This tankettes were only armored against machine gun fire and shrapnel but compared to the big tanks they were much more manoeuvrable and had a small silhouette thereby they were they were quick and small so hard to hit. So the Polish tankettes were not only difficult to hit by the enemy tanks but also by the German anti-tank defense and Air Force. The tankettes also had the advantage that the Commander had a much better view outside the vehicle. Because he had the revolutionary G wz. 34 periscope to disposal with advantages of which I have described in detail above. Only Polish tanks and tankettes had this decisive improvement in 1939. How dangerous these special Polish tankettes were one can see by the example of tankette's commander Roman Orlik and his "wingman". During the raid on Poland by Germany in September 1939 Roman Orlik and his "wingman"destroyed in one day 10 German tanks, including Panzers IV with TKS tankette armed with a 20mm autocannon. This UA-cam video describes the action of these Polish tank commander Edmund Roman Orlik and his "wingman": THE VERY 1ST TANK ACE OF WW2 - NOT A GERMAN OR RUSSIAN -SURPRISE Edmund Roman, Orlik World War II tank commander. ua-cam.com/video/szSiajjY20Q/v-deo.html The TKS tankettes armed with machine guns were just as useful for infantry support as the German infantry support tanks! So in 1939, the German tanks were not technological superior to the Polish tanks and tankettes as is often false claimed. The decisive factor was not the qualitative superiority but the numerical superiority of the German infantry support tanks. Because Poland had, the number depends on the source of information, only 500-700 TKS infantry support tankettes . (Wiki.588) In addition to infantry support, the Polish Army had also 24 twin-turreted 7TP tanks, 16 twin-turreted Mark E Type A, 102 Renault FT-17 and 24 NC27 53 R-35. So Poland had 719-919 tanks and 100 armored cars as well as for infantry support. The Germans, on the other hand, had as infantry support tanks 1,026 Panzer I 1,100 Panzer II and 198 Panzer IV and 1076 armored cars for infantry support when they raided Poland. The Germans outnumbered Poland more than 3 to 1 in armored infantry support vehicles. In fact, the Germans were victorious due to superior numbers of infantry supported by superior numbers of infantry support vehicles and supported by a superior numbers of air forces. So the Germans didn't win because the Germans had technologically superior weapons and also not because the Germans used blitzkrieg tactics in the fight against Poland, which is often falsely claimed. Because in order to fight with Blitzkrieg strategy, the German army would have had to use many more main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. So comparing the German stock of main battle tanks with the Polish stock in 1939 makes it clear that the Germans could not fight a Blitzkrieg with so few main battle tanks. Poland had in the war against Germany, the number depends on the source of information, 149-170 (Wiki 149) 7TPjw, 13 9TP and 22 47-mm gun Mark E Type B main battle tanks. The 9TP was a modified 7TPjw other tanks were also being developed in Poland, which shows that Poland was not inferior to the Germans technologically in tank construction in 1939. So when the Germans were raided Poland, the Polish army had 184 main battle tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, used a total of 267 main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. That was 98 Panzer III and captured 112 Czech Panzer 35(t) and 57 Panzer 38(t). So in 1939 against Poland the Germans didn't have enough main battle tanks for a blitzkrieg. The Germans also had 198 Panzer VIs bu this were for fighting infantry. Because the Panzer IV had as main armament, the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm gun which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells against infantry. The Panzer IV's main ammunition was to be high-explosive shells, designed to engage enemy anti-tank artillery and infantry from long ranges of up to 6 km. Due to the low initial speed of the projectiles due to the short barrel and the resulting strongly curved trajectory, destroying a 7PT hardly possible. Although the Panzer IV was able to destroy Polish tankettes, they were difficult to hit due to their small size and maneuverability. Also, the Panzer IV's gun was not designed to aim accurately at moving targets. So because the Germans did not have enough main battle tanks, a blitzkrieg against Poland was not possible either! Indeed, the Germans were superior in terms of infantry support tanks Panzer I and II. In fact, the Germans defeated Poland with the use of infantry supported by Panzer I and II additional support from the numerically superior German air force. The comment continues below!
And the army wasn't even mobilised as the Allies requested to cancel mobilusation. If they didn't we would have had over twice as big forces as we had.
French resistance could have persisted if they chose to draw out the conflict, but they chose not to. And it was probably a good idea, the French lost far fewer men in the Second World War than the First - although their government's choice to surrender did lead to the prevailing stereotype today.
I've participated in miniature wargaming battles set in the Poland campaign, using the AT ballistically accurate Panzergranate wargames rules system and having played both sides in games, and observed the following: Polish battle tanks don't carry radios!! Formations are controlled by flags so line of sight between tank platoon members needs to be ensured. Polish on field communications heavily dependant on established field telephone communications due to lack of radios. When this inevitably fails due to enemy actions, a reliance on messengers. This makes it easy to isolate a Polish infantry unit from support. The Polish infantry are organised into specialist offensive and defensive platoon types. The former has 30 x men (3 x 10 man sections/squads) plus officer, the latter has 45 x men (4 x 10 man sections/ squads) plus officer plus 2 x Browning M.1919 MMG support incorporated. There are also 4 x Browning Automatic Rifles and MAS 38 SMG distributed amongst the defensive platoon. The offensive platoon has a single BAR and is mainly rifle equipped. The platoon sergeant may have a MAS 38 SMG. A German infantry platoon was 24 x men plus Officer (3 x 8 man sections/squads) according to Wrezsien 1939. When attacking a Polish position manned by a defensive platoon, there is an outnumbered situation to deal with. An Mg.34 in each section/squad does help though. The German 37mm. PaK.36 AT gun was only issued with the by then obstelete PzGr.18 APHE ammunition (up to 44mm. @ 0 degrees @ 100 metres) as PzGr.39 APCBC-HE (up to 65mm. @ 0 degrees @ 100 metres) ammunition wasn't available until early 1940. This meant the guns lacked the punch to deal with Polish armour at ranges over 500 metres with good odds of a first round penetration result if a hit was scored. Polish tanks facing them: Vickers 6 Tonner = 13mm. 7TP = 17mm. FT-17 = 22mm. R-35 = 34mm. Historically the largest Polish tank formation deployed in a single attack was only 11 x Vickers 6 Ton tanks of which aftermath propaganda pictures exist. A dire shortage of medium tanks such as Pz.III or the more useful Pz.IV of which a regiment may only have 2 or 3 available in the regimental command group for allocation on a priority basis. Overall armour support to infantry provided by Pz.I and Pz.II light tanks (the majority of the tank arm in 1939). This sees Pz.35(t) light tanks being utilised as ad hoc medium tanks, which they are not particularly suitable for. The armour protection of German medium tanks being not good on the Pz.III (15mm.) and Pz.IV.A & B (20mm.) placing them inside the performance limits of Polish light and medium AT weaponry. Also making them extremely vulnerable to heavier Polish AT weaponry such as the 75mm. Schneider and 75mm. Puteaux field guns. The Pz.IV.C had 30mm, frontal armour so less vulnerable. Lack of motorised transport for infantry, especially armoured transport. Infantry deployed before an attack may have already be exhausted. This explains the historical use of captured Polish civilian and military trucks. Heavy artillery support not all mechanised so not always available due to rapid advancement of the front. Polish heavy artillery is mainly rail based on armoured trains so is usually already hunted down and eliminated by the Luftwaffe.
That's not quite right what you're saying. Polish 7TP tanks were already partly equipped with radio devices, but not all tanks were modernized yet, because the Polish tank modernization program has just started. the Polish radio type 2N/C of the Polish 7TPjw tank was superior to the German radio at range with of 25 km. The radios used in German tanks had a range of 4 km. Tanks with radios were also fitted with an intercom for the crew, who were equipped with new type helmets with integral headphones. But only shortly before the war it was decided to equip all tanks with radio, but then it was already too late. Furthermore all polish tanks were equipped with the revolutionary reversible periscope G wz. 34. The Periscope was a revolutionary because it was the first device to allow the tank commander to have a 360-degree view from his turret. This was a decisive advantage due to a much better overview of the battlefield. Because if I see the enemy tank before the enemy sees me, I can destroy the enemy tank first. The German soldiers in the German tanks, on the other hand, mainly used five viewing slits to observe the battlefield. Americans and British have taken over the Polish tank Periscope then for their own tanks too! Unfortunately, the Germans also took over the Periscope from the captured Polish tanks after 1939. The Sowejtes did the same!
Also what you say about the Polish heavy artillery is bogus! The Polish army has heavy artillery at its disposal and the armored trains were just an addition! Because the Poles used the following heavy artillery: 120 mm wz.1878/09/31 and wz.1878/10/31 field guns 155 mm wz.1917 howitzer 220 mm wz.1932 heavy mortar
Lieber Bernhard ich würde dir gerne das Buch: „How the war was won“ von Phillips Payson O'Brien empfehlen. Ich habe es gerade durch und es hat meinen Blick auf die Luft und Seekriegsführung komplett verändert. Wenn man sich die Verluste von Personal ansieht dann hat die Ostfront/ Rote Armee die Wehrmacht ganz klar besiegt. Dies ist auch das aktuelle Bild das vom 2.Wk vorherrscht. Wenn man sich jedoch die Verluste von Material ansieht bekommt die Luftkriegsführung über Deutschland eine ganz andere Bedeutung. Das Buch lieferte daher einige sehr interessante Perspektiven und Denkanstöße. LG
Was oft übersehen wird, ist die Tatsache, dass die "einfachen" Siege gegen Polen und Frankreich die vollständige industrielle und personelle Mobilisierung verzögert haben. Wer sich die Industrieproduktion von 40/41 ansieht und die späteren enormen Mobilisierungserfolge (unterstützt durch Propaganda wie die Sportpalastrede 43), der muss sich wundern, wie die Sache ausgegangen wäre, wenn die Anstrengungen der Jahre 43 und 44 schon ernsthaft im Herbst 39 begonnen worden wären. 1939 und 1940 zusammen wurden weniger als 2500 (zweitausendfünfhundert) Panzer produziert. Keiner davon schwerer als 25 Tonnen. 1944 wurden knapp 19.000 (neunzehntausend) Panzer produziert, davon 5.000 über 40 Tonnen. Bei Flugzeugen, U-booten, Artillerie und leichten bis mittelschweren Infanteriewaffen sowie der personellen Mobilisierung sieht es ganz genauso aus. 10-20 "frische" Divisionen im Oktober '41 vor Moskau, teilweise ausgestattet mit einem Panzer um die 35 Tonnen, das hätte vermutlich die Entscheidung gegen die Sovietunion gebracht. Und das war leicht im Rahmen dessen, was die deutsche Volkswirtschaft hätte leisten können. Wenn man nur 39 auf totale Mobilmachung geschaltet hätte.
@@47Trumpet Hitler wurde zu übermütig. Er unterschätzte die Soviet Union und dachte "Man müsse nur die Tür eintreten und das verrottende System wird in sich zusammenfallen." Aber die Kampfbedingungen in Ost-Europa sind nun mal eine komplett andere Welt. Ich finde es sehr überraschend, dass die Wehrmacht überhaupt die großen sovietischen Städte Leningrad, Moskau und Stalingrad erreicht haben. So sehe ich das zumindest
Und er hat den Willen der USA unterschätzt sich einzubringen. Zeitweilig waren zwei von drei Lastkraftwagen im aktiven Einsatz der Sowjetunion aus amerikanischen Beständen. Und die sowjetischen Jagdflugzeuge hatten größtenteils amerikanisches Leichtbenzin in den Tanks. Mehr als 10.000 Flugzeuge wurden der Sowjetunion über Alaska geliefert.
The IDF took many military ideas and concept from the Wehrmacht. Considering their political surrounding and the nummerical strenght of their enemies it's quite obvious why this was so. They can only stand their ground if they rely on technical but although educational superiority. And u cannot improve if u are not brutally honest in ur self-critique.
For a military that borrowed the Nazi themes of Master Race and Lebensraum and converted them to Chosen People and Promised land, what they would really share with the Nazis is an end.... Only worse given their crimes.
Around 3:50 you bring out some interesting observations from the commanders. I once read some reports and memoirs from Wehrmacht troops during Wacht am Rhein and following which noted that when U.S. troops ran into their positions during and after the Ardennes offensive, German troops were somewhat confused as to why the Americans tended to either stop and fire wildly, or just hit the ground and never return fire at all. They seem to have forgotten that they and/or their compadres did the same a few years earlier in Poland. (I know, it's not that simple, but I'm trying to not bang out 15 paragraphs on a YT comment... Fill in the minor details yourself.) Something about the possibility of getting shredded to pieces by MG's, rifles and explosions tends to make young kids do not-quite-what-the-top-brass-have-laid-out-on-paper during their first combat missions. Strange right?
In the American propaganda films "Why We Fight" series, the Soviet attack upon Poland and the subsequent occupation of eastern Poland (Which is still occupied by Ukraine today)is pawned off rather weakly as Stalin doing the Poles a favor by saving half the country from German occupation. The Katyn Forest massacre is never mentioned, altho it was probably known by the time the film was made.
The German army attacking Poland in 39 was an army with out combat experience and one that kind of grew extremely from the 100.000 army of the Versailles treaty to the several million men force. Therefore there has to be several issues on all levels.
Indeed. A large portion of the German army did not have more than *2 weeks* of military training when the war begun. The tank force was almost entirly made up by obsolete weak panzer1 and semi-obsolete panzer 2. And the German navy didn't have anything near the numbers of ships it was planned to have when the war begun according to plan-Z.
@@KuK137 About 120 35(T)s (two thirds broke down during the campaign) and I believe the only 38(T)s were with one Light Division 2nd? with a single tank battalion By the start of the war, only 78 38(T)s had been produced, probably not all combat ready for Poland
Franz Halder Chief of the German General Staff of the Army documents this fact in his war diary. "The Wehrmacht had been on the verge of a military logistical catastrophe in the Polish campaign. The happy ending after a few weeks saved her from having to stop the fight because of insufficient ammunition." Incidentally, it was claimed in the video that Poland was technologically far inferior to the Germans is nonsense! Many lies and myths are spread regarding Poland and WWII. A lying myth is that the Polish army was technologically completely inferior. In fact, I've already read that it has been absurdly claimed that the Polish Army was technologically at WWI level in 1939. In fact, the lie about technologically inferior weapons is being spread about all Polish weapons, including tanks. But it is a historical fact that German tanks were no better than Polish tanks in 1939. In any case the problem was for Poland not the quality but the quantity of weapons. The Polish 7TPjw 37-mm gun tanks were on the same technological level as the best German tanks in 1939! With zhe 37-mm gun the Polish 7TPjw tanks were able to destroy all German tanks from a greater distance. The German were not superior to the Polish 7TPjw-37 mm gun tanks. By the way, " jw" was the single-turret 7TP version in contrast to "dw" which was the twin-turreted version of the 7TP. But only 24 of this twin-turreted 7TP infantry support tanks were still in use in 1939. The 7TPjw was of course clearly superior to the most used German infantry support tanks Panzer I and II in 1939. The Panzers I only had a machine gun and no anti-tank gun. The Panzer II had a 20 mm auto-cannon, but it was primarily intended for firing explosive grenades against infantry and the gun was too weak for combat against tanks. Therefore the Panzer II with its 20 mm gun was not dangerous for 7TPjw! By the way, the polish 7TPjw tank, was 1st tank with diesel engine in Europe. So this tank was with lower fire risk if the tank was hit. In the upgraded version, the crew compartment was larger and the air-conditioning system was improved. The Poles learned from their experiences with regular 7TPjw, when used in training exercises, that crew comfort was important. Also the Polish radio type 2N/C of the Polish 7TPjw tank was superior to the German radio at range with of 25 km. The radios used in German tanks had a range of 4 km. Tanks with radios were also fitted with an intercom for the crew, who were equipped with new type helmets with integral headphones. But only shortly before the war it was decided to equip all tanks with radio, but then it was already too late. Furthermore all polish tanks were equipped with the revolutionary reversible periscope G wz. 34. The Periscope was a revolutionary because it was the first device to allow the tank commander to have a 360-degree view from his turret. This was a decisive advantage due to a much better overview of the battlefield. Because if I see the enemy tank before the enemy sees me, I can destroy the enemy tank first. The German soldiers in the German tanks, on the other hand, mainly used five viewing slits to observe the battlefield. Americans and British have taken over the Polish tank Periscope then for their own tanks too! Unfortunately, the Germans also took over the Periscope from the captured Polish tanks after 1939. The Sowejtes did the same! Indeed the Germans actually used more Czech-made main battle tanks in 1939 than German-made ones, but they weren't technologically superior to the Polish ones either. Consequently, the main battle tanks deployed by the Germans during the raid oo Poland in 1939 were not technologically superior to the Polish main battle tanks. But were the TKS tankettes used by the Polish army proof of the backwardness of the Polish army? No, because the Polish 2 men machine gun tankettes were just as useful for infantry support against infantry as were the German Panzer I and II. The disadvantages compared to the Panzer I and II were outweighed by the advantages compared to the Panzer I and II. By the way, Polish tankettes with 20 mm guns were also useful against all German tanks. Like the Panzer II, these Polish tankettes were equipped with a 20 mm gun, but the Polish Nkm wz.38 FK 20 mm autocannon was much more powerful than the 20 mm KwK 30 autocannon of the Panzer II. Therefore, the tankettes with the Polish 20 mm Nkm wz.38 FK autocannon could destroy all German tanks and this Polish gun has proven to be very effective against the German tanks during the September 1939 German raid on Poland. So this kind of polish tankettes were able to shoot all German tanks in 1939 also Panzer III und Panzer IV. This tankettes were only armored against machine gun fire and shrapnel but compared to the big tanks they were much more manoeuvrable and had a small silhouette thereby they were they were quick and small so hard to hit. So the Polish tankettes were not only difficult to hit by the enemy tanks but also by the German anti-tank defense and Air Force. The tankettes also had the advantage that the Commander had a much better view outside the vehicle. Because he had the revolutionary G wz. 34 periscope to disposal with advantages of which I have described in detail above. Only Polish tanks and tankettes had this decisive improvement in 1939. How dangerous these special Polish tankettes were one can see by the example of tankette's commander Roman Orlik and his "wingman". During the raid on Poland by Germany in September 1939 Roman Orlik and his "wingman"destroyed in one day 10 German tanks, including Panzers IV with TKS tankette armed with a 20mm autocannon. This UA-cam video describes the action of these Polish tank commander Edmund Roman Orlik and his "wingman": THE VERY 1ST TANK ACE OF WW2 - NOT A GERMAN OR RUSSIAN -SURPRISE Edmund Roman, Orlik World War II tank commander. ua-cam.com/video/szSiajjY20Q/v-deo.html The TKS tankettes armed with machine guns were just as useful for infantry support as the German infantry support tanks! So in 1939, the German tanks were not technological superior to the Polish tanks and tankettes as is often false claimed. The decisive factor was not the qualitative superiority but the numerical superiority of the German infantry support tanks. Because Poland had, the number depends on the source of information, only 500-700 TKS infantry support tankettes . (Wiki.588) In addition to infantry support, the Polish Army had also 24 twin-turreted 7TP tanks, 16 twin-turreted Mark E Type A, 102 Renault FT-17 and 24 NC27 53 R-35. So Poland had 719-919 tanks and 100 armored cars as well as for infantry support. The Germans, on the other hand, had as infantry support tanks 1,026 Panzer I 1,100 Panzer II and 198 Panzer IV and 1076 armored cars for infantry support when they raided Poland. The Germans outnumbered Poland more than 3 to 1 in armored infantry support vehicles. In fact, the Germans were victorious due to superior numbers of infantry supported by superior numbers of infantry support vehicles and supported by a superior numbers of air forces. So the Germans didn't win because the Germans had technologically superior weapons and also not because the Germans used blitzkrieg tactics in the fight against Poland, which is often falsely claimed. Because in order to fight with Blitzkrieg strategy, the German army would have had to use many more main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. So comparing the German stock of main battle tanks with the Polish stock in 1939 makes it clear that the Germans could not fight a Blitzkrieg with so few main battle tanks. Poland had in the war against Germany, the number depends on the source of information, 149-170 (Wiki 149) 7TPjw, 13 9TP and 22 47-mm gun Mark E Type B main battle tanks. The 9TP was a modified 7TPjw other tanks were also being developed in Poland, which shows that Poland was not inferior to the Germans technologically in tank construction in 1939. So when the Germans were raided Poland, the Polish army had 184 main battle tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, used a total of 267 main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. That was 98 Panzer III and captured 112 Czech Panzer 35(t) and 57 Panzer 38(t). So in 1939 against Poland the Germans didn't have enough main battle tanks for a blitzkrieg. The Germans also had 198 Panzer VIs bu this were for fighting infantry. Because the Panzer IV had as main armament, the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm gun which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells against infantry. The Panzer IV's main ammunition was to be high-explosive shells, designed to engage enemy anti-tank artillery and infantry from long ranges of up to 6 km. Due to the low initial speed of the projectiles due to the short barrel and the resulting strongly curved trajectory, destroying a 7PT hardly possible. Although the Panzer IV was able to destroy Polish tankettes, they were difficult to hit due to their small size and maneuverability. Also, the Panzer IV's gun was not designed to aim accurately at moving targets. So because the Germans did not have enough main battle tanks, a blitzkrieg against Poland was not possible either! Indeed, the Germans were superior in terms of infantry support tanks Panzer I and II. In fact, the Germans defeated Poland with the use of infantry supported by Panzer I and II additional support from the numerically superior German air force. The comment continues below!
But were the TKS tankettes used by the Polish army proof of the backwardness of the Polish army? No, because the Polish 2 men machine gun tankettes were just as useful for infantry support against infantry as were the German Panzer I and II. The disadvantages compared to the Panzer I and II were outweighed by the advantages compared to the Panzer I and II. By the way, Polish tankettes with 20 mm guns were also useful against all German tanks. Like the Panzer II, these Polish tankettes were equipped with a 20 mm gun, but the Polish Nkm wz.38 FK 20 mm autocannon was much more powerful than the 20 mm KwK 30 autocannon of the Panzer II. Therefore, the tankettes with the Polish 20 mm Nkm wz.38 FK autocannon could destroy all German tanks and this Polish gun has proven to be very effective against the German tanks during the September 1939 German raid on Poland. So this kind of polish tankettes were able to shoot all German tanks in 1939 also Panzer III und Panzer IV. This tankettes were only armored against machine gun fire and shrapnel but compared to the big tanks they were much more manoeuvrable and had a small silhouette thereby they were they were quick and small so hard to hit. So the Polish tankettes were not only difficult to hit by the enemy tanks but also by the German anti-tank defense and Air Force. The tankettes also had the advantage that the Commander had a much better view outside the vehicle. Because he had the revolutionary G wz. 34 periscope to disposal with advantages of which I have described in detail above. Only Polish tanks and tankettes had this decisive improvement in 1939. How dangerous these special Polish tankettes were one can see by the example of tankette's commander Roman Orlik and his "wingman". During the raid on Poland by Germany in September 1939 Roman Orlik and his "wingman"destroyed in one day 10 German tanks, including Panzers IV with TKS tankette armed with a 20mm autocannon. This UA-cam video describes the action of these Polish tank commander Edmund Roman Orlik and his "wingman": THE VERY 1ST TANK ACE OF WW2 - NOT A GERMAN OR RUSSIAN -SURPRISE Edmund Roman, Orlik World War II tank commander. ua-cam.com/video/szSiajjY20Q/v-deo.html The TKS tankettes armed with machine guns were just as useful for infantry support as the German infantry support tanks! So in 1939, the German tanks were not technological superior to the Polish tanks and tankettes as is often false claimed. The decisive factor was not the qualitative superiority but the numerical superiority of the German infantry support tanks. Because Poland had, the number depends on the source of information, only 500-700 TKS infantry support tankettes . (Wiki.588) In addition to infantry support, the Polish Army had also 24 twin-turreted 7TP tanks, 16 twin-turreted Mark E Type A, 102 Renault FT-17 and 24 NC27 53 R-35. So Poland had 719-919 tanks and 100 armored cars as well as for infantry support. The Germans, on the other hand, had as infantry support tanks 1,026 Panzer I 1,100 Panzer II and 198 Panzer IV and 1076 armored cars for infantry support when they raided Poland. The Germans outnumbered Poland more than 3 to 1 in armored infantry support vehicles. In fact, the Germans were victorious due to superior numbers of infantry supported by superior numbers of infantry support vehicles and supported by a superior numbers of air forces. So the Germans didn't win because the Germans had technologically superior weapons and also not because the Germans used blitzkrieg tactics in the fight against Poland, which is often falsely claimed. Because in order to fight with Blitzkrieg strategy, the German army would have had to use many more main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. So comparing the German stock of main battle tanks with the Polish stock in 1939 makes it clear that the Germans could not fight a Blitzkrieg with so few main battle tanks. Poland had in the war against Germany, the number depends on the source of information, 149-170 (Wiki 149) 7TPjw, 13 9TP and 22 47-mm gun Mark E Type B main battle tanks. The 9TP was a modified 7TPjw other tanks were also being developed in Poland, which shows that Poland was not inferior to the Germans technologically in tank construction in 1939. So when the Germans were raided Poland, the Polish army had 184 main battle tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, used a total of 267 main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. That was 98 Panzer III and captured 112 Czech Panzer 35(t) and 57 Panzer 38(t). So in 1939 against Poland the Germans didn't have enough main battle tanks for a blitzkrieg. The Germans also had 198 Panzer VIs bu this were for fighting infantry. Because the Panzer IV had as main armament, the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm gun which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells against infantry. The Panzer IV's main ammunition was to be high-explosive shells, designed to engage enemy anti-tank artillery and infantry from long ranges of up to 6 km. Due to the low initial speed of the projectiles due to the short barrel and the resulting strongly curved trajectory, destroying a 7PT hardly possible. Although the Panzer IV was able to destroy Polish tankettes, they were difficult to hit due to their small size and maneuverability. Also, the Panzer IV's gun was not designed to aim accurately at moving targets. So because the Germans did not have enough main battle tanks, a blitzkrieg against Poland was not possible either! Indeed, the Germans were superior in terms of infantry support tanks Panzer I and II. In fact, the Germans defeated Poland with the use of infantry supported by Panzer I and II additional support from the numerically superior German air force. The comment continues below!
In my digging around and researching for a game I am making, I learnt that post-Poland, the OKH completely reorganised infantry formations right down to the gruppe (squad) and zug (platoon) level, reforming from quite large squads of up to 13 soldiers, with three squads forming a platoon, to smaller 8 to 9 man squads with four squads to a platoon, also starting to disseminate Mp38s and Mp40s to infantry squad leaders. I hadn't quite figured out why, but, this video illuminated me to the answer to that question. :)
I've read that the main setback of Wehrmacht was the amount of equipment lost during the Polish campaign. Almost 1/4 of Luftwaffe was ether heavily damaged or permanently destroyed. Germany lost quite a few tanks and a lot of light vehicles. I remember that I've read that Hitler had to postpone the invasion of France because of the loses in equipment.
@@wiktoriapachocka7293 To dobrze, że nikt Cię o taką opinię nie pytał. Nie piszę tego w kontekście wojenki między stronnictwami Dmowskiego i Piłsudskiego, chce tylko zaznaczyć, że w samym okresie międzywojennym znajdzie się wiele postaci, które zrobiły dla sprawy Polskiej więcej od Dmowskiego, o ostatnim wieku nawet nie wspominam. Jeśli ktoś jest zafascynowany radykalnym nacjonalizmem, a w zasadzie szowinizmem to rzeczywiście Dmowski może być dla niego bożkiem, ale na szczęście tacy ludzie są w mniejszości.
Great Video! From a military point of view, in my personal analysis, three main factors contributed to the Polish defeat: • 1) The overwhelming German superiority ( obviously). While Poland had 39 divisions ( most of which with completely obsolete equipments), the Wehrmacht, on the other hand, had 66 complete divisions distributed into five great armies: Johannes Blaskowitz's 8th Army ( whose primary mission was to drive eastward against Lodz), Wilhelm List's 14th Army ( whose primary mission was to push on towards Kraków), Walter von Reichenau's 10th Army ( whose mission was to deliver the decisive blow with a northeastward thrust into the heart of Poland), Küchler's 3rd Army and, finally, Kluge's 4th Army. Moreover, the Poles had only about 200 tanks for the immediate support of the infantry. • 2) Poland fought a war on two fronts. In addition to the Germans in the west, there was still the Soviet invasion in the east. The Soviets, on the other hand, invaded Poland with seven armies: Vasily Kuznetsov's 3rd Army; Ivan Zakharkin's 10th Army; Vasily Chuikov's 4th Army; Nikifor Medvedev's 11th Army; Felipp Golikov's 6th Army; Ivan Sovetnikov's 5th Army and Ivan Tyulenev's 12th Army. Altogether, the Soviets deployed 33 divisions during the Polish campaign. The Poles, therefore, faced a total of 99 enemy divisions!! • 3) The lack of a more decisive action of France and England. Instead of launching a massive offensive against Western Germany during the Polish campaign, the French, in turn, opted to launch only a limited offensive through the German region/state of Saarland. From a military point of view, the Polish campaign would be an excellent opportunity for the Allies to apply Napoleon's greatest maxim: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" ( "N'interrompez jamais un ennemi qui est en train de faire un erreur"). Rather than launching only a limited offensive in the Saar region, Gamelin and the Anglo-French Supreme War Council should have ordered a general offensive through the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia/Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rhineland-Palatinate/ Rheinland-Pfalz; Saarland and Baden-Württenberg. While Général D'Armée Prételat's 2nd French Army Group, for exemple, had about 40 divisions available along the western border, the Wehrmacht, on the other hand, had only 22 divisions on the western border ( under the responsibility of Witzleben's 1st Army). The bulk of the Wehrmacht ( including 90% of the Luftwaffe), therefore, was completely concentrated and committed with the Polish campaign. The Allied offensive towards Western Germany, in other words, would be VITAL to Poland's survival. Although the advance penetrated 30 Kilometers ( 20 miles) through the Saar region, the Allied offensive was completely halted after the fall of Poland. All of these factors combined, in turn, resulted in three main consequences: • 1) The beginning of the so-called "Phoney War"/"Drôle de Guerre"/"Sitzkrieg". • 2) The annihilation of Poland itself. • 3) The fulfillment of Ferdinand Foch's "prophecy" at Versailles ( 1919): "This is not peace, it is an armistice of twenty years" ( "ce n'est pas une paix, c'est un armistice de vingt ans").
That's all true (mostly, I think). But Poland did not do particularly well either. I'm a Pole, so I'm not accusing "them" of doing badly. I'm accusing us. Because we've failed.
This reminds me of a documentary called "The Somme 1916 - From both sides of the wire" which mentioned that German Officers were expected to make after action reports of what worked and did not work in battle. So by the sounds of it, this practice continued through to WW2. If that is the case it might also be interesting to see how far back this culture goes.
Thing that I read based of evaluation of the sources couple of decades about the war by historians is that relatively the German blitzkrieg in Poland was slower than in both France (1940) and Soviet Union (1941). Of course part of it is experience and better equipment of the Germans but it also shows the determined defense of the Polish army, considering it was weaker than French and Soviet forces, as well as Poland had worse borders and suffered the Soviet invasion on 9/17. Tanks rolled 25km a day in Poland, 35km a day in France and 30km a day in Russia (Rosolak, 2006). So the popular idea that German army just steamrolled through Poland and it was quickly over is unfounded. Poland also did posses modern equipement like the 7TP tanks and the modernized cavalry proved quite succesful even against panzers (when dismounting and using anti-tank rifles and guns) like in the battle of Mokra, the problem was insufficient numbers of this good equipement and being outnumbered. Germans often lost more tanks and AVFs than they destroyed during battles (like in battles of Jordanów or Tomaszów Lubelski). The biggest discrepency was probably in the air force, where Poland was severly lacking.
I dont think it fair to say Poland lacked modern weaponry, or count it on the same level as Serbia or Rumania. It had equipment roughly on par with the Nazis, save for maybe artillery not being fully modernized, and it was much more milityrily capable than any of the aforementioned powers.
That depends infantry equipment was on par or in some cases better on polish side but poland had not sufficient numbers of tanks and anti air guns and polish airforce was not only much less numerous but also obsolete. What is also important is that do to pressure from western allies polish army wasnt even mobilised and do to german air supperiority it never got to be fully mobilised as soldiers never reached their units. If polish army was indeed mobilised the campain would be much harder for germans but even than prabably air supperiority and advantage in number of tanks would ensure german victory but slower and more costly one.
@@MrMleczkp Imagine if Poland was both allowed to mobilize and supported by the British and French navies which would secure Danzig and a transit point for their own air forces and heavy weapons deliveries. Poland might never have fallen. Britain and France could have moved troops, artillery, tanks, and aircraft into Poland before it was invaded, and thus actually honoured their alliance. Instead not only was Poland betrayed by the west in the beginning of the war, it was also betrayed and abandoned after the end as the Soviets were allowed dominion over Eastern Europe without contest.
I think this was largely just a natural response to the fact that the German army was only recently expanded. There was a corps of people and units with greater training (and WWI experience, at least among officers and NCO's) and a large number of recently inducted and less more thoroughly trained soldiers. It would have been both easy and logical to look at the comparative performance of these units and then consider how to bring the lesser performing units up to speed. Remember too that it is one thing to train people to march, shoot and salute, but quite another to teach units how to both act and react to things that take place on the battlefield. And then too the problems of getting all those disparate units to train to coordinate quickly and efficiently on the battlefield while things are happening on the fly. Think of it as grading an exam on the curve. It quickly becomes obvious where the strong and weak points lie. The Soviets were on the short end of this stick for a couple of reasons, one being the systematic elimination of a large number of experienced individuals for political reasons. The unit coordination, and also using combined arms, are all upper level skill levels the require much longer training. So it was that it took the Soviets a year or two to start getting these things right. At the same time, the loss of men with acquired skills by attrition in the German Army tended to significantly denigrate that army's ability to maintain these larger skill levels over time. Hence the awareness of the German military to the need for using experienced men in training schools. I think though that there is also something to be said for the German higher level officers to have something of the feeling of being a private club with more or less guaranteed membership. Even getting sacked for poor performance did not necessarily mean that your career was at an end. There are many notable examples of this. Getting sacked in the US army though was generally the guaranteed end of your career, not so much in the American Civil War, but much more so in WWII.
I know you will never see because of how old this video is but you are awesome! You are doing my dream job. I am a History aficionado specifically European history and Japanese history despite being an American. ( Our history is boring except in war time) I would love to just speak about history and be able to pay my bills. Keep it up brother!!!!!!!!!!!! You are very very knowledgeable.
thank you, in UA-cam I have a comment view that shows all the comments in chronological order independent of the videos, so I see "all" that are not answers to other comments.
Well, it was a huge success, overall, in that Poland was overwhelmed and conquered in a month. But, given the M-R pact, that was always going to happen, Germany and the Soviet Union just had overwhelming strength. Unless the French had attacked in the West and diverted a large amount of the German army, there was no way Germany was going to fail to conquer it's segment of Poland. However, knowing that they were going to have to go up against France and Britain soon, far larger and better equipped enemies, of course the Wermacht had to look for every improvement possible and take a cold hard look at tactics and performance. Few people these days realise what an amazing and unexpected success the invasion of France was. Had the Germans not made major improvements, they would likely have lost in France. If the invasion had been held up by just a few days at some of the key Belgian check lines, or at the breakout from the Sedan, it may well have allowed the superior allied forces to reorganise and react to contain the German offensive and force then into a longer war which they were far less prepared for than they had been in 1914. They were a week away from running out of heavy artillery shells and aircraft spares in particular, whereas the allies had a far better logistical, production, and economic situation that would have probably doomed the Germans had they not achieved such a rapid breakthrough in 1940.
The lack of sustained combat capability is why Meinstein's plan got approved. Fighting a WW1 style frontal war would have resulted in Germany losing, so they embraced something much more radical.
I believe that the French and English were afraid to really fight the Germans after Poland. The evidence being; Not attacking when Poland was attacked, and the long drawn out "phoney war" after Polands defeat. It would have been better for all, if the biggest land army had put up a better fight.(French land army) We should all despise cowardice, I know that because i have been a coward. So, buck folks, get ready to fight....FOR FREEDOM!
In any case, the Germans would have lost this war in 1939 if the French, with British support, had launched a massive attack in the west, as had been agreed with Poland. In 1939 there was a good opportunity for a relatively quick victory against Germany. Because the Germans were too weak for a two-front war. For victory over Germany the British and French should have only acted according to the plan worked out with Poland for the event of a German raid on Poland. But instead, these alleged Polish allies did not attack and betrayed Poland.
But were the TKS tankettes used by the Polish army proof of the backwardness of the Polish army? No, because the Polish 2 men machine gun tankettes were just as useful for infantry support against infantry as were the German Panzer I and II. The disadvantages compared to the Panzer I and II were outweighed by the advantages compared to the Panzer I and II. By the way, Polish tankettes with 20 mm guns were also useful against all German tanks. Like the Panzer II, these Polish tankettes were equipped with a 20 mm gun, but the Polish Nkm wz.38 FK 20 mm autocannon was much more powerful than the 20 mm KwK 30 autocannon of the Panzer II. Therefore, the tankettes with the Polish 20 mm Nkm wz.38 FK autocannon could destroy all German tanks and this Polish gun has proven to be very effective against the German tanks during the September 1939 German raid on Poland. So this kind of polish tankettes were able to shoot all German tanks in 1939 also Panzer III und Panzer IV. This tankettes were only armored against machine gun fire and shrapnel but compared to the big tanks they were much more manoeuvrable and had a small silhouette thereby they were they were quick and small so hard to hit. So the Polish tankettes were not only difficult to hit by the enemy tanks but also by the German anti-tank defense and Air Force. The tankettes also had the advantage that the Commander had a much better view outside the vehicle. Because he had the revolutionary G wz. 34 periscope to disposal with advantages of which I have described in detail above. Only Polish tanks and tankettes had this decisive improvement in 1939. How dangerous these special Polish tankettes were one can see by the example of tankette's commander Roman Orlik and his "wingman". During the raid on Poland by Germany in September 1939 Roman Orlik and his "wingman"destroyed in one day 10 German tanks, including Panzers IV with TKS tankette armed with a 20mm autocannon. This UA-cam video describes the action of these Polish tank commander Edmund Roman Orlik and his "wingman": THE VERY 1ST TANK ACE OF WW2 - NOT A GERMAN OR RUSSIAN -SURPRISE Edmund Roman, Orlik World War II tank commander. ua-cam.com/video/szSiajjY20Q/v-deo.html The TKS tankettes armed with machine guns were just as useful for infantry support as the German infantry support tanks! So in 1939, the German tanks were not technological superior to the Polish tanks and tankettes as is often false claimed. The decisive factor was not the qualitative superiority but the numerical superiority of the German infantry support tanks. Because Poland had, the number depends on the source of information, only 500-700 TKS infantry support tankettes . (Wiki.588) In addition to infantry support, the Polish Army had also 24 twin-turreted 7TP tanks, 16 twin-turreted Mark E Type A, 102 Renault FT-17 and 24 NC27 53 R-35. So Poland had 719-919 tanks and 100 armored cars as well as for infantry support. The Germans, on the other hand, had as infantry support tanks 1,026 Panzer I 1,100 Panzer II and 198 Panzer IV and 1076 armored cars for infantry support when they raided Poland. The Germans outnumbered Poland more than 3 to 1 in armored infantry support vehicles. In fact, the Germans were victorious due to superior numbers of infantry supported by superior numbers of infantry support vehicles and supported by a superior numbers of air forces. So the Germans didn't win because the Germans had technologically superior weapons and also not because the Germans used blitzkrieg tactics in the fight against Poland, which is often falsely claimed. Because in order to fight with Blitzkrieg strategy, the German army would have had to use many more main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. So comparing the German stock of main battle tanks with the Polish stock in 1939 makes it clear that the Germans could not fight a Blitzkrieg with so few main battle tanks. Poland had in the war against Germany, the number depends on the source of information, 149-170 (Wiki 149) 7TPjw, 13 9TP and 22 47-mm gun Mark E Type B main battle tanks. The 9TP was a modified 7TPjw other tanks were also being developed in Poland, which shows that Poland was not inferior to the Germans technologically in tank construction in 1939. So when the Germans were raided Poland, the Polish army had 184 main battle tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, used a total of 267 main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. That was 98 Panzer III and captured 112 Czech Panzer 35(t) and 57 Panzer 38(t). So in 1939 against Poland the Germans didn't have enough main battle tanks for a blitzkrieg. The Germans also had 198 Panzer VIs bu this were for fighting infantry. Because the Panzer IV had as main armament, the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm gun which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells against infantry. The Panzer IV's main ammunition was to be high-explosive shells, designed to engage enemy anti-tank artillery and infantry from long ranges of up to 6 km. Due to the low initial speed of the projectiles due to the short barrel and the resulting strongly curved trajectory, destroying a 7PT hardly possible. Although the Panzer IV was able to destroy Polish tankettes, they were difficult to hit due to their small size and maneuverability. Also, the Panzer IV's gun was not designed to aim accurately at moving targets. So because the Germans did not have enough main battle tanks, a blitzkrieg against Poland was not possible either! Indeed, the Germans were superior in terms of infantry support tanks Panzer I and II. In fact, the Germans defeated Poland with the use of infantry supported by Panzer I and II additional support from the numerically superior German air force. The comment continues below!
If you believe the upper echelons of German command were always open and willing to listen to criticism, you should try reading 'Spitfire on my Tail' by Ulrich Steinhilper. Students of what really went on in the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe in the early stages of WW2 will find that book an enlightening read in terms of just how much bluffing went on in the early German campaigns when it came to equipment levels, logistics and employing good communications. It gives an interesting perspective on how Steinhilpher, as an 'average joe' Luftwaffe bf109 pilot, found his bosses (and in particular, Adolf Galland) often intransigent and sometimes downright spiteful when it came to listening to subordinates offering suggestions for tactical improvements, notably the use of radios in aircraft to communicate with ground forces and fellow pilots in the case of Steinhilper, who was his unit's communications officer. This was often to the detriment of line pilots, and in particular wingmen, who suffered greatly in terms of combat losses whilst the 'superstar' fighter pilots such as Galland - whom the Nazis feted with publicity in military magazines such as Signal and Der Adler - were more concerned with racking up their own scores and furthering their own careers than working on improving their tactical capabilities overall. I find you can learn a lot by reading biographies and autobiographies of the average guys at the front, rather than simply concentrating on the more numerous books by the big names of WW2, who often received preferential treatment and thus give a skewed perspective of what things were like for the average soldier. This sort of thing was certainly not limited to the German side either, all sides indulged in it: USAAF pilot Richard Bong - the top scoring US fighter pilot of WW2 with 40 confirmed victories - was quite open about the fact that he, being propaganda-worthy, was given postings where there would be somewhat easier opportunities for him to increase his victory tally against the Japanese, and he said he was often given preferential treatment when it came to equipment.
Did a video on Luftwaffe logistics in the early days of my main channel and that wouldn't sound too off. And I also have a video recorded on who lied more regular guys or the higher ups. Also fun fact, if I am not mistaken even in Vietnam there were still radio issues between army and air force that stuff is a bit like "the boys will be home at Christmas".
@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized If you are interested in the communications between Air Force and ground troops in Vietnam in terms of co-operation for close air support, I can recommend the book 'A Lonely Kind of War' by Marshall Harrison. Harrison was a Forward Air Controller pilot on the OV-10 Bronco in the Vietnam War, and his book, which is an entertaining read, gives a good impression of just how difficult a job it was to be operating several different radio sets, all whilst spotting and marking targets in order to guide fast moving jets onto bombing runs in close contact with troops on the ground. If I recall correctly, there were three different radios in the cockpit of his OV-10 to allow all that communication to take place, but of course his was an aircraft specialised for the task, whereas troops on the ground and jet pilots overhead would not be able to communicate at all and had to go through him in order to co-operate. You never see that portrayed much in war movies, everyone just calls up whomever they want on one radio lol.
Learning from a failure means it's not a complete failure. Learning from their success means it was a greater success for the German military. Then again, these successes meant they became overconfident, and we all know how that went.
Germans were preparing for this war months before case white. They made a warm up in spanish civil war how new conflict will look. They re-militarized and annexed a lot of new territories, getting a more of equipment and new man and labour power. They just throw almost all of military potential in Poland. Making polish troops disorganized by daily and night bombing raids. Also fighters were creating havoc among civilians and military columns. The polish troops were lacking on the rest and good HD decisions. People are overestimating Poland and it's military in interwar period. Germans did the same. They didn't expected this kind of resistance. I'm pretty sure if Soviets didn't invade Poland after 17th of September. German troops will broke their teets, while polish army regroup from the east and set up more proper defensive positions. Also Poles had so strong will to fight, which helps them through ww2. I would call case white a failure for both armies.
" I'm pretty sure if Soviets didn't invade Poland after 17th of September. German troops will broke their teets, while polish army regroup from the east and set up more proper defensive positions" Nah, Poland will still fall to Nazi Germany but it will take slightly longer. The best chance Poland has is if they can hold out two more weeks than they did in real history because by then the German stocks of shells and ammo will be depleted and the Germans can't very well fire rocks or dirt from their cannons can they? For that to happen the French must maintain their Saar offensive and the British support them with their RAF bomber command (even if the British can't field any army divisions fast enough in 1939). Stalin only decided to invade Poland to seize his "buffer zone" against Nazi Germany when it became clear to him neither France nor Great Britain were going to come to the aid of Poland. Here's the bad part. The industrialized and weapon producing parts of Poland are almost entirely in the western part facing Germany. Once those fell Poland had little chance producing war material to continue the war even if they had managed to make a new defense line in the east.
Franz Halder Chief of the German General Staff of the Army documents this fact in his war diary. "The Wehrmacht had been on the verge of a military logistical catastrophe in the Polish campaign. The happy ending after a few weeks saved her from having to stop the fight because of insufficient ammunition."
@@erichvonmanstein1952 Erich Von Manstein can I ask were you what are the basis of your statment that the " Luftwaffe and Heer had great coordination between each other ". At the end of the polish campaign the relations at the level of the high command were very strained between the luftwaffe and the army. It was exactly because of the polish campaign that it was decided to attach a luftwaffe officer to army units in order to improve the coordination of the ground support. Also the losses of the luftwaffe were incredibly high (blue on blue)
After navel battle analysis during the Guadalcanal campaign allowed the US Navy to steadily improve against the superior Japanese Navy. Weeding out ineffective senior commanders & improving tactics involving combined arms & services turned the US Navy into a formidable force.
Bernhard, you NEED to read Jörg Muth's "Command Culture", to learn more on what you scratch the surface of here. You can start by watching his lecture on the subject here on UA-cam.
Did any of german reports states that Polish military fail to mobilize their troops. Poles wasn't able to construct of proper defense because of that. Win it's not only when you did everything properly but when enemy make a mistakes. Did anyone of high command put any thought to that.
Thanks for the video. So I hope you will continue this chain of thought to the invasion of Russia. Was the Army still being critical of its performance and evaluations.?
Enjoy your thoughtful observations. One point about the expression carrot and stick. It is a reference to an unattainable goal as a draft animal pursues a carrot dangling in front of him on a stick.
The self-critisim can also be seen when technological achievments where discussed in Germany, all the flaws in German tank and aircraft design are well documented, but for the US and Russia those information are often missing.
Wrong. Both American and Soviet intel about their own tanks and planes listened to both praise and critique. I'd say the opposite applies to German tanks from 1942 onward. Reports of German tanks being difficult and time-consuming to service and maintain in the field were roundly ignored by the nazis who believe the German spirit would overcome such "difficulties". I'd say the Soviets were particularly pragmatic when it came to designing their weapons for a long war of attrition. For starters they did understand that freezing cold temperatures could render some over-engineered weapons useless. Propaganda existed on all sides and they exaggerated the excellence and superiority of their own weapons. That being said all sides listened to reports of disgruntled soldiers, pilots and tank crews. American pilots accurately reported the strength and weaknesses of Japanese fighter planes in comparison to their own.
Question: How big a factor was breaking the German and Japanese codes in winning or at least shortening the war? It seems if you know a lot about what the enemy is going to do, that has to be a huge advantage
The Germans thought their Enigma machine was an unbreakable code so they used it throughout the war. It was a major factor at sea helping the western allies especially against submarines. It’s estimated that it shortened the war by a year saving a German city from atomic bombing
And a very frustrating advantage, as you can not overuse it. Your opponent is going to notice you seem to know too much about their moves to be attributed to luck, good recon and intelligence. Especially given some of that information couldn't be reached without decrypting your messages. Leading to the conclusion that you know your enemy's codes. And therefore you can be robbed out of that advantage by 1. changing the codes to something you don't know, 2. using the codes your enemy knows you know to feed you misinformation (which, again, can de done either very, very carefully, on a small scale, or for a rather short period of time, before you realise your enemy knows you know their codes and is feeding you false news). I found Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" a fascinating (if fictional... for the most part) book dealing with this problem. I do sincerely recommend it :) All that "We know their codes. And we do know they know we know these. But they don't know that we do know they know we know..." :D
Sadly I am not an expert on the matter, but the breaking of the Enigma certainly helped the Allies big time. Just to remind you, not only the Kriegsmarine used it, but ALL German forces. Also, the Germans actually noticed something wasn't right and tried to find out if it was the Enigma. They thought they found something that made it easier to break the code, fixed it...and it turned out they had actually made it easier for ULTRA to break the codes by "fixing" it. To be honest German counter intelligence was shit during WW2 in general, simply sending out a message about two uboat supply ships meeting somewhere in the Atlantic, surveilling the position and then seeing a dozen hunter killer groups converging on the coordinates would have made clear the Enigma wasn't safe anymore.
Enigma was cracked before the war by polish mathematicians. German intelligence found out and added another level of encryption. Also the Kriegsmarine enigmas were a bit different to the other ones. The polish guy(s) made it to the UK, and that experience as well as getting their hands on one helped the british to crack the encrpytion faster. Strategically a very big help when you know where your enemies are going to be. Not just on oceans to avoid them, but also to estimate enemies troop strength ect. on land and air.
@@MrWolfstar8 True but if the Poles could have forced a deadlock, the Soviets would probably wait for Germany and Poland to bleed themselves dry before intervening.
The Poles were in a great disadvantage from the start, regardless of anything they might have done to prepare. There was no good place for any defensive positions. The Poznan bulge and the Danzig corridor started more or less surrounded; adding Eastern Prussia and Czechoslovakia as invasion avenues for the Germans made it pretty much hopeless, and adding that a Soviet invasion had to be defended against as well made it completely hopeless. The Germans or Soviets could attack from literally any and all directions, and be victorious if any _one_ avenue succeed, as Poland did not have anywhere to fall back to. The best trained and equipped soldiers in the world at that time could not have beat back that invasion, and Poland was just a developing nation.
@@MrWolfstar8 The Soviets only entered "Polish territory" ONCE the Polish Government had gone running away to daddy (England). The Soviets did not even declare war on Poland considering that they were not even the governing State of these territories at that point. Even the British agreed to the Soviet "invasion" of these territories considering that they would be occupied without resistance by the Germans. Also from the rise of Hitler to power to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact (the same kind of pact that England, France, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Denmark had with Nazi Germany) so 1933-1939, the Soviet Union tried to create different Accords between the European countries to ensure a lasting peace including but not limited to; promising to defend Czechoslovakia (1938) with France if Poland agreed to let Soviet troops pass on Polish soil (France delayed, Poland said fuck you) in the end France and England gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler in the hope that he would attack the Soviet Union and Poland went for a land grab at the same time as the Germans, promising to defend Poland (1938 also) with France and England (France and England delayed, Poland said fuck you) in the end France and England declared war and Germany and sat idly by with 110 divisions against 33 divisions for 8 months whilst the Germans invaded Poland, Denmark and Norway. But I guess it's easier to teach people Commies bad (still bad now), Germans good but bad (ok now) and Us good (always good).
@@comrademcsalty7676 Well, the British and USA govrments did not like SU more than Germany do, they were not allies actually, they just happen to find in germany a common enemy, and USA knew that, once ended the WWII the new treat to face should be Stalin, after the finding of Holdomor, the SU and the Polis exile gov broke relations and that was the turning point to the USA to break relations too, in the V day, the SU and allies were already enemys just waiting the other makes the first move (wich turned on to be the wall of Berlin)
@@MrWolfstar8 i agree 50/50 but that last passage is just straight up wrong the allies wouldnt have won against germany without the soviets being at war with them, the allies had some trouble with the western forces of germany. now tripple that is what germany would have had without the eastern front. even if thrue some miracle the allies would have beaten germany theres absolutely no chance they would still have the power to beat the soviets afterwards.
There seems to be something about German culture in relation to criticism. Although it is apparently a different subject I watched a video by an American working in Germany about the differences he found. One was that American managers giving feedback to staff tended to start by praising the things they had got right and only then proceed to point out things they had got wrong and needed to improve. Whereas in Germany it was taken for granted that everyone should be doing their job to a high standard so there was no need to spend time acknowledging or thanking them for that, unless they had done something truly exceptional; feedback from a manager was otherwise entirely a list of things the employee was doing wrong and had to improve.
I am starting to wonder a bit... How do you support coordination between more branches of the army, for example attack by armor (branch number one) supported by infantry (branch number two) and CAS (branch number three).
In most countries honest self appraisal is not something taught in schools, and hasn't been in a long time. Too much emphasis on feel good and too little emphasis on performing well. Can you imagine the campaign in the West if all the participants in Poland were given "participation medals" and the training afterward consisted of reward cupcakes. That is today's schooling in the US. If it doesn't change, the future does not look good.
On the German information flow to and from the front: From earlier videos by MH(n)V or Military Aviation History, I vaguely remember that the Luftwaffe kept pilots in combat until they were killed, depriving pilots-in-training of their experience. It might have been that this started later in the war. Similarly, the Japanese Navy pilots seem to not have been cycled back to help with training. The US did some cycling of various positions in the aircrews back to training commands, but I have only seen individual stories so I don't know the extent of this. This included pilots, gunners, navigators, bombadiers and possibly some in the ground crews.
For the Japanese it's actually the other way around: They had to cycle IN the veterans from the training schools to have enough pilots and those then got killed, depraving Japan from actual carrier pilot veterans to train the recruits.
I always wondered how this campaign would look if allies wouldn't stop early Polish mobilization. I mean, Germans would still most likely won, but the loses might have been way too huge to invade France later on. What if in history is fun :) good thing we have Hearts of Iron for such 'what ifs' ;)
Was this intensely critical spirit in the army part of German/Prussian tradition, or was it a new thing? I'd assume that the circumstances of the formation of the Wehrmacht could have had an effect here, since the army first suffered a catastrophic defeat, and then was almost completely disbanded, and was then quickly reformed almost two decades later. I feel that this could have been a moment of great purging of stale traditions and an influx of fresh ideas and embracing of relatively revolutionary currents in military operation and organization. The chains of honor and history were unshackled, so younger, more imaginative officers came to the forefront, while the old guard died off or retired without being able to pass on their influence directly. Doing things differently wasn't an affront to an old Generals practice anymore, and in any case, the old Generals were in part responsible for how the previous war turned out (weather in fact, or in spirit is quite irrelevant I feel).
Might the goals of the OKW who were stessing on troop performance at that time were lamenting the loss of what they hoped would be a swift and corrective spanking to the Poles, if done as a quick in and out incursion ...Instead of being duped into a all out war?
Poland had actually a good army back then it was 4th in europe if i remember good but the land was most plains so this is why Germany could invade quick cause Poland didnt have natrual borders and then soviets could invade quick to so yea . I think if Poland had more rivers or mountains Germany and Soviets wouldnt be so quick :P
4th in Europe?Lol Germans,French,Soviets and İtalians.I know İtalian Army was a joke but their army was certainly larger and better equipped than Polish one.
Nah it could have some soldiers and equipment but the commanders were mentaly in XIX century. Massive and cruel strike demolished population morale and so the victory was fast and splendid with almost no loses in manpower. Kids and civillians killed almost the same number of enemy soldier in Warsaw Uprising as the mighty counted in hundreds thousands, 4th in Europe army hah. We say in our country "nie boję się armii lwów dowodzone przez baranów tylko armii baranów dowodzonych przez lwy". Edwardz Rydz-Śmigły the commander in chief of Polish Army was a legendary "baran" ;)
You can still win while looking like a fool. They though it was going to be easier than it was. Poland was in a better position than they realized. This is probably the best example of the psychological effects of Blitzkrieg taking an enemy down. Poland could've fought longer had it not been so "Blitzed".
I like your work and despite the fact that I have viewed the video in which you discuss the difference in combat readiness of German units between 1941 and 1942 the following question just came to me. Could it be possible that the experience accumulated during 1941 changed the criteria used by German officers to evaluate combat readiness. For example: they no longer expected to fight a short campaign. Could it be possible that units deemed ready for offensive combat operations in 1941 may not receive the same evaluation in 1942.
I know the combat readiness was instituted in 1939. Considering the extreme losses of the Germans in 1941 and the Soviet counter offensive, I don't think the evaluation criteria changed. Just look at the time of continuous fighting.
Military History not Visualized thank you for your response. I do not dispute that the combat operations conducted by the German army in 1941 were the main factor impacting the combat readiness assessment for 1942. However, considering that the victory march to Moscow has turned into an attrition war with no immediate end in sight, it seems reasonable that the combat readiness criteria may have changed too (for example changes regarding the amount of ammunition or fuel needed for combat operations). This is the reasoning behind my question and may be an interesting research.
That there might have been shortcomings in the campaign that would foreshadow the same weaknesses leading Germany to defeat in later campaigns does not mean that the Polish campaign was a failure.
Poland was a stupid choice to attack.Not many resources and a brilliant shield against the Soviets had it been kept intact. Especially with British guarantees. Germany could have done much better with a southward turn to Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania. Even Bulgaria. They might have even joined willingly, had oil, an exit to the Mediterranean and Libyan oil. Were there Allied guarantees for Yugoslavia in 1939?
The way you describe the Wehrmacht it sounds like you're talking about The Ever Victorious Army (the fictional one by Robert Jordan, not the real one).
There is a ERROR in the description! POLAND NEVER SURRENDER! "Despite the military defeat, Poland never surrendered; instead it formed the Polish government-in-exile and a clandestine state apparatus remained in occupied Poland. A significant part of Polish military personnel evacuated to Romania and the Baltic countries; many of them would fight against the Axis in other theatres of the war." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II Polish forces were fighting whole war SAVING Great Britain from Luftwaffe!!! P.S. I will NEVER understand WHY Brits and French didn't invade Germs, and didn't declare war on Soviets :/
Because declaring war on the Soviets is a bad idea? The last thing in anyone's mind is to repeat the Great War that caused millions of casualties, both civilians and military personnel. Fighting Hitler with both US and Soviet support took the British and the French about 6 years of fighting. Imagine now that they need to fight both the Nazis and the Soviets.
@@alexanderchristopher6237 You do not understand, don't you? 1. Nazi were REALLY WEAK (before they attack the Schweden and Denmark) and sundered after war in Poland. 2. Soviets were FEARING the Brits (not the islands alone, but also the Kanada, India Raj, Australia and huge amount of land in the Africa) Remember Japan was VERY unhappy about Soviets too. 3. Everyone remember also Russians draw back from the "Great War" 4. Both tea sippers and frogeaters were peace-loved pussies. Instead of "strange war" they should go all out. Then was on the Soviets that they would won.
But on the other was the German High Command wasnt so critical about their own capabilities , when they planed the attack on the Soviet Union. Like several videos mentioned, they started to believe their own propaganda, because they managed to defeat France in a matter of weeks. Did something really change in the military, after they defeated France or did they stop being so critical about themselves?
In the US, unfortunately the e is this third category between hiding problems vs highlighting them and that is creating non existent problems and the using solutions to them to advance one's agenda. For example we s e that in those who argue that the elections were rigged and then try to use that to bring in voter suppression. Also nonexistent problems typically lend themselves to easy solutions in that they are not real problems and thus the "solution" to that nonexistent problem is just do something that might look like it might have helped on paper but in reality has no good effect and maybe a bad one and then change the spin and declare success and the take the credit for that success. I have seen ambitious people whose ambition exceeds their abilities use this to rise rapidly through the ranks until they attain high level in management by that and by claiming credit for things others have achieved seem to work quite well hand in hand. And in the US success is often valued more than truth so if something works it is of a secondary value to make sure the credit is given to those who deserve it and not instead to the ones who are good at stealing the credit form others. But what seems to be the thing that defeats this is as Lincoln said (or my paraphrase of that) , you can fool some of the people all of the time, and some of the people part of the time but you can't fool all the people all the time, so that eventually truth does seem to win out and thus those that rise due to this method eventually crash and burn, albeit after doing much damage in the process. Or as Churchill said, you can always count on America doing the right thing, that is after they have tried everything else!
Germany's losses were not negligible, even fighting a 'weakened' foe. Germany technically won the battle in 72 hours, but the valiant Poles fought on for a month. Germany was completely unaware of the brilliant Polish work on Enigma; their invaluable research was sent to Bletchley Park, boosting the Allied efforts to break the German codes. Germany also had to share spoils with the Soviets. In a way, this helped when the invasion occurred, but it also limited Germany's bases and depots to east Prussia, at least at first...
2/3 of the German tanks were PZKW 1 and PZKW 2 which we were supposed to be training tanks. The Polish tanks were better but with out radios and the poor use of them by the Polish army spelled their doom.
The title is wrong - it should be ''informative lessons from Poland''. In the film you say almost nothing about the Polish army, e.g. only about very good camouflage. The reasons were purely political - and an example as a result on September 10, 1939, Canada declared war on Germany.And while in September 1939 it did not matter much, in the long run, something would have to be done with this. Invasion of North America? A wishful thinking. Already in September 1939, the Germans waged an unwinnable war.
German failures began in the early 30s when no more pocket battleships were built and upgraded to 15" designs, when sciences were sidelined, when very bad aeroplanes were choosen, when the PZ IIIs weren't built as STGs and SPAs, and PZ IVs weren't given 75/40 from the get go...... fortunate for us as those baby murderers lost the war......
@@nemeczek67 ... define premature. The Soviets not only conquered Poland, but stayed for about 52 years. That is not premature IMHO. But, I think I understand your point.
@Marcelo Henrique Soares da Silva ... It is...until it isn't. Time and resources were on the Soviets side. Especially when we talk of the Cold War from 1945 thru 1991.
@@biz4twobiz463 This clip is about Germans not Soviets. Once they overran Poland, it was not over. Poland was neither Czechoslovakia nor the Netherlands, and the Germans had to deal with guerrilla warfare for the next 5+ years. Their supply lines to the east front were not secure either. This required a lot of manpower to control.
There was a failure to proof-read this video! :P I saw two typos: saw the the word spelt "mot" instead of "not", and the word "ducation" instead of "education".
This dont say anything if its not nice or sugger coat bevor you criticise is so annoying and such a waste of time. I get it why they think we are rude but boy, who in their right mind is thrilled with getting a partion medal?
@@lokenontherange The Soviets only entered "Polish territory" ONCE the Polish Government had gone running away to daddy (England). The Soviets did not even declare war on Poland considering that they were not even the governing State of these territories at that point. Even the British agreed to the Soviet "invasion" of these territories considering that they would be occupied without resistance by the Germans. Also from the rise of Hitler to power to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact (the same kind of pact that England, France, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Denmark had with Nazi Germany) so 1933-1939, the Soviet Union tried to create different Accords between the European countries to ensure a lasting peace including but not limited to; promising to defend Czechoslovakia (1938) with France if Poland agreed to let Soviet troops pass on Polish soil (France delayed, Poland said fuck you) in the end France and England gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler in the hope that he would attack the Soviet Union and Poland went for a land grab at the same time as the Germans, promising to defend Poland (1938 also) with France and England (France and England delayed, Poland said fuck you) in the end France and England declared war and Germany and sat idly by with 110 divisions against 33 divisions for 8 months whilst the Germans invaded Poland, Denmark and Norway. But I guess it's easier to teach people Commies bad (still bad now), Germans good but bad (ok now) and Us good (always good).
@@comrademcsalty7676 Dude, go fuck yourself. Russia invaded Poland at the same time the Germans did. And yes, communism is fucking awful. How many more people need to die before you grow the fuck up and admit reality.
Germany lost the most troops while invaiding Poland compared to other countries. Poor country without technology proved to be harder than they thought it would be. That is why it was cosidired failure.
There is no language where Stalingrad is pronounced Shtalingrad. But really, that is my only negative remark - otherwise I truly do enjoy your well-researched videos. Well done. Good job.
The Prussian spirit and mentality of "the army has a state" is what drives Germany to always be at disastrous wars with her bigger neighbors, twice. Having it grounded to dust following WW2 was probably the best thing that has happened in the last 60 years. Or do you want a WW3 starting in Europe right now, but now with nukes? Even Germany was able to form a European empire without resorting to much force of arms. It's called the EU, where Germany, as a leader in the financial and industrial sector, is basically its head. And as a result, there has never been more cooperation and peace in the European continent (espescially Western Europe) since the days of the Roman empire.
One German High Command Officer did not find this video to be critical enough...
hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahah I died lol
Hahaha. That's funny.
That joke was pretty funny, but you could have built it up more before delivering the punch line to enchance the comedic effectiveness and element of surprise. Consider using close air support next time as well..
@@regularman9486 Another high command officer,are we?
Autumn rain Can’t you tell?
I had a professor like this: "I see you have greatly improved since last time: F+"
Me too, best professor ever.
A Mathematics teacher to my friend.... "Congratulations! You have doubled your previous mark.2 x 0 = 0".I shat myself laughing.That has stuck with me for 37 years.Funnily enough my friend applied himself ,went to post -high school college and got an Engineering Degree.You could have knocked me over with a feather.
@@TomLaios ive realised education is a delusion well qualifications are, i have a friend with a masters degree in history yet he only done it because hes a doley bum and doesnt want a job, literally at 50k of debt i think because he didnt want to work after finishing college.
not sure what hes up to now havent seen him for a while.
@@Dockhead I too got a History Degree in 1989.I have never used it.Total waste of time.Well thank fuck it wasn't a completely useless degree like,say ,gender studies or Sociology.
i hated those kid of teachers/professors
Self criticism is a great self-improvement tool as long as someone doesn't overdo it.
"Task failed successfully"
Fission mailed.
@@PrekiFromPoland That wouldn't happen until 1945
@@bami2 Hahahaha
Considering Germans lost almost thousand tanks and armored cars, and of it over 200 tanks as irrecoverable losses against enemy barely equipped with antitank weapons (Polish infantry division had just 36 bofors antitank guns in ToE) it is hardly suprising High Command was dissatisfied with performance.
ToE?
@@randomguy-tg7ok The typical anti-tank rifles of the day was sufficient enough to penetrate German armor at that time.
How is that relevant? I was asking what ToE means.
@@randomguy-tg7ok Table of organisation and equipment.
With PROPER help of Aliants Poland would never fall...
"Some might argue that Poland was not a real enemy"
*Angry wizna noises*
Angry Sabaton's "40:1" noises
Me: puts hussar helmet on "challenge accepted"
Oh kurwa!
if you see the video, you can say that the germans werent underestimating anyone, they expect Poland to resist even more. The ones whom said "Poland was not a real enemy" were the French
In one of the two german military history magazines i read, there also was noted, that older officers, who had been young officers at the start of the first world war, said, the german soldiers of 1914 had been better trained than the soldiers of 1939. So they critisised that, compared to 1914, the soldiers had more problems, what to do when unexpected things happened.
I can believe that, the imperial german army of 1914 was a standing army ( ofc with mass mobilization when WWI was looming ) but the Reichswehr of 1933 had to begin from scratch and had not enough time to train everyone thouroughly .... thus the german High Command stated to be ready not earlier than 1942 ( they knew that ofc ).
Next month on Military history not visualized:
Is Hannibal the worst general of the ancient world?
Trafalgar 1805: Nelson's greatest defeat
D-Day 1944: Hitler's victory?
The Greatest Generation fought World War II to end hyperbole FOREVER.
WWII was just a skirmish if compared to WWI
El Alemain: Rommel’s finest moment
Monte Cassino: a walk in the park?
Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the beginning of the end for the US
See, what people find funny in the west is what makes the Germans so great. If you re loosing 1000+ armoured vehicles in a war against Poland in the most favourable of conditions and with help of soviet Union, how can you be optimistic towards tackling France and Britain which have four times as much artillery and tanks as Poland had? Never mention the arsenal of USSR.
RouGeZH Trafalgar wasn't a defeat for Nelson, it was his greatest Pyrrhic victory....
Thanks for the insight as always man. I work for a premium auto manufacturer and this reminds me of my boss who is German, he is always so critical and of course (I hate to say it) always focused on efficiency haha. Hilariously tho, he is not great dealing with logistics and I said to myself, hmmm this strangely all sounds familiar.
Lol!
Every manufacturer is focused on efficiency. The real problem is when excel figure is more important than ppl hard work and devotion to their duties. In many, many corporations you can work your ass off and if by unrelated events KPIs aren't good enough you get reprimand anyway. And then excel engineering magic comes, improves nothing except some formula but KPI rises and he get bonus cash just like that ;)
@@Promilus1984 Man, I couldn't explain it better myself haha its like live or die by spreadsheets here at the HQ I work at.
Franz Halder Chief of the German General Staff of the Army documents this fact in his war diary. "The Wehrmacht had been on the verge of a military logistical catastrophe in the Polish campaign. The happy ending after a few weeks saved her from having to stop the fight because of insufficient ammunition." Incidentally, it was claimed in the video that Poland was technologically far inferior to the Germans is nonsense! Many lies and myths are spread regarding Poland and WWII. A lying myth is that the Polish army was technologically completely inferior. In fact, I've already read that it has been absurdly claimed that the Polish Army was technologically at WWI level in 1939. In fact, the lie about technologically inferior weapons is being spread about all Polish weapons, including tanks. But it is a historical fact that German tanks were no better than Polish tanks in 1939. In any case the problem was for Poland not the quality but the quantity of weapons. The Polish 7TPjw 37-mm gun tanks were on the same technological level as the best German tanks in 1939! With zhe 37-mm gun the Polish 7TPjw tanks were able to destroy all German tanks from a greater distance. The German were not superior to the Polish 7TPjw-37 mm gun tanks. By the way, " jw" was the single-turret 7TP version in contrast to "dw" which was the twin-turreted version of the 7TP. But only 24 of this twin-turreted 7TP infantry support tanks were still in use in 1939. The 7TPjw was of course clearly superior to the most used German infantry support tanks Panzer I and II in 1939. The Panzers I only had a machine gun and no anti-tank gun. The Panzer II had a 20 mm auto-cannon, but it was primarily intended for firing explosive grenades against infantry and the gun was too weak for combat against tanks. Therefore the Panzer II with its 20 mm gun was not dangerous for 7TPjw! By the way, the polish 7TPjw tank, was 1st tank with diesel engine in Europe. So this tank was with lower fire risk if the tank was hit. In the upgraded version, the crew compartment was larger and the air-conditioning system was improved. The Poles learned from their experiences with regular 7TPjw, when used in training exercises, that crew comfort was important. Also the Polish radio type 2N/C of the Polish 7TPjw tank was superior to the German radio at range with of 25 km. The radios used in German tanks had a range of 4 km. Tanks with radios were also fitted with an intercom for the crew, who were equipped with new type helmets with integral headphones. But only shortly before the war it was decided to equip all tanks with radio, but then it was already too late. Furthermore all polish tanks were equipped with the revolutionary reversible periscope G wz. 34. The Periscope was a revolutionary because it was the first device to allow the tank commander to have a 360-degree view from his turret. This was a decisive advantage due to a much better overview of the battlefield. Because if I see the enemy tank before the enemy sees me, I can destroy the enemy tank first. The German soldiers in the German tanks, on the other hand, mainly used five viewing slits to observe the battlefield. Americans and British have taken over the Polish tank Periscope then for their own tanks too! Unfortunately, the Germans also took over the Periscope from the captured Polish tanks after 1939. The Sowejtes did the same! Indeed the Germans actually used more Czech-made main battle tanks in 1939 than German-made ones, but they weren't technologically superior to the Polish ones either. Consequently, the main battle tanks deployed by the Germans during the raid oo Poland in 1939 were not technologically superior to the Polish main battle tanks.
But were the TKS tankettes used by the Polish army proof of the backwardness of the Polish army? No, because the Polish 2 men machine gun tankettes were just as useful for infantry support against infantry as were the German Panzer I and II. The disadvantages compared to the Panzer I and II were outweighed by the advantages compared to the Panzer I and II.
By the way, Polish tankettes with 20 mm guns were also useful against all German tanks. Like the Panzer II, these Polish tankettes were equipped with a 20 mm gun, but the Polish Nkm wz.38 FK 20 mm autocannon was much more powerful than the 20 mm KwK 30 autocannon of the Panzer II. Therefore, the tankettes with the Polish 20 mm Nkm wz.38 FK autocannon could destroy all German tanks and this Polish gun has proven to be very effective against the German tanks during the September 1939 German raid on Poland. So this kind of polish tankettes were able to shoot all German tanks in 1939 also Panzer III und Panzer IV. This tankettes were only armored against machine gun fire and shrapnel but compared to the big tanks they were much more manoeuvrable and had a small silhouette thereby they were they were quick and small so hard to hit. So the Polish tankettes were not only difficult to hit by the enemy tanks but also by the German anti-tank defense and Air Force. The tankettes also had the advantage that the Commander had a much better view outside the vehicle. Because he had the revolutionary G wz. 34 periscope to disposal with advantages of which I have described in detail above. Only Polish tanks and tankettes had this decisive improvement in 1939. How dangerous these special Polish tankettes were one can see by the example of tankette's commander Roman Orlik and his "wingman". During the raid on Poland by Germany in September 1939 Roman Orlik and his "wingman"destroyed in one day 10 German tanks, including Panzers IV with TKS tankette armed with a 20mm autocannon. This UA-cam video describes the action of these Polish tank commander Edmund Roman Orlik and his "wingman": THE VERY 1ST TANK ACE OF WW2 - NOT A GERMAN OR RUSSIAN -SURPRISE Edmund Roman, Orlik World War II tank commander. ua-cam.com/video/szSiajjY20Q/v-deo.html The TKS tankettes armed with machine guns were just as useful for infantry support as the German infantry support tanks! So in 1939, the German tanks were not technological superior to the Polish tanks and tankettes as is often false claimed. The decisive factor was not the qualitative superiority but the numerical superiority of the German infantry support tanks. Because Poland had, the number depends on the source of information, only 500-700 TKS infantry support tankettes . (Wiki.588) In addition to infantry support, the Polish Army had also 24 twin-turreted 7TP tanks, 16 twin-turreted Mark E Type A, 102 Renault FT-17 and 24 NC27 53 R-35. So Poland had 719-919 tanks and 100 armored cars as well as for infantry support. The Germans, on the other hand, had as infantry support tanks 1,026 Panzer I 1,100 Panzer II and 198 Panzer IV and 1076 armored cars for infantry support when they raided Poland. The Germans outnumbered Poland more than 3 to 1 in armored infantry support vehicles. In fact, the Germans were victorious due to superior numbers of infantry supported by superior numbers of infantry support vehicles and supported by a superior numbers of air forces. So the Germans didn't win because the Germans had technologically superior weapons and also not because the Germans used blitzkrieg tactics in the fight against Poland, which is often falsely claimed. Because in order to fight with Blitzkrieg strategy, the German army would have had to use many more main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. So comparing the German stock of main battle tanks with the Polish stock in 1939 makes it clear that the Germans could not fight a Blitzkrieg with so few main battle tanks. Poland had in the war against Germany, the number depends on the source of information, 149-170 (Wiki 149) 7TPjw, 13 9TP and 22 47-mm gun Mark E Type B main battle tanks. The 9TP was a modified 7TPjw other tanks were also being developed in Poland, which shows that Poland was not inferior to the Germans technologically in tank construction in 1939. So when the Germans were raided Poland, the Polish army had 184 main battle tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, used a total of 267 main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. That was 98 Panzer III and captured 112 Czech Panzer 35(t) and 57 Panzer 38(t). So in 1939 against Poland the Germans didn't have enough main battle tanks for a blitzkrieg. The Germans also had 198 Panzer VIs bu this were for fighting infantry. Because the Panzer IV had as main armament, the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm gun which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells against infantry. The Panzer IV's main ammunition was to be high-explosive shells, designed to engage enemy anti-tank artillery and infantry from long ranges of up to 6 km. Due to the low initial speed of the projectiles due to the short barrel and the resulting strongly curved trajectory, destroying a 7PT hardly possible. Although the Panzer IV was able to destroy Polish tankettes, they were difficult to hit due to their small size and maneuverability. Also, the Panzer IV's gun was not designed to aim accurately at moving targets. So because the Germans did not have enough main battle tanks, a blitzkrieg against Poland was not possible either! Indeed, the Germans were superior in terms of infantry support tanks Panzer I and II. In fact, the Germans defeated Poland with the use of infantry supported by Panzer I and II additional support from the numerically superior German air force.
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But were the TKS tankettes used by the Polish army proof of the backwardness of the Polish army? No, because the Polish 2 men machine gun tankettes were just as useful for infantry support against infantry as were the German Panzer I and II. The disadvantages compared to the Panzer I and II were outweighed by the advantages compared to the Panzer I and II. By the way, Polish tankettes with 20 mm guns were also useful against all German tanks. Like the Panzer II, these Polish tankettes were equipped with a 20 mm gun, but the Polish Nkm wz.38 FK 20 mm autocannon was much more powerful than the 20 mm KwK 30 autocannon of the Panzer II. Therefore, the tankettes with the Polish 20 mm Nkm wz.38 FK autocannon could destroy all German tanks and this Polish gun has proven to be very effective against the German tanks during the September 1939 German raid on Poland. So this kind of polish tankettes were able to shoot all German tanks in 1939 also Panzer III und Panzer IV. This tankettes were only armored against machine gun fire and shrapnel but compared to the big tanks they were much more manoeuvrable and had a small silhouette thereby they were they were quick and small so hard to hit. So the Polish tankettes were not only difficult to hit by the enemy tanks but also by the German anti-tank defense and Air Force. The tankettes also had the advantage that the Commander had a much better view outside the vehicle. Because he had the revolutionary G wz. 34 periscope to disposal with advantages of which I have described in detail above. Only Polish tanks and tankettes had this decisive improvement in 1939. How dangerous these special Polish tankettes were one can see by the example of tankette's commander Roman Orlik and his "wingman". During the raid on Poland by Germany in September 1939 Roman Orlik and his "wingman"destroyed in one day 10 German tanks, including Panzers IV with TKS tankette armed with a 20mm autocannon. This UA-cam video describes the action of these Polish tank commander Edmund Roman Orlik and his "wingman": THE VERY 1ST TANK ACE OF WW2 - NOT A GERMAN OR RUSSIAN -SURPRISE Edmund Roman, Orlik World War II tank commander. ua-cam.com/video/szSiajjY20Q/v-deo.html The TKS tankettes armed with machine guns were just as useful for infantry support as the German infantry support tanks! So in 1939, the German tanks were not technological superior to the Polish tanks and tankettes as is often false claimed. The decisive factor was not the qualitative superiority but the numerical superiority of the German infantry support tanks. Because Poland had, the number depends on the source of information, only 500-700 TKS infantry support tankettes . (Wiki.588) In addition to infantry support, the Polish Army had also 24 twin-turreted 7TP tanks, 16 twin-turreted Mark E Type A, 102 Renault FT-17 and 24 NC27 53 R-35. So Poland had 719-919 tanks and 100 armored cars as well as for infantry support. The Germans, on the other hand, had as infantry support tanks 1,026 Panzer I 1,100 Panzer II and 198 Panzer IV and 1076 armored cars for infantry support when they raided Poland. The Germans outnumbered Poland more than 3 to 1 in armored infantry support vehicles. In fact, the Germans were victorious due to superior numbers of infantry supported by superior numbers of infantry support vehicles and supported by a superior numbers of air forces. So the Germans didn't win because the Germans had technologically superior weapons and also not because the Germans used blitzkrieg tactics in the fight against Poland, which is often falsely claimed. Because in order to fight with Blitzkrieg strategy, the German army would have had to use many more main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. So comparing the German stock of main battle tanks with the Polish stock in 1939 makes it clear that the Germans could not fight a Blitzkrieg with so few main battle tanks. Poland had in the war against Germany, the number depends on the source of information, 149-170 (Wiki 149) 7TPjw, 13 9TP and 22 47-mm gun Mark E Type B main battle tanks. The 9TP was a modified 7TPjw other tanks were also being developed in Poland, which shows that Poland was not inferior to the Germans technologically in tank construction in 1939. So when the Germans were raided Poland, the Polish army had 184 main battle tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, used a total of 267 main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. That was 98 Panzer III and captured 112 Czech Panzer 35(t) and 57 Panzer 38(t). So in 1939 against Poland the Germans didn't have enough main battle tanks for a blitzkrieg. The Germans also had 198 Panzer VIs bu this were for fighting infantry. Because the Panzer IV had as main armament, the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm gun which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells against infantry. The Panzer IV's main ammunition was to be high-explosive shells, designed to engage enemy anti-tank artillery and infantry from long ranges of up to 6 km. Due to the low initial speed of the projectiles due to the short barrel and the resulting strongly curved trajectory, destroying a 7PT hardly possible. Although the Panzer IV was able to destroy Polish tankettes, they were difficult to hit due to their small size and maneuverability. Also, the Panzer IV's gun was not designed to aim accurately at moving targets. So because the Germans did not have enough main battle tanks, a blitzkrieg against Poland was not possible either! Indeed, the Germans were superior in terms of infantry support tanks Panzer I and II. In fact, the Germans defeated Poland with the use of infantry supported by Panzer I and II additional support from the numerically superior German air force.
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Someone: mentions bulgaria and makes history vid
Me: I see this as absolute win
The bottom line is that Poland ALONE stood up to the Germany and Russia for as long as did the French and the Brits to Germany ALONE.
And the army wasn't even mobilised as the Allies requested to cancel mobilusation. If they didn't we would have had over twice as big forces as we had.
@@piotrmalewski8178 we would still loose of course, but Germany loses might have change course of 2nd world war
French resistance could have persisted if they chose to draw out the conflict, but they chose not to. And it was probably a good idea, the French lost far fewer men in the Second World War than the First - although their government's choice to surrender did lead to the prevailing stereotype today.
I've participated in miniature wargaming battles set in the Poland campaign, using the AT ballistically accurate Panzergranate wargames rules system and having played both sides in games, and observed the following:
Polish battle tanks don't carry radios!! Formations are controlled by flags so line of sight between tank platoon members needs to be ensured.
Polish on field communications heavily dependant on established field telephone communications due to lack of radios. When this inevitably fails due to enemy actions, a reliance on messengers. This makes it easy to isolate a Polish infantry unit from support.
The Polish infantry are organised into specialist offensive and defensive platoon types. The former has 30 x men (3 x 10 man sections/squads) plus officer, the latter has 45 x men (4 x 10 man sections/ squads) plus officer plus 2 x Browning M.1919 MMG support incorporated. There are also 4 x Browning Automatic Rifles and MAS 38 SMG distributed amongst the defensive platoon.
The offensive platoon has a single BAR and is mainly rifle equipped. The platoon sergeant may have a MAS 38 SMG.
A German infantry platoon was 24 x men plus Officer (3 x 8 man sections/squads) according to Wrezsien 1939. When attacking a Polish position manned by a defensive platoon, there is an outnumbered situation to deal with. An Mg.34 in each section/squad does help though.
The German 37mm. PaK.36 AT gun was only issued with the by then obstelete PzGr.18 APHE ammunition (up to 44mm. @ 0 degrees @ 100 metres) as PzGr.39 APCBC-HE (up to 65mm. @ 0 degrees @ 100 metres) ammunition wasn't available until early 1940. This meant the guns lacked the punch to deal with Polish armour at ranges over 500 metres with good odds of a first round penetration result if a hit was scored.
Polish tanks facing them:
Vickers 6 Tonner = 13mm.
7TP = 17mm.
FT-17 = 22mm.
R-35 = 34mm.
Historically the largest Polish tank formation deployed in a single attack was only 11 x Vickers 6 Ton tanks of which aftermath propaganda pictures exist.
A dire shortage of medium tanks such as Pz.III or the more useful Pz.IV of which a regiment may only have 2 or 3 available in the regimental command group for allocation on a priority basis. Overall armour support to infantry provided by Pz.I and Pz.II light tanks (the majority of the tank arm in 1939). This sees Pz.35(t) light tanks being utilised as ad hoc medium tanks, which they are not particularly suitable for.
The armour protection of German medium tanks being not good on the Pz.III (15mm.) and Pz.IV.A & B (20mm.) placing them inside the performance limits of Polish light and medium AT weaponry. Also making them extremely vulnerable to heavier Polish AT weaponry such as the 75mm. Schneider and 75mm. Puteaux field guns. The Pz.IV.C had 30mm, frontal armour so less vulnerable.
Lack of motorised transport for infantry, especially armoured transport. Infantry deployed before an attack may have already be exhausted. This explains the historical use of captured Polish civilian and military trucks.
Heavy artillery support not all mechanised so not always available due to rapid advancement of the front.
Polish heavy artillery is mainly rail based on armoured trains so is usually already hunted down and eliminated by the Luftwaffe.
That's not quite right what you're saying. Polish 7TP tanks were already partly equipped with radio devices, but not all tanks were modernized yet, because the Polish tank modernization program has just started. the Polish radio type 2N/C of the Polish 7TPjw tank was superior to the German radio at range with of 25 km. The radios used in German tanks had a range of 4 km. Tanks with radios were also fitted with an intercom for the crew, who were equipped with new type helmets with integral headphones. But only shortly before the war it was decided to equip all tanks with radio, but then it was already too late. Furthermore all polish tanks were equipped with the revolutionary reversible periscope G wz. 34. The Periscope was a revolutionary because it was the first device to allow the tank commander to have a 360-degree view from his turret. This was a decisive advantage due to a much better overview of the battlefield. Because if I see the enemy tank before the enemy sees me, I can destroy the enemy tank first. The German soldiers in the German tanks, on the other hand, mainly used five viewing slits to observe the battlefield. Americans and British have taken over the Polish tank Periscope then for their own tanks too! Unfortunately, the Germans also took over the Periscope from the captured Polish tanks after 1939. The Sowejtes did the same!
Also what you say about the Polish heavy artillery is bogus! The Polish army has heavy artillery at its disposal and the armored trains were just an addition! Because the Poles used the following heavy artillery:
120 mm wz.1878/09/31 and wz.1878/10/31 field guns
155 mm wz.1917 howitzer
220 mm wz.1932 heavy mortar
Lieber Bernhard ich würde dir gerne das Buch: „How the war was won“ von Phillips Payson O'Brien empfehlen. Ich habe es gerade durch und es hat meinen Blick auf die Luft und Seekriegsführung komplett verändert. Wenn man sich die Verluste von Personal ansieht dann hat die Ostfront/ Rote Armee die Wehrmacht ganz klar besiegt. Dies ist auch das aktuelle Bild das vom 2.Wk vorherrscht. Wenn man sich jedoch die Verluste von Material ansieht bekommt die Luftkriegsführung über Deutschland eine ganz andere Bedeutung. Das Buch lieferte daher einige sehr interessante Perspektiven und Denkanstöße. LG
Was oft übersehen wird, ist die Tatsache, dass die "einfachen" Siege gegen Polen und Frankreich die vollständige industrielle und personelle Mobilisierung verzögert haben. Wer sich die Industrieproduktion von 40/41 ansieht und die späteren enormen Mobilisierungserfolge (unterstützt durch Propaganda wie die Sportpalastrede 43), der muss sich wundern, wie die Sache ausgegangen wäre, wenn die Anstrengungen der Jahre 43 und 44 schon ernsthaft im Herbst 39 begonnen worden wären. 1939 und 1940 zusammen wurden weniger als 2500 (zweitausendfünfhundert) Panzer produziert. Keiner davon schwerer als 25 Tonnen. 1944 wurden knapp 19.000 (neunzehntausend) Panzer produziert, davon 5.000 über 40 Tonnen. Bei Flugzeugen, U-booten, Artillerie und leichten bis mittelschweren Infanteriewaffen sowie der personellen Mobilisierung sieht es ganz genauso aus. 10-20 "frische" Divisionen im Oktober '41 vor Moskau, teilweise ausgestattet mit einem Panzer um die 35 Tonnen, das hätte vermutlich die Entscheidung gegen die Sovietunion gebracht. Und das war leicht im Rahmen dessen, was die deutsche Volkswirtschaft hätte leisten können. Wenn man nur 39 auf totale Mobilmachung geschaltet hätte.
@@47Trumpet Hitler wurde zu übermütig. Er unterschätzte die Soviet Union und dachte "Man müsse nur die Tür eintreten und das verrottende System wird in sich zusammenfallen." Aber die Kampfbedingungen in Ost-Europa sind nun mal eine komplett andere Welt. Ich finde es sehr überraschend, dass die Wehrmacht überhaupt die großen sovietischen Städte Leningrad, Moskau und Stalingrad erreicht haben.
So sehe ich das zumindest
Und er hat den Willen der USA unterschätzt sich einzubringen. Zeitweilig waren zwei von drei Lastkraftwagen im aktiven Einsatz der Sowjetunion aus amerikanischen Beständen. Und die sowjetischen Jagdflugzeuge hatten größtenteils amerikanisches Leichtbenzin in den Tanks. Mehr als 10.000 Flugzeuge wurden der Sowjetunion über Alaska geliefert.
Great video, there's a little typo at 3:50 (mot). Or by German standards, satisfactory.
reminds me oporational reports in the IDF, even if it went perfectly there was always someone wrong to find
אתה בעד ההתנהגות הזאת בצה"ל ?
@@danieltsiprun8080 כן
The IDF took many military ideas and concept from the Wehrmacht. Considering their political surrounding and the nummerical strenght of their enemies it's quite obvious why this was so.
They can only stand their ground if they rely on technical but although educational superiority. And u cannot improve if u are not brutally honest in ur self-critique.
For a military that borrowed the Nazi themes of Master Race and Lebensraum and converted them to Chosen People and Promised land, what they would really share with the Nazis is an end.... Only worse given their crimes.
@@bravo45 hopefully not. Or do u think the Arabs could build a better state in that region? Lol.
Around 3:50 you bring out some interesting observations from the commanders. I once read some reports and memoirs from Wehrmacht troops during Wacht am Rhein and following which noted that when U.S. troops ran into their positions during and after the Ardennes offensive, German troops were somewhat confused as to why the Americans tended to either stop and fire wildly, or just hit the ground and never return fire at all.
They seem to have forgotten that they and/or their compadres did the same a few years earlier in Poland. (I know, it's not that simple, but I'm trying to not bang out 15 paragraphs on a YT comment... Fill in the minor details yourself.) Something about the possibility of getting shredded to pieces by MG's, rifles and explosions tends to make young kids do not-quite-what-the-top-brass-have-laid-out-on-paper during their first combat missions. Strange right?
Funny that the Allies declared war on Germany because of Poland but not on the USSR
In the American propaganda films "Why We Fight" series, the Soviet attack upon Poland and the subsequent occupation of eastern Poland (Which is still occupied by Ukraine today)is pawned off rather weakly as Stalin doing the Poles a favor by saving half the country from German occupation. The Katyn Forest massacre is never mentioned, altho it was probably known by the time the film was made.
Politics.
The German army attacking Poland in 39 was an army with out combat experience and one that kind of grew extremely from the 100.000 army of the Versailles treaty to the several million men force. Therefore there has to be several issues on all levels.
Indeed. A large portion of the German army did not have more than *2 weeks* of military training when the war begun. The tank force was almost entirly made up by obsolete weak panzer1 and semi-obsolete panzer 2.
And the German navy didn't have anything near the numbers of ships it was planned to have when the war begun according to plan-Z.
@@nattygsbord Uh, no. They had several hundred of modern Czech tanks, as well as III and IV types. Their tactics with them just sucked.
@@KuK137 About 120 35(T)s (two thirds broke down during the campaign) and I believe the only 38(T)s were with one Light Division 2nd? with a single tank battalion By the start of the war, only 78 38(T)s had been produced, probably not all combat ready for Poland
Franz Halder Chief of the German General Staff of the Army documents this fact in his war diary. "The Wehrmacht had been on the verge of a military logistical catastrophe in the Polish campaign. The happy ending after a few weeks saved her from having to stop the fight because of insufficient ammunition." Incidentally, it was claimed in the video that Poland was technologically far inferior to the Germans is nonsense! Many lies and myths are spread regarding Poland and WWII. A lying myth is that the Polish army was technologically completely inferior. In fact, I've already read that it has been absurdly claimed that the Polish Army was technologically at WWI level in 1939. In fact, the lie about technologically inferior weapons is being spread about all Polish weapons, including tanks. But it is a historical fact that German tanks were no better than Polish tanks in 1939. In any case the problem was for Poland not the quality but the quantity of weapons. The Polish 7TPjw 37-mm gun tanks were on the same technological level as the best German tanks in 1939! With zhe 37-mm gun the Polish 7TPjw tanks were able to destroy all German tanks from a greater distance. The German were not superior to the Polish 7TPjw-37 mm gun tanks. By the way, " jw" was the single-turret 7TP version in contrast to "dw" which was the twin-turreted version of the 7TP. But only 24 of this twin-turreted 7TP infantry support tanks were still in use in 1939. The 7TPjw was of course clearly superior to the most used German infantry support tanks Panzer I and II in 1939. The Panzers I only had a machine gun and no anti-tank gun. The Panzer II had a 20 mm auto-cannon, but it was primarily intended for firing explosive grenades against infantry and the gun was too weak for combat against tanks. Therefore the Panzer II with its 20 mm gun was not dangerous for 7TPjw! By the way, the polish 7TPjw tank, was 1st tank with diesel engine in Europe. So this tank was with lower fire risk if the tank was hit. In the upgraded version, the crew compartment was larger and the air-conditioning system was improved. The Poles learned from their experiences with regular 7TPjw, when used in training exercises, that crew comfort was important. Also the Polish radio type 2N/C of the Polish 7TPjw tank was superior to the German radio at range with of 25 km. The radios used in German tanks had a range of 4 km. Tanks with radios were also fitted with an intercom for the crew, who were equipped with new type helmets with integral headphones. But only shortly before the war it was decided to equip all tanks with radio, but then it was already too late. Furthermore all polish tanks were equipped with the revolutionary reversible periscope G wz. 34. The Periscope was a revolutionary because it was the first device to allow the tank commander to have a 360-degree view from his turret. This was a decisive advantage due to a much better overview of the battlefield. Because if I see the enemy tank before the enemy sees me, I can destroy the enemy tank first. The German soldiers in the German tanks, on the other hand, mainly used five viewing slits to observe the battlefield. Americans and British have taken over the Polish tank Periscope then for their own tanks too! Unfortunately, the Germans also took over the Periscope from the captured Polish tanks after 1939. The Sowejtes did the same! Indeed the Germans actually used more Czech-made main battle tanks in 1939 than German-made ones, but they weren't technologically superior to the Polish ones either. Consequently, the main battle tanks deployed by the Germans during the raid oo Poland in 1939 were not technologically superior to the Polish main battle tanks.
But were the TKS tankettes used by the Polish army proof of the backwardness of the Polish army? No, because the Polish 2 men machine gun tankettes were just as useful for infantry support against infantry as were the German Panzer I and II. The disadvantages compared to the Panzer I and II were outweighed by the advantages compared to the Panzer I and II.
By the way, Polish tankettes with 20 mm guns were also useful against all German tanks. Like the Panzer II, these Polish tankettes were equipped with a 20 mm gun, but the Polish Nkm wz.38 FK 20 mm autocannon was much more powerful than the 20 mm KwK 30 autocannon of the Panzer II. Therefore, the tankettes with the Polish 20 mm Nkm wz.38 FK autocannon could destroy all German tanks and this Polish gun has proven to be very effective against the German tanks during the September 1939 German raid on Poland. So this kind of polish tankettes were able to shoot all German tanks in 1939 also Panzer III und Panzer IV. This tankettes were only armored against machine gun fire and shrapnel but compared to the big tanks they were much more manoeuvrable and had a small silhouette thereby they were they were quick and small so hard to hit. So the Polish tankettes were not only difficult to hit by the enemy tanks but also by the German anti-tank defense and Air Force. The tankettes also had the advantage that the Commander had a much better view outside the vehicle. Because he had the revolutionary G wz. 34 periscope to disposal with advantages of which I have described in detail above. Only Polish tanks and tankettes had this decisive improvement in 1939. How dangerous these special Polish tankettes were one can see by the example of tankette's commander Roman Orlik and his "wingman". During the raid on Poland by Germany in September 1939 Roman Orlik and his "wingman"destroyed in one day 10 German tanks, including Panzers IV with TKS tankette armed with a 20mm autocannon. This UA-cam video describes the action of these Polish tank commander Edmund Roman Orlik and his "wingman": THE VERY 1ST TANK ACE OF WW2 - NOT A GERMAN OR RUSSIAN -SURPRISE Edmund Roman, Orlik World War II tank commander. ua-cam.com/video/szSiajjY20Q/v-deo.html The TKS tankettes armed with machine guns were just as useful for infantry support as the German infantry support tanks! So in 1939, the German tanks were not technological superior to the Polish tanks and tankettes as is often false claimed. The decisive factor was not the qualitative superiority but the numerical superiority of the German infantry support tanks. Because Poland had, the number depends on the source of information, only 500-700 TKS infantry support tankettes . (Wiki.588) In addition to infantry support, the Polish Army had also 24 twin-turreted 7TP tanks, 16 twin-turreted Mark E Type A, 102 Renault FT-17 and 24 NC27 53 R-35. So Poland had 719-919 tanks and 100 armored cars as well as for infantry support. The Germans, on the other hand, had as infantry support tanks 1,026 Panzer I 1,100 Panzer II and 198 Panzer IV and 1076 armored cars for infantry support when they raided Poland. The Germans outnumbered Poland more than 3 to 1 in armored infantry support vehicles. In fact, the Germans were victorious due to superior numbers of infantry supported by superior numbers of infantry support vehicles and supported by a superior numbers of air forces. So the Germans didn't win because the Germans had technologically superior weapons and also not because the Germans used blitzkrieg tactics in the fight against Poland, which is often falsely claimed. Because in order to fight with Blitzkrieg strategy, the German army would have had to use many more main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. So comparing the German stock of main battle tanks with the Polish stock in 1939 makes it clear that the Germans could not fight a Blitzkrieg with so few main battle tanks. Poland had in the war against Germany, the number depends on the source of information, 149-170 (Wiki 149) 7TPjw, 13 9TP and 22 47-mm gun Mark E Type B main battle tanks. The 9TP was a modified 7TPjw other tanks were also being developed in Poland, which shows that Poland was not inferior to the Germans technologically in tank construction in 1939. So when the Germans were raided Poland, the Polish army had 184 main battle tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, used a total of 267 main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. That was 98 Panzer III and captured 112 Czech Panzer 35(t) and 57 Panzer 38(t). So in 1939 against Poland the Germans didn't have enough main battle tanks for a blitzkrieg. The Germans also had 198 Panzer VIs bu this were for fighting infantry. Because the Panzer IV had as main armament, the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm gun which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells against infantry. The Panzer IV's main ammunition was to be high-explosive shells, designed to engage enemy anti-tank artillery and infantry from long ranges of up to 6 km. Due to the low initial speed of the projectiles due to the short barrel and the resulting strongly curved trajectory, destroying a 7PT hardly possible. Although the Panzer IV was able to destroy Polish tankettes, they were difficult to hit due to their small size and maneuverability. Also, the Panzer IV's gun was not designed to aim accurately at moving targets. So because the Germans did not have enough main battle tanks, a blitzkrieg against Poland was not possible either! Indeed, the Germans were superior in terms of infantry support tanks Panzer I and II. In fact, the Germans defeated Poland with the use of infantry supported by Panzer I and II additional support from the numerically superior German air force.
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But were the TKS tankettes used by the Polish army proof of the backwardness of the Polish army? No, because the Polish 2 men machine gun tankettes were just as useful for infantry support against infantry as were the German Panzer I and II. The disadvantages compared to the Panzer I and II were outweighed by the advantages compared to the Panzer I and II. By the way, Polish tankettes with 20 mm guns were also useful against all German tanks. Like the Panzer II, these Polish tankettes were equipped with a 20 mm gun, but the Polish Nkm wz.38 FK 20 mm autocannon was much more powerful than the 20 mm KwK 30 autocannon of the Panzer II. Therefore, the tankettes with the Polish 20 mm Nkm wz.38 FK autocannon could destroy all German tanks and this Polish gun has proven to be very effective against the German tanks during the September 1939 German raid on Poland. So this kind of polish tankettes were able to shoot all German tanks in 1939 also Panzer III und Panzer IV. This tankettes were only armored against machine gun fire and shrapnel but compared to the big tanks they were much more manoeuvrable and had a small silhouette thereby they were they were quick and small so hard to hit. So the Polish tankettes were not only difficult to hit by the enemy tanks but also by the German anti-tank defense and Air Force. The tankettes also had the advantage that the Commander had a much better view outside the vehicle. Because he had the revolutionary G wz. 34 periscope to disposal with advantages of which I have described in detail above. Only Polish tanks and tankettes had this decisive improvement in 1939. How dangerous these special Polish tankettes were one can see by the example of tankette's commander Roman Orlik and his "wingman". During the raid on Poland by Germany in September 1939 Roman Orlik and his "wingman"destroyed in one day 10 German tanks, including Panzers IV with TKS tankette armed with a 20mm autocannon. This UA-cam video describes the action of these Polish tank commander Edmund Roman Orlik and his "wingman": THE VERY 1ST TANK ACE OF WW2 - NOT A GERMAN OR RUSSIAN -SURPRISE Edmund Roman, Orlik World War II tank commander. ua-cam.com/video/szSiajjY20Q/v-deo.html The TKS tankettes armed with machine guns were just as useful for infantry support as the German infantry support tanks! So in 1939, the German tanks were not technological superior to the Polish tanks and tankettes as is often false claimed. The decisive factor was not the qualitative superiority but the numerical superiority of the German infantry support tanks. Because Poland had, the number depends on the source of information, only 500-700 TKS infantry support tankettes . (Wiki.588) In addition to infantry support, the Polish Army had also 24 twin-turreted 7TP tanks, 16 twin-turreted Mark E Type A, 102 Renault FT-17 and 24 NC27 53 R-35. So Poland had 719-919 tanks and 100 armored cars as well as for infantry support. The Germans, on the other hand, had as infantry support tanks 1,026 Panzer I 1,100 Panzer II and 198 Panzer IV and 1076 armored cars for infantry support when they raided Poland. The Germans outnumbered Poland more than 3 to 1 in armored infantry support vehicles. In fact, the Germans were victorious due to superior numbers of infantry supported by superior numbers of infantry support vehicles and supported by a superior numbers of air forces. So the Germans didn't win because the Germans had technologically superior weapons and also not because the Germans used blitzkrieg tactics in the fight against Poland, which is often falsely claimed. Because in order to fight with Blitzkrieg strategy, the German army would have had to use many more main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. So comparing the German stock of main battle tanks with the Polish stock in 1939 makes it clear that the Germans could not fight a Blitzkrieg with so few main battle tanks. Poland had in the war against Germany, the number depends on the source of information, 149-170 (Wiki 149) 7TPjw, 13 9TP and 22 47-mm gun Mark E Type B main battle tanks. The 9TP was a modified 7TPjw other tanks were also being developed in Poland, which shows that Poland was not inferior to the Germans technologically in tank construction in 1939. So when the Germans were raided Poland, the Polish army had 184 main battle tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, used a total of 267 main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. That was 98 Panzer III and captured 112 Czech Panzer 35(t) and 57 Panzer 38(t). So in 1939 against Poland the Germans didn't have enough main battle tanks for a blitzkrieg. The Germans also had 198 Panzer VIs bu this were for fighting infantry. Because the Panzer IV had as main armament, the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm gun which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells against infantry. The Panzer IV's main ammunition was to be high-explosive shells, designed to engage enemy anti-tank artillery and infantry from long ranges of up to 6 km. Due to the low initial speed of the projectiles due to the short barrel and the resulting strongly curved trajectory, destroying a 7PT hardly possible. Although the Panzer IV was able to destroy Polish tankettes, they were difficult to hit due to their small size and maneuverability. Also, the Panzer IV's gun was not designed to aim accurately at moving targets. So because the Germans did not have enough main battle tanks, a blitzkrieg against Poland was not possible either! Indeed, the Germans were superior in terms of infantry support tanks Panzer I and II. In fact, the Germans defeated Poland with the use of infantry supported by Panzer I and II additional support from the numerically superior German air force.
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In my digging around and researching for a game I am making, I learnt that post-Poland, the OKH completely reorganised infantry formations right down to the gruppe (squad) and zug (platoon) level, reforming from quite large squads of up to 13 soldiers, with three squads forming a platoon, to smaller 8 to 9 man squads with four squads to a platoon, also starting to disseminate Mp38s and Mp40s to infantry squad leaders.
I hadn't quite figured out why, but, this video illuminated me to the answer to that question. :)
In comparison to the WW1 examples, isn't Poland's terrain easier to invade than Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Poland
yes
Its free real estate - meme.
I've read that the main setback of Wehrmacht was the amount of equipment lost during the Polish campaign. Almost 1/4 of Luftwaffe was ether heavily damaged or permanently destroyed. Germany lost quite a few tanks and a lot of light vehicles. I remember that I've read that Hitler had to postpone the invasion of France because of the loses in equipment.
Now imagine the Polish Military having near equal amount of equipment and men and not having to fight the Soviet Union.
@@plzfixwolves955 Polish politicians failed in 1933-1939, just as English politicians failed in 2004-2019 which led to Brexit referendum
@@ireneuszpyc6684 tak łatwo powiedziec ze politycy zawiedli.Jesli mam wybrac jednego polaka ostanich 100 lat to bedzie R.Dmowski
@@wiktoriapachocka7293 To dobrze, że nikt Cię o taką opinię nie pytał. Nie piszę tego w kontekście wojenki między stronnictwami Dmowskiego i Piłsudskiego, chce tylko zaznaczyć, że w samym okresie międzywojennym znajdzie się wiele postaci, które zrobiły dla sprawy Polskiej więcej od Dmowskiego, o ostatnim wieku nawet nie wspominam. Jeśli ktoś jest zafascynowany radykalnym nacjonalizmem, a w zasadzie szowinizmem to rzeczywiście Dmowski może być dla niego bożkiem, ale na szczęście tacy ludzie są w mniejszości.
@@janherburodo8070 Elity zawsze są mniejszością.
Great Video! From a military point of view, in my personal analysis, three main factors contributed to the Polish defeat:
• 1) The overwhelming German superiority ( obviously). While Poland had 39 divisions ( most of which with completely obsolete equipments), the Wehrmacht, on the other hand, had 66 complete divisions distributed into five great armies: Johannes Blaskowitz's 8th Army ( whose primary mission was to drive eastward against Lodz), Wilhelm List's 14th Army ( whose primary mission was to push on towards Kraków), Walter von Reichenau's 10th Army ( whose mission was to deliver the decisive blow with a northeastward thrust into the heart of Poland), Küchler's 3rd Army and, finally, Kluge's 4th Army. Moreover, the Poles had only about 200 tanks for the immediate support of the infantry.
• 2) Poland fought a war on two fronts. In addition to the Germans in the west, there was still the Soviet invasion in the east. The Soviets, on the other hand, invaded Poland with seven armies: Vasily Kuznetsov's 3rd Army; Ivan Zakharkin's 10th Army; Vasily Chuikov's 4th Army; Nikifor Medvedev's 11th Army; Felipp Golikov's 6th Army; Ivan Sovetnikov's 5th Army and Ivan Tyulenev's 12th Army. Altogether, the Soviets deployed 33 divisions during the Polish campaign. The Poles, therefore, faced a total of 99 enemy divisions!!
• 3) The lack of a more decisive action of France and England. Instead of launching a massive offensive against Western Germany during the Polish campaign, the French, in turn, opted to launch only a limited offensive through the German region/state of Saarland. From a military point of view, the Polish campaign would be an excellent opportunity for the Allies to apply Napoleon's greatest maxim: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" ( "N'interrompez jamais un ennemi qui est en train de faire un erreur"). Rather than launching only a limited offensive in the Saar region, Gamelin and the Anglo-French Supreme War Council should have ordered a general offensive through the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia/Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rhineland-Palatinate/ Rheinland-Pfalz; Saarland and Baden-Württenberg. While Général D'Armée Prételat's 2nd French Army Group, for exemple, had about 40 divisions available along the western border, the Wehrmacht, on the other hand, had only 22 divisions on the western border ( under the responsibility of Witzleben's 1st Army). The bulk of the Wehrmacht ( including 90% of the Luftwaffe), therefore, was completely concentrated and committed with the Polish campaign. The Allied offensive towards Western Germany, in other words, would be VITAL to Poland's survival. Although the advance penetrated 30 Kilometers ( 20 miles) through the Saar region, the Allied offensive was completely halted after the fall of Poland. All of these factors combined, in turn, resulted in three main consequences:
• 1) The beginning of the so-called "Phoney War"/"Drôle de Guerre"/"Sitzkrieg".
• 2) The annihilation of Poland itself.
• 3) The fulfillment of Ferdinand Foch's "prophecy" at Versailles ( 1919): "This is not peace, it is an armistice of twenty years" ( "ce n'est pas une paix, c'est un armistice de vingt ans").
Yuri Brito The Germans had a geographical advantage as well, because Poland was almost encircled by Germany.
@@monkeydank7842 Exactly!
Yes!! I actually read all of your comment. Well done!!🙂🙂
That's correct.It was no win situation since sept 1st. 1939.It's hard to find foreigners who know this history well.
That's all true (mostly, I think). But Poland did not do particularly well either. I'm a Pole, so I'm not accusing "them" of doing badly. I'm accusing us. Because we've failed.
This information is interesting and something I have never heard before. Thank you.
This reminds me of a documentary called "The Somme 1916 - From both sides of the wire" which mentioned that German Officers were expected to make after action reports of what worked and did not work in battle. So by the sounds of it, this practice continued through to WW2. If that is the case it might also be interesting to see how far back this culture goes.
I believe it goes back at least to either Frederick the Great or the reforms from 1812 onwards.
”poland had not a modern army”
while the 7TP was better then 80% of the german tank army.
ikr
Yes, but there wee only 2 batallions of them.
Thing that I read based of evaluation of the sources couple of decades about the war by historians is that relatively the German blitzkrieg in Poland was slower than in both France (1940) and Soviet Union (1941). Of course part of it is experience and better equipment of the Germans but it also shows the determined defense of the Polish army, considering it was weaker than French and Soviet forces, as well as Poland had worse borders and suffered the Soviet invasion on 9/17. Tanks rolled 25km a day in Poland, 35km a day in France and 30km a day in Russia (Rosolak, 2006). So the popular idea that German army just steamrolled through Poland and it was quickly over is unfounded. Poland also did posses modern equipement like the 7TP tanks and the modernized cavalry proved quite succesful even against panzers (when dismounting and using anti-tank rifles and guns) like in the battle of Mokra, the problem was insufficient numbers of this good equipement and being outnumbered. Germans often lost more tanks and AVFs than they destroyed during battles (like in battles of Jordanów or Tomaszów Lubelski). The biggest discrepency was probably in the air force, where Poland was severly lacking.
I dont think it fair to say Poland lacked modern weaponry, or count it on the same level as Serbia or Rumania.
It had equipment roughly on par with the Nazis, save for maybe artillery not being fully modernized, and it was much more milityrily capable than any of the aforementioned powers.
That depends infantry equipment was on par or in some cases better on polish side but poland had not sufficient numbers of tanks and anti air guns and polish airforce was not only much less numerous but also obsolete. What is also important is that do to pressure from western allies polish army wasnt even mobilised and do to german air supperiority it never got to be fully mobilised as soldiers never reached their units. If polish army was indeed mobilised the campain would be much harder for germans but even than prabably air supperiority and advantage in number of tanks would ensure german victory but slower and more costly one.
@@MrMleczkp Not really, russians attacking from other side did. Without that attack could have stopped on Warsaw.
@@MrMleczkp Imagine if Poland was both allowed to mobilize and supported by the British and French navies which would secure Danzig and a transit point for their own air forces and heavy weapons deliveries. Poland might never have fallen. Britain and France could have moved troops, artillery, tanks, and aircraft into Poland before it was invaded, and thus actually honoured their alliance. Instead not only was Poland betrayed by the west in the beginning of the war, it was also betrayed and abandoned after the end as the Soviets were allowed dominion over Eastern Europe without contest.
@@cattraknoff Merely delusions of grandeur.
These scenarios only hold on 'if's and 'might's. Same can be said and dreamed about any country..
@@cattraknoff They didn't need to hold Danzig due to the Romanian Bridgehead.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Bridgehead
"I don't know how, but you used the wrong formula and got the right answer"
In that case should the teacher mark it as correct or wrong?
@@joevenespineli6389 If it's only mistakes that lead you to the correct answer then you should get no points for that task.
I think this was largely just a natural response to the fact that the German army was only recently expanded. There was a corps of people and units with greater training (and WWI experience, at least among officers and NCO's) and a large number of recently inducted and less more thoroughly trained soldiers. It would have been both easy and logical to look at the comparative performance of these units and then consider how to bring the lesser performing units up to speed. Remember too that it is one thing to train people to march, shoot and salute, but quite another to teach units how to both act and react to things that take place on the battlefield. And then too the problems of getting all those disparate units to train to coordinate quickly and efficiently on the battlefield while things are happening on the fly. Think of it as grading an exam on the curve. It quickly becomes obvious where the strong and weak points lie.
The Soviets were on the short end of this stick for a couple of reasons, one being the systematic elimination of a large number of experienced individuals for political reasons. The unit coordination, and also using combined arms, are all upper level skill levels the require much longer training. So it was that it took the Soviets a year or two to start getting these things right. At the same time, the loss of men with acquired skills by attrition in the German Army tended to significantly denigrate that army's ability to maintain these larger skill levels over time. Hence the awareness of the German military to the need for using experienced men in training schools.
I think though that there is also something to be said for the German higher level officers to have something of the feeling of being a private club with more or less guaranteed membership. Even getting sacked for poor performance did not necessarily mean that your career was at an end. There are many notable examples of this. Getting sacked in the US army though was generally the guaranteed end of your career, not so much in the American Civil War, but much more so in WWII.
I know you will never see because of how old this video is but you are awesome! You are doing my dream job. I am a History aficionado specifically European history and Japanese history despite being an American. ( Our history is boring except in war time) I would love to just speak about history and be able to pay my bills. Keep it up brother!!!!!!!!!!!! You are very very knowledgeable.
thank you, in UA-cam I have a comment view that shows all the comments in chronological order independent of the videos, so I see "all" that are not answers to other comments.
Let us not forget the 700+ German tanks lost during the campaign
Total losses? Or does that include temporary immobilizations?
@@Tribute7373 Completely destroyed or requiring major overhaul in a factory.
What, were that number from?
@@Tribute7373 Of those something like 230 were total losses.
SouthParkCows88 from this channel
Instead of "Like" and "Dislike" buttons, MHV should have "Did not Dislike" and "Do a Correction Video" buttons.
Well, it was a huge success, overall, in that Poland was overwhelmed and conquered in a month. But, given the M-R pact, that was always going to happen, Germany and the Soviet Union just had overwhelming strength. Unless the French had attacked in the West and diverted a large amount of the German army, there was no way Germany was going to fail to conquer it's segment of Poland. However, knowing that they were going to have to go up against France and Britain soon, far larger and better equipped enemies, of course the Wermacht had to look for every improvement possible and take a cold hard look at tactics and performance. Few people these days realise what an amazing and unexpected success the invasion of France was. Had the Germans not made major improvements, they would likely have lost in France. If the invasion had been held up by just a few days at some of the key Belgian check lines, or at the breakout from the Sedan, it may well have allowed the superior allied forces to reorganise and react to contain the German offensive and force then into a longer war which they were far less prepared for than they had been in 1914. They were a week away from running out of heavy artillery shells and aircraft spares in particular, whereas the allies had a far better logistical, production, and economic situation that would have probably doomed the Germans had they not achieved such a rapid breakthrough in 1940.
The lack of sustained combat capability is why Meinstein's plan got approved. Fighting a WW1 style frontal war would have resulted in Germany losing, so they embraced something much more radical.
Gemany then defeated France in three week despite maginote line.
I believe that the French and English were afraid to really fight the Germans after Poland. The evidence being; Not attacking when Poland was attacked, and the long drawn out "phoney war" after Polands defeat. It would have been better for all, if the biggest land army had put up a better fight.(French land army)
We should all despise cowardice, I know that because i have been a coward. So, buck folks, get ready to fight....FOR FREEDOM!
In any case, the Germans would have lost this war in 1939 if the French, with British support, had launched a massive attack in the west, as had been agreed with Poland. In 1939 there was a good opportunity for a relatively quick victory against Germany. Because the Germans were too weak for a two-front war. For victory over Germany the British and French should have only acted according to the plan worked out with Poland for the event of a German raid on Poland. But instead, these alleged Polish allies did not attack and betrayed Poland.
But were the TKS tankettes used by the Polish army proof of the backwardness of the Polish army? No, because the Polish 2 men machine gun tankettes were just as useful for infantry support against infantry as were the German Panzer I and II. The disadvantages compared to the Panzer I and II were outweighed by the advantages compared to the Panzer I and II. By the way, Polish tankettes with 20 mm guns were also useful against all German tanks. Like the Panzer II, these Polish tankettes were equipped with a 20 mm gun, but the Polish Nkm wz.38 FK 20 mm autocannon was much more powerful than the 20 mm KwK 30 autocannon of the Panzer II. Therefore, the tankettes with the Polish 20 mm Nkm wz.38 FK autocannon could destroy all German tanks and this Polish gun has proven to be very effective against the German tanks during the September 1939 German raid on Poland. So this kind of polish tankettes were able to shoot all German tanks in 1939 also Panzer III und Panzer IV. This tankettes were only armored against machine gun fire and shrapnel but compared to the big tanks they were much more manoeuvrable and had a small silhouette thereby they were they were quick and small so hard to hit. So the Polish tankettes were not only difficult to hit by the enemy tanks but also by the German anti-tank defense and Air Force. The tankettes also had the advantage that the Commander had a much better view outside the vehicle. Because he had the revolutionary G wz. 34 periscope to disposal with advantages of which I have described in detail above. Only Polish tanks and tankettes had this decisive improvement in 1939. How dangerous these special Polish tankettes were one can see by the example of tankette's commander Roman Orlik and his "wingman". During the raid on Poland by Germany in September 1939 Roman Orlik and his "wingman"destroyed in one day 10 German tanks, including Panzers IV with TKS tankette armed with a 20mm autocannon. This UA-cam video describes the action of these Polish tank commander Edmund Roman Orlik and his "wingman": THE VERY 1ST TANK ACE OF WW2 - NOT A GERMAN OR RUSSIAN -SURPRISE Edmund Roman, Orlik World War II tank commander. ua-cam.com/video/szSiajjY20Q/v-deo.html The TKS tankettes armed with machine guns were just as useful for infantry support as the German infantry support tanks! So in 1939, the German tanks were not technological superior to the Polish tanks and tankettes as is often false claimed. The decisive factor was not the qualitative superiority but the numerical superiority of the German infantry support tanks. Because Poland had, the number depends on the source of information, only 500-700 TKS infantry support tankettes . (Wiki.588) In addition to infantry support, the Polish Army had also 24 twin-turreted 7TP tanks, 16 twin-turreted Mark E Type A, 102 Renault FT-17 and 24 NC27 53 R-35. So Poland had 719-919 tanks and 100 armored cars as well as for infantry support. The Germans, on the other hand, had as infantry support tanks 1,026 Panzer I 1,100 Panzer II and 198 Panzer IV and 1076 armored cars for infantry support when they raided Poland. The Germans outnumbered Poland more than 3 to 1 in armored infantry support vehicles. In fact, the Germans were victorious due to superior numbers of infantry supported by superior numbers of infantry support vehicles and supported by a superior numbers of air forces. So the Germans didn't win because the Germans had technologically superior weapons and also not because the Germans used blitzkrieg tactics in the fight against Poland, which is often falsely claimed. Because in order to fight with Blitzkrieg strategy, the German army would have had to use many more main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. So comparing the German stock of main battle tanks with the Polish stock in 1939 makes it clear that the Germans could not fight a Blitzkrieg with so few main battle tanks. Poland had in the war against Germany, the number depends on the source of information, 149-170 (Wiki 149) 7TPjw, 13 9TP and 22 47-mm gun Mark E Type B main battle tanks. The 9TP was a modified 7TPjw other tanks were also being developed in Poland, which shows that Poland was not inferior to the Germans technologically in tank construction in 1939. So when the Germans were raided Poland, the Polish army had 184 main battle tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, used a total of 267 main battle tanks in the fight against Poland. That was 98 Panzer III and captured 112 Czech Panzer 35(t) and 57 Panzer 38(t). So in 1939 against Poland the Germans didn't have enough main battle tanks for a blitzkrieg. The Germans also had 198 Panzer VIs bu this were for fighting infantry. Because the Panzer IV had as main armament, the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm gun which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells against infantry. The Panzer IV's main ammunition was to be high-explosive shells, designed to engage enemy anti-tank artillery and infantry from long ranges of up to 6 km. Due to the low initial speed of the projectiles due to the short barrel and the resulting strongly curved trajectory, destroying a 7PT hardly possible. Although the Panzer IV was able to destroy Polish tankettes, they were difficult to hit due to their small size and maneuverability. Also, the Panzer IV's gun was not designed to aim accurately at moving targets. So because the Germans did not have enough main battle tanks, a blitzkrieg against Poland was not possible either! Indeed, the Germans were superior in terms of infantry support tanks Panzer I and II. In fact, the Germans defeated Poland with the use of infantry supported by Panzer I and II additional support from the numerically superior German air force.
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If you believe the upper echelons of German command were always open and willing to listen to criticism, you should try reading 'Spitfire on my Tail' by Ulrich Steinhilper. Students of what really went on in the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe in the early stages of WW2 will find that book an enlightening read in terms of just how much bluffing went on in the early German campaigns when it came to equipment levels, logistics and employing good communications.
It gives an interesting perspective on how Steinhilpher, as an 'average joe' Luftwaffe bf109 pilot, found his bosses (and in particular, Adolf Galland) often intransigent and sometimes downright spiteful when it came to listening to subordinates offering suggestions for tactical improvements, notably the use of radios in aircraft to communicate with ground forces and fellow pilots in the case of Steinhilper, who was his unit's communications officer. This was often to the detriment of line pilots, and in particular wingmen, who suffered greatly in terms of combat losses whilst the 'superstar' fighter pilots such as Galland - whom the Nazis feted with publicity in military magazines such as Signal and Der Adler - were more concerned with racking up their own scores and furthering their own careers than working on improving their tactical capabilities overall.
I find you can learn a lot by reading biographies and autobiographies of the average guys at the front, rather than simply concentrating on the more numerous books by the big names of WW2, who often received preferential treatment and thus give a skewed perspective of what things were like for the average soldier. This sort of thing was certainly not limited to the German side either, all sides indulged in it: USAAF pilot Richard Bong - the top scoring US fighter pilot of WW2 with 40 confirmed victories - was quite open about the fact that he, being propaganda-worthy, was given postings where there would be somewhat easier opportunities for him to increase his victory tally against the Japanese, and he said he was often given preferential treatment when it came to equipment.
Did a video on Luftwaffe logistics in the early days of my main channel and that wouldn't sound too off.
And I also have a video recorded on who lied more regular guys or the higher ups. Also fun fact, if I am not mistaken even in Vietnam there were still radio issues between army and air force that stuff is a bit like "the boys will be home at Christmas".
@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized If you are interested in the communications between Air Force and ground troops in Vietnam in terms of co-operation for close air support, I can recommend the book 'A Lonely Kind of War' by Marshall Harrison. Harrison was a Forward Air Controller pilot on the OV-10 Bronco in the Vietnam War, and his book, which is an entertaining read, gives a good impression of just how difficult a job it was to be operating several different radio sets, all whilst spotting and marking targets in order to guide fast moving jets onto bombing runs in close contact with troops on the ground. If I recall correctly, there were three different radios in the cockpit of his OV-10 to allow all that communication to take place, but of course his was an aircraft specialised for the task, whereas troops on the ground and jet pilots overhead would not be able to communicate at all and had to go through him in order to co-operate. You never see that portrayed much in war movies, everyone just calls up whomever they want on one radio lol.
Learning from a failure means it's not a complete failure. Learning from their success means it was a greater success for the German military.
Then again, these successes meant they became overconfident, and we all know how that went.
Germans were preparing for this war months before case white. They made a warm up in spanish civil war how new conflict will look. They re-militarized and annexed a lot of new territories, getting a more of equipment and new man and labour power. They just throw almost all of military potential in Poland. Making polish troops disorganized by daily and night bombing raids. Also fighters were creating havoc among civilians and military columns. The polish troops were lacking on the rest and good HD decisions. People are overestimating Poland and it's military in interwar period. Germans did the same. They didn't expected this kind of resistance. I'm pretty sure if Soviets didn't invade Poland after 17th of September. German troops will broke their teets, while polish army regroup from the east and set up more proper defensive positions. Also Poles had so strong will to fight, which helps them through ww2. I would call case white a failure for both armies.
" I'm pretty sure if Soviets didn't invade Poland after 17th of September. German troops will broke their teets, while polish army regroup from the east and set up more proper defensive positions" Nah, Poland will still fall to Nazi Germany but it will take slightly longer. The best chance Poland has is if they can hold out two more weeks than they did in real history because by then the German stocks of shells and ammo will be depleted and the Germans can't very well fire rocks or dirt from their cannons can they?
For that to happen the French must maintain their Saar offensive and the British support them with their RAF bomber command (even if the British can't field any army divisions fast enough in 1939).
Stalin only decided to invade Poland to seize his "buffer zone" against Nazi Germany when it became clear to him neither France nor Great Britain were going to come to the aid of Poland.
Here's the bad part. The industrialized and weapon producing parts of Poland are almost entirely in the western part facing Germany. Once those fell Poland had little chance producing war material to continue the war even if they had managed to make a new defense line in the east.
Franz Halder Chief of the German General Staff of the Army documents this fact in his war diary. "The Wehrmacht had been on the verge of a military logistical catastrophe in the Polish campaign. The happy ending after a few weeks saved her from having to stop the fight because of insufficient ammunition."
Nice video, but you should also mention the lack of coordination between the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht
Well in the first cases of the war Luftwaffe and Heer had great coordination between each other but after middle of the war that completely broken.
@@erichvonmanstein1952 Erich Von Manstein can I ask were you what are the basis of your statment that the " Luftwaffe and Heer had great coordination between each other ". At the end of the polish campaign the relations at the level of the high command were very strained between the luftwaffe and the army. It was exactly because of the polish campaign that it was decided to attach a luftwaffe officer to army units in order to improve the coordination of the ground support. Also the losses of the luftwaffe were incredibly high (blue on blue)
After navel battle analysis during the Guadalcanal campaign allowed the US Navy to steadily improve against the superior Japanese Navy. Weeding out ineffective senior commanders & improving tactics involving combined arms & services turned the US Navy into a formidable force.
Bernhard, you NEED to read Jörg Muth's "Command Culture", to learn more on what you scratch the surface of here.
You can start by watching his lecture on the subject here on UA-cam.
Did any of german reports states that Polish military fail to mobilize their troops. Poles wasn't able to construct of proper defense because of that. Win it's not only when you did everything properly but when enemy make a mistakes. Did anyone of high command put any thought to that.
Thanks for the video. So I hope you will continue this chain of thought to the invasion of Russia. Was the Army still being critical of its performance and evaluations.?
Enjoy your thoughtful observations. One point about the expression carrot and stick. It is a reference to an unattainable goal as a draft animal pursues a carrot dangling in front of him on a stick.
The self-critisim can also be seen when technological achievments where discussed in Germany, all the flaws in German tank and aircraft design are well documented, but for the US and Russia those information are often missing.
Wrong. Both American and Soviet intel about their own tanks and planes listened to both praise and critique. I'd say the opposite applies to German tanks from 1942 onward. Reports of German tanks being difficult and time-consuming to service and maintain in the field were roundly ignored by the nazis who believe the German spirit would overcome such "difficulties". I'd say the Soviets were particularly pragmatic when it came to designing their weapons for a long war of attrition. For starters they did understand that freezing cold temperatures could render some over-engineered weapons useless.
Propaganda existed on all sides and they exaggerated the excellence and superiority of their own weapons. That being said all sides listened to reports of disgruntled soldiers, pilots and tank crews.
American pilots accurately reported the strength and weaknesses of Japanese fighter planes in comparison to their own.
Question: How big a factor was breaking the German and Japanese codes in winning or at least shortening the war? It seems if you know a lot about what the enemy is going to do, that has to be a huge advantage
The Germans thought their Enigma machine was an unbreakable code so they used it throughout the war. It was a major factor at sea helping the western allies especially against submarines. It’s estimated that it shortened the war by a year saving a German city from atomic bombing
And a very frustrating advantage, as you can not overuse it.
Your opponent is going to notice you seem to know too much about their moves to be attributed to luck, good recon and intelligence. Especially given some of that information couldn't be reached without decrypting your messages.
Leading to the conclusion that you know your enemy's codes. And therefore you can be robbed out of that advantage by 1. changing the codes to something you don't know, 2. using the codes your enemy knows you know to feed you misinformation (which, again, can de done either very, very carefully, on a small scale, or for a rather short period of time, before you realise your enemy knows you know their codes and is feeding you false news).
I found Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" a fascinating (if fictional... for the most part) book dealing with this problem. I do sincerely recommend it :)
All that "We know their codes. And we do know they know we know these. But they don't know that we do know they know we know..." :D
Sadly I am not an expert on the matter, but the breaking of the Enigma certainly helped the Allies big time. Just to remind you, not only the Kriegsmarine used it, but ALL German forces. Also, the Germans actually noticed something wasn't right and tried to find out if it was the Enigma. They thought they found something that made it easier to break the code, fixed it...and it turned out they had actually made it easier for ULTRA to break the codes by "fixing" it.
To be honest German counter intelligence was shit during WW2 in general, simply sending out a message about two uboat supply ships meeting somewhere in the Atlantic, surveilling the position and then seeing a dozen hunter killer groups converging on the coordinates would have made clear the Enigma wasn't safe anymore.
Enigma was cracked before the war by polish mathematicians. German intelligence found out and added another level of encryption. Also the Kriegsmarine enigmas were a bit different to the other ones. The polish guy(s) made it to the UK, and that experience as well as getting their hands on one helped the british to crack the encrpytion faster. Strategically a very big help when you know where your enemies are going to be. Not just on oceans to avoid them, but also to estimate enemies troop strength ect. on land and air.
@@nirfz Yeah, the Polish "bomba" was a huge success until they switched to the next version of the Enigma.
The Polish campaign used much oil. .The Battle of Britain depleted air power .
Makes you wonder how the war would have gone if the Poles mobilised earlier and took up defensive positions
@@MrWolfstar8 True but if the Poles could have forced a deadlock, the Soviets would probably wait for Germany and Poland to bleed themselves dry before intervening.
The Poles were in a great disadvantage from the start, regardless of anything they might have done to prepare. There was no good place for any defensive positions. The Poznan bulge and the Danzig corridor started more or less surrounded; adding Eastern Prussia and Czechoslovakia as invasion avenues for the Germans made it pretty much hopeless, and adding that a Soviet invasion had to be defended against as well made it completely hopeless. The Germans or Soviets could attack from literally any and all directions, and be victorious if any _one_ avenue succeed, as Poland did not have anywhere to fall back to. The best trained and equipped soldiers in the world at that time could not have beat back that invasion, and Poland was just a developing nation.
@@MrWolfstar8 The Soviets only entered "Polish territory" ONCE the Polish Government had gone running away to daddy (England). The Soviets did not even declare war on Poland considering that they were not even the governing State of these territories at that point. Even the British agreed to the Soviet "invasion" of these territories considering that they would be occupied without resistance by the Germans.
Also from the rise of Hitler to power to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact (the same kind of pact that England, France, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Denmark had with Nazi Germany) so 1933-1939, the Soviet Union tried to create different Accords between the European countries to ensure a lasting peace including but not limited to; promising to defend Czechoslovakia (1938) with France if Poland agreed to let Soviet troops pass on Polish soil (France delayed, Poland said fuck you) in the end France and England gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler in the hope that he would attack the Soviet Union and Poland went for a land grab at the same time as the Germans, promising to defend Poland (1938 also) with France and England (France and England delayed, Poland said fuck you) in the end France and England declared war and Germany and sat idly by with 110 divisions against 33 divisions for 8 months whilst the Germans invaded Poland, Denmark and Norway.
But I guess it's easier to teach people Commies bad (still bad now), Germans good but bad (ok now) and Us good (always good).
@@comrademcsalty7676 Well, the British and USA govrments did not like SU more than Germany do, they were not allies actually, they just happen to find in germany a common enemy, and USA knew that, once ended the WWII the new treat to face should be Stalin, after the finding of Holdomor, the SU and the Polis exile gov broke relations and that was the turning point to the USA to break relations too, in the V day, the SU and allies were already enemys just waiting the other makes the first move (wich turned on to be the wall of Berlin)
@@MrWolfstar8 i agree 50/50 but that last passage is just straight up wrong the allies wouldnt have won against germany without the soviets being at war with them, the allies had some trouble with the western forces of germany. now tripple that is what germany would have had without the eastern front. even if thrue some miracle the allies would have beaten germany theres absolutely no chance they would still have the power to beat the soviets afterwards.
There seems to be something about German culture in relation to criticism. Although it is apparently a different subject I watched a video by an American working in Germany about the differences he found. One was that American managers giving feedback to staff tended to start by praising the things they had got right and only then proceed to point out things they had got wrong and needed to improve. Whereas in Germany it was taken for granted that everyone should be doing their job to a high standard so there was no need to spend time acknowledging or thanking them for that, unless they had done something truly exceptional; feedback from a manager was otherwise entirely a list of things the employee was doing wrong and had to improve.
If you Start praising in Germany people will ask you "where is the Catch?" Still - praise exists. It is less, Not not-existing.
I am starting to wonder a bit... How do you support coordination between more branches of the army, for example attack by armor (branch number one) supported by infantry (branch number two) and CAS (branch number three).
Great video as always. Not a big fan of the outro music though ;)
In most countries honest self appraisal is not something taught in schools, and hasn't been in a long time. Too much emphasis on feel good and too little emphasis on performing well.
Can you imagine the campaign in the West if all the participants in Poland were given "participation medals" and the training afterward consisted of reward cupcakes. That is today's schooling in the US. If it doesn't change, the future does not look good.
That was quite a thought provoking video, thank you!
Really highlights the disparity between OKW and Hitler
Sie wollten die tatsächliche Kampfkraft der Armee nicht aus dem Auge verlieren
„Der Angriff Steiners wird alles richten“
EXCELLENT VIDEO!!!!!!
Failure? I would say warfare is simply victory goes to the side that fails the least. Failure is inevitable. War is chaos.
On the German information flow to and from the front:
From earlier videos by MH(n)V or Military Aviation History, I vaguely remember that the Luftwaffe kept pilots in combat until they were killed, depriving pilots-in-training of their experience. It might have been that this started later in the war.
Similarly, the Japanese Navy pilots seem to not have been cycled back to help with training.
The US did some cycling of various positions in the aircrews back to training commands, but I have only seen individual stories so I don't know the extent of this. This included pilots, gunners, navigators, bombadiers and possibly some in the ground crews.
For the Japanese it's actually the other way around: They had to cycle IN the veterans from the training schools to have enough pilots and those then got killed, depraving Japan from actual carrier pilot veterans to train the recruits.
I always wondered how this campaign would look if allies wouldn't stop early Polish mobilization. I mean, Germans would still most likely won, but the loses might have been way too huge to invade France later on. What if in history is fun :) good thing we have Hearts of Iron for such 'what ifs' ;)
Was this intensely critical spirit in the army part of German/Prussian tradition, or was it a new thing? I'd assume that the circumstances of the formation of the Wehrmacht could have had an effect here, since the army first suffered a catastrophic defeat, and then was almost completely disbanded, and was then quickly reformed almost two decades later. I feel that this could have been a moment of great purging of stale traditions and an influx of fresh ideas and embracing of relatively revolutionary currents in military operation and organization. The chains of honor and history were unshackled, so younger, more imaginative officers came to the forefront, while the old guard died off or retired without being able to pass on their influence directly. Doing things differently wasn't an affront to an old Generals practice anymore, and in any case, the old Generals were in part responsible for how the previous war turned out (weather in fact, or in spirit is quite irrelevant I feel).
Might the goals of the OKW who were stessing on troop performance at that time were lamenting the loss of what they hoped would be a swift and corrective spanking to the Poles, if done as a quick in and out incursion ...Instead of being duped into a all out war?
Poland had actually a good army back then it was 4th in europe if i remember good but the land was most plains so this is why Germany could invade quick cause Poland didnt have natrual borders and then soviets could invade quick to so yea . I think if Poland had more rivers or mountains Germany and Soviets wouldnt be so quick :P
4th in Europe?Lol Germans,French,Soviets and İtalians.I know İtalian Army was a joke but their army was certainly larger and better equipped than Polish one.
@@erichvonmanstein1952I know but there was a inside joke over italy in this comment :P
Kaz666 Kazek Yes :)
Nah it could have some soldiers and equipment but the commanders were mentaly in XIX century. Massive and cruel strike demolished population morale and so the victory was fast and splendid with almost no loses in manpower. Kids and civillians killed almost the same number of enemy soldier in Warsaw Uprising as the mighty counted in hundreds thousands, 4th in Europe army hah. We say in our country "nie boję się armii lwów dowodzone przez baranów tylko armii baranów dowodzonych przez lwy". Edwardz Rydz-Śmigły the commander in chief of Polish Army was a legendary "baran" ;)
An interesting new perspective.
Even if you succeed you can always perform better.
You can still win while looking like a fool. They though it was going to be easier than it was. Poland was in a better position than they realized. This is probably the best example of the psychological effects of Blitzkrieg taking an enemy down. Poland could've fought longer had it not been so "Blitzed".
I like your work and despite the fact that I have viewed the video in which you discuss the difference in combat readiness of German units between 1941 and 1942 the following question just came to me. Could it be possible that the experience accumulated during 1941 changed the criteria used by German officers to evaluate combat readiness. For example: they no longer expected to fight a short campaign. Could it be possible that units deemed ready for offensive combat operations in 1941 may not receive the same evaluation in 1942.
I know the combat readiness was instituted in 1939. Considering the extreme losses of the Germans in 1941 and the Soviet counter offensive, I don't think the evaluation criteria changed. Just look at the time of continuous fighting.
Military History not Visualized thank you for your response. I do not dispute that the combat operations conducted by the German army in 1941 were the main factor impacting the combat readiness assessment for 1942. However, considering that the victory march to Moscow has turned into an attrition war with no immediate end in sight, it seems reasonable that the combat readiness criteria may have changed too (for example changes regarding the amount of ammunition or fuel needed for combat operations). This is the reasoning behind my question and may be an interesting research.
@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized They "failed" because they won. How about that?
Carrots, Sticks, what about the celery?
That there might have been shortcomings in the campaign that would foreshadow the same weaknesses leading Germany to defeat in later campaigns does not mean that the Polish campaign was a failure.
Another great video. The fight is not supposed to be fair. If it is fair- it was poorly planed.
Poland was a stupid choice to attack.Not many resources and a brilliant shield against the Soviets had it been kept intact. Especially with British guarantees. Germany could have done much better with a southward turn to Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania. Even Bulgaria.
They might have even joined willingly, had oil, an exit to the Mediterranean and Libyan oil. Were there Allied guarantees for Yugoslavia in 1939?
I would say they were being pragmatic rather than critical.
The way you describe the Wehrmacht it sounds like you're talking about The Ever Victorious Army (the fictional one by Robert Jordan, not the real one).
There is a ERROR in the description! POLAND NEVER SURRENDER!
"Despite the military defeat, Poland never surrendered; instead it formed the Polish government-in-exile and a clandestine state apparatus remained in occupied Poland. A significant part of Polish military personnel evacuated to Romania and the Baltic countries; many of them would fight against the Axis in other theatres of the war."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
Polish forces were fighting whole war SAVING Great Britain from Luftwaffe!!!
P.S. I will NEVER understand WHY Brits and French didn't invade Germs, and didn't declare war on Soviets :/
Because declaring war on the Soviets is a bad idea?
The last thing in anyone's mind is to repeat the Great War that caused millions of casualties, both civilians and military personnel.
Fighting Hitler with both US and Soviet support took the British and the French about 6 years of fighting. Imagine now that they need to fight both the Nazis and the Soviets.
@@alexanderchristopher6237
You do not understand, don't you?
1. Nazi were REALLY WEAK (before they attack the Schweden and Denmark) and sundered after war in Poland.
2. Soviets were FEARING the Brits (not the islands alone, but also the Kanada, India Raj, Australia and huge amount of land in the Africa) Remember Japan was VERY unhappy about Soviets too.
3. Everyone remember also Russians draw back from the "Great War"
4. Both tea sippers and frogeaters were peace-loved pussies.
Instead of "strange war" they should go all out. Then was on the Soviets that they would won.
But on the other was the German High Command wasnt so critical about their own capabilities , when they planed the attack on the Soviet Union. Like several videos mentioned, they started to believe their own propaganda, because they managed to defeat France in a matter of weeks. Did something really change in the military, after they defeated France or did they stop being so critical about themselves?
'Department of Redundancy Department ' ahah nice one
In the US, unfortunately the e is this third category between hiding problems vs highlighting them and that is creating non existent problems and the using solutions to them to advance one's agenda.
For example we s e that in those who argue that the elections were rigged and then try to use that to bring in voter suppression.
Also nonexistent problems typically lend themselves to easy solutions in that they are not real problems and thus the "solution" to that nonexistent problem is just do something that might look like it might have helped on paper but in reality has no good effect and maybe a bad one and then change the spin and declare success and the take the credit for that success.
I have seen ambitious people whose ambition exceeds their abilities use this to rise rapidly through the ranks until they attain high level in management by that and by claiming credit for things others have achieved seem to work quite well hand in hand.
And in the US success is often valued more than truth so if something works it is of a secondary value to make sure the credit is given to those who deserve it and not instead to the ones who are good at stealing the credit form others.
But what seems to be the thing that defeats this is as Lincoln said (or my paraphrase of that) , you can fool some of the people all of the time, and some of the people part of the time but you can't fool all the people all the time, so that eventually truth does seem to win out and thus those that rise due to this method eventually crash and burn, albeit after doing much damage in the process.
Or as Churchill said, you can always count on America doing the right thing, that is after they have tried everything else!
Germany's losses were not negligible, even fighting a 'weakened' foe. Germany technically won the battle in 72 hours, but the valiant Poles fought on for a month. Germany was completely unaware of the brilliant Polish work on Enigma; their invaluable research was sent to Bletchley Park, boosting the Allied efforts to break the German codes. Germany also had to share spoils with the Soviets. In a way, this helped when the invasion occurred, but it also limited Germany's bases and depots to east Prussia, at least at first...
2/3 of the German tanks were PZKW 1 and PZKW 2 which we were supposed to be training tanks. The Polish tanks were better but with out radios and the poor use of them by the Polish army spelled their doom.
The title is wrong - it should be ''informative lessons from Poland''. In the film you say almost nothing about the Polish army, e.g. only about very good camouflage. The reasons were purely political - and an example as a result on September 10, 1939, Canada declared war on Germany.And while in September 1939 it did not matter much, in the long run, something would have to be done with this. Invasion of North America? A wishful thinking. Already in September 1939, the Germans waged an unwinnable war.
Schade, eigentlich nur eine Quelle genutzt. Aber netter Beitrag
German failures began in the early 30s when no more pocket battleships were built and upgraded to 15" designs, when sciences were sidelined, when very bad aeroplanes were choosen, when the PZ IIIs weren't built as STGs and SPAs, and PZ IVs weren't given 75/40 from the get go...... fortunate for us as those baby murderers lost the war......
I think the failure was not in the campaign, but in the occupation
Explain?? Why the occupation?? Hmmmmmm.... 🤔🤔🧐🧐
@@biz4twobiz463 Poland is hard to swallow. Just like Afghanistan. You can conquer it but the "Mission accomplished" banner will be a bit premature.
@@nemeczek67 ... define premature. The Soviets not only conquered Poland, but stayed for about 52 years. That is not premature IMHO. But, I think I understand your point.
@Marcelo Henrique Soares da Silva ... It is...until it isn't. Time and resources were on the Soviets side. Especially when we talk of the Cold War from 1945 thru 1991.
@@biz4twobiz463 This clip is about Germans not Soviets. Once they overran Poland, it was not over. Poland was neither Czechoslovakia nor the Netherlands, and the Germans had to deal with guerrilla warfare for the next 5+ years. Their supply lines to the east front were not secure either. This required a lot of manpower to control.
excellent
There was a failure to proof-read this video! :P I saw two typos: saw the the word spelt "mot" instead of "not", and the word "ducation" instead of "education".
The "mot" is in the citation at 3:40 and ducation at 8:00; good video, but german mentality here ;)
Also solider instead of soldier ;)
Poland 1939: A German Failure? NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN!!! Well...ja.
German command officer: *passes test with 98%*
"Not good enough."
This dont say anything if its not nice or sugger coat bevor you criticise is so annoying and such a waste of time. I get it why they think we are rude but boy, who in their right mind is thrilled with getting a partion medal?
Russia to the rescue!
;)
Ooops! Forgot about Katyn for a minute.
"Too Late", I said it!
And attacking Poland got England & France to declare war on Germany.
Hardly. If attacking Poland was the reason then England and France would also have gone to war with the Soviets.
@@lokenontherange The Soviets only entered "Polish territory" ONCE the Polish Government had gone running away to daddy (England). The Soviets did not even declare war on Poland considering that they were not even the governing State of these territories at that point. Even the British agreed to the Soviet "invasion" of these territories considering that they would be occupied without resistance by the Germans.
Also from the rise of Hitler to power to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact (the same kind of pact that England, France, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Denmark had with Nazi Germany) so 1933-1939, the Soviet Union tried to create different Accords between the European countries to ensure a lasting peace including but not limited to; promising to defend Czechoslovakia (1938) with France if Poland agreed to let Soviet troops pass on Polish soil (France delayed, Poland said fuck you) in the end France and England gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler in the hope that he would attack the Soviet Union and Poland went for a land grab at the same time as the Germans, promising to defend Poland (1938 also) with France and England (France and England delayed, Poland said fuck you) in the end France and England declared war and Germany and sat idly by with 110 divisions against 33 divisions for 8 months whilst the Germans invaded Poland, Denmark and Norway.
But I guess it's easier to teach people Commies bad (still bad now), Germans good but bad (ok now) and Us good (always good).
@@comrademcsalty7676 Dude, go fuck yourself. Russia invaded Poland at the same time the Germans did. And yes, communism is fucking awful. How many more people need to die before you grow the fuck up and admit reality.
@@lokenontherange not the same time. There's at least a 2 week difference from the German invasion in September 1st to the Soviets invading Poland.
Germany lost the most troops while invaiding Poland compared to other countries. Poor country without technology proved to be harder than they thought it would be. That is why it was cosidired failure.
There is no language where Stalingrad is pronounced Shtalingrad. But really, that is my only negative remark - otherwise I truly do enjoy your well-researched videos. Well done. Good job.
In German St ist pronounced Scht, just click the play button on this page in about the middle: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Stahl
Its Döberitz not Doberitz :-)
Imagine the report after Stalingrad.
There were no reports after Stalingrad. Nobody left to write them. Entire 6th Army ether dead or POW.
I imagine it went something like: Holy shit! What have we done? Please let me out! Over.
...and German fire brigade defeated the French in only 1 Month
Today germans not same as they were in those times. Also there are too many immigrants and also Prussian spirit was destroyed after ww2.
The Prussian spirit and mentality of "the army has a state" is what drives Germany to always be at disastrous wars with her bigger neighbors, twice. Having it grounded to dust following WW2 was probably the best thing that has happened in the last 60 years. Or do you want a WW3 starting in Europe right now, but now with nukes?
Even Germany was able to form a European empire without resorting to much force of arms. It's called the EU, where Germany, as a leader in the financial and industrial sector, is basically its head. And as a result, there has never been more cooperation and peace in the European continent (espescially Western Europe) since the days of the Roman empire.
@@alexanderchristopher6237 yeah, now there is no wars in the world after Prussians were destroyed. You are really delusional!
Welcome back to WW2 not Visualized
Then and Now: MHnV looks so much better with a shaved head! ;)
5:08 i DDIIIEEEDDD!!!! LLLOOLLLL
...
naZi ruSSia bears the same amount of responsibility to the outbreak of the 2nd WW as the German did. Same in WW1.
what the hell, you had braces here?