Modeling Polish 10th Motorized Brigade

[DRG]

Originally Posted by PopskiPPA

The guys in the second picture have backpacks, rifles and wear battledress. The guys in the first picture seem to be in full dress, no backpacks, no rifles.

Backpacks take up a lot of space.

Good point. I didn't see the backpacks and that would account for their bulkier appearance

Don

[TonyE]

I recently asked the owner of the polish 1939 armour website "Pibwl", Michal Derela, regarding the TOE/OB of a rifle squadron and he provided me with what i believe to be the final word on the matter. The info came from a book written by a platoon commander in the Warzaw Motorised Brigade and is as follows:

Rifle Squadron
HQ Section (commander and 10 men, with 1 LMG and 8 Carbines)
Vehicles: 1 utility terrain car, 2 motorcycles and 2 motorcycles w/sidecars

Supply Section (19 men, with 1 LMG and 16 carbines)
Vehicles: 5 trucks and kitchen trailer

3 Rifle Platoons, each with:
Plt HQ (commander, deputy and runner)
Section (6 men with 1 LMG)
Section (6 men with 1 LMG)
Section (6 men with 1 LMG)
Section (6 men with 1 LMG)

Total for each platoon:
Vehicles: 2 trucks and one motorcycle w/sidecar
Men: 1 officer and 29 men
Weapons: 4 LMGs, 1 ATR, 26 carbines

[DRG]

Interesting co-incidence, I just received an email from Michal on an unrelated matter. Hopefully he will start posting here soon

Those section numbers don't match the truck capacities in either photo and those numbers don'd add up . Four sections of 6 men is 24 plus commander, deputy and runner = 27 men so that 29 man figure must include the truck drivers and the deputy or runner must be on the MC and , of course, we do not use "kill me now" Plt HQ sections but rather, blend them into the squads


Don

[Brian61]

Also bear in mind that the Warsaw Motorized Brigade was not fully formed at the outbreak of hostilities, it was intended to be a copy of the 10th Motorized Brigade (the 10th was the prototype). It may be the numbers given are for the actual fielded numbers of the Warsaw Brigade but not the intended 'full-strength' numbers initially fielded by the 10th Brigade.

It does go to shed further light on the subject, but I'm still concerned that the 'top-down' numbers don't match up. I should probably email Dr. Niehorster with a summary of this thread to see if we can get a professional opinion.

Thanks,
Brian

[TonyE]

Originally Posted by DRG

Interesting co-incidence, I just received an email from Michal on an unrelated matter. Hopefully he will start posting here soon

Those section numbers don't match the truck capacities in either photo and those numbers don'd add up . Four sections of 6 men is 24 plus commander, deputy and runner = 27 men so that 29 man figure must include the truck drivers and the deputy or runner must be on the MC and , of course, we do not use "kill me now" Plt HQ sections but rather, blend them into the squads

Don

Don,
I should have mentioned, but it was somewhat late and i forgot, the truck drivers (2) are part of the total (29), they were not intended to fight though. I guess the platoon commander would be in the sidecar, with propably the runner as driver. Don`t worry, i know about the policy of no "Shot me now" units, this is just to show how the OB looked in real life. In SP therms i guess the best way to portray such a platoon would be two groups of 12 men (each with rifles, 2 LMGs and grenades) + an AT-rifle team to round out the numbers

On trucks, while the polish army did not really lack manpower they did lack trucks and the 10th motorised did not get properly outfitted with such until mid-39 (so about two years with sub-requirements). They had to improvise with small towed trailers for the rifle platoon trucks that strained the available truckpark and caused frequent breakdowns. I`ll post a picture of such a little later.

[DRG]

Right now based on that last bit of information I built 7 man sections and added the MC to the company sized formation. That gives a 28 man platoon which is closer than 4x6 = 24 man platoons. One squad has an added ATR.

Don

[Brian61]

Just noticed that TOE/OOB is missing the machinegun platoon... are you sure that is from a squadron of a motorized calvary regiment and not from the brigade's motorized recon squadron?

Brian

[Brian61]

Well, found the missing HMGs and the missing 180 men... sort of. The Warsaw Motorized Brigade and the 10th Motorized Calvary Brigade had a number of significant differences, among them the TOE/OOB of the motorized infantry regiments.

Sorry for the misunderstanding earlier, went back and double checked. You can see the differences if you compare the Polish Wikipedia entries for both units. The detailed TOE/OOB diagram on Niehorster's site matches the 10th Motorized but not the Warsaw Motorized.

So still looking for squadron/platoon level info on the TOE/OOB of the 10th Mounted Rifle Regiment and the 24th Uhlans Regiment.

Thanks,
Brian

[Brian61]

Originally Posted by DRG

Right now based on that last bit of information I built 7 man sections and added the MC to the company sized formation. That gives a 28 man platoon which is closer than 4x6 = 24 man platoons. One squad has an added ATR.

Don

I haven't been able to find any better information about the 10th, I suppose the major differences between the Warsaw and 10th brigades in re the motorized regiments boils down to Warsaw having the recon tankettes but no HMGs at the squadron level, versus the 10th having no recon tankettes but having two HMGs per squadron.

While I still think the Warsaw numbers are a bit light for the 10th they are closer than anything that can be currently modeled with the 4.5 spobs. Are we going to see an addition of these units and formations in the next update?

Originally Posted by DRG

There is already is a unit with 2 wz.30 HMG's ( 159 ) I'll see if renaming that works or whether just building a new one works better

According to the information on the struktury site Tony mentioned earlier, the squadron MG platoons for the 10th motorized would be pretty closely modeled by the Para MG formation currently in the OOBs. Only difference is that the struktury info would be two eight man sections each with one HMG while the Para MG formation is one eight man section with two HMGs plus two four man scout sections.

Either way, in the interests of simplification, could the HMG platoon be added on the end of the company so that for the Warsaw brigade you could just eliminate it while leaving it in if doing the 10th?

I did run across one piece of information that gives a clue as to why this level of information is so hard to come by and why sources often conflict: "Commander of the units were not krępowani posts and have the right to movement within its own units" ie unit commanders could reorganize however they wanted!

Thanks,
Brian