The Polish Home Army - An appeal to all wargamers!

[Mr.Marx]

I have recently set myself a new project; I want to create a 15mm Scale Polish ‘Home Army’ force for Flames of War. For those that don’t know, The Polish Home Army was the largest partisan and resistance force of the Second World War, by the end of the war turning into a full sized army that was able to seize and liberate occupied towns and cities. Yet, in many ways this able fighting force was similar to the British Home Guard, being entirely made up of volunteers, arming themselves with home-made weapons (mortars, armoured cars, and small arms), captured German and Russian equipment, allied supplied British and American weapons, polish weapons from the start of the war and even some weapons retained by those who fought in the Austro-Hungarian army in the Great War!



I intend to make a Polish force to use in friendly games of Flames of War. I will use the Warsaw Uprising list (I know it’s not very competitive, but then nor am I) but I don’t want to do a force set in Warsaw for a good number of reasons, the Political ramifications of such a Nationalistic event and the associated war-crimes and atrocities being foremost, but also practical aspects such as the freedom of modelling an unspecified force and my hesitance to make a Warsaw board to play on. So I have decided to do a force ‘set’ following the Warsaw Uprising in a more rural area, fighting off both the Germans and Soviets who stabbed them in the back in equal measure.



Now, to the reason for my post. I was hoping that due to the rag-tag nature of this force that I could appeal to all you LAFers to look through your bits boxes for any 15mm figures that you have left over and unwanted from previous wargaming projects that you would be willing to donate to help create the Army of the Free Polish State!
PM me if you want to help.
Many thanks to anyone who wants to help!

Andrew Marx

[Powered Armored Stooge]

Im sorry I dont have any 15mm mostly because I have trouble painting the 28mm and 15mm are just too tiny but it really does sound like a very cool project and I wish you best of luck

cheers!

[fastolfrus]

Where are you based?

[Mr.Marx]

Im sorry I dont have any 15mm mostly because I have trouble painting the 28mm and 15mm are just too tiny but it really does sound like a very cool project and I wish you best of luck

cheers!

Thanks for the kind words! I find 15mm too big. 10mm or 2mm are the real scales!

Where are you based?

Somerset, England.

Thanks

Marx

[Anatoli]

If you want to make an unique Polish resistance force you can create something around the partisan leader Henryk Dobrzanski aka "Hubal"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henryk_Dobrzanski

The first partisan force in Europe made up of a cavalry unit that even kept their Polish uniforms to rub it into the occupying forces. You would then have to play them in Early War because it was when they were active.

If you want to make an Armia Krajowa then I really think a Warsaw setting is the best - simply because it was where they fought. Their actions elsewhere were small scale and primarily sabotage, assassinations, prison breaking and collecting information. The entire period up to the Warsaw uprising was a long buildup - and even though plans were initially made for a country wide uprising the Soviet advance forced a change of plans.

Btw, I did a platoon of Armia Krajowa for a Warsaw setting for Secrets of the third Reich, complete with captured Hetzer and halftrack. Great fun modeling and painting those.

[6milPhil]

An interesting project... the oddest part is how (IMHO) we always think of the Germans in Poland as the worst years but the Poles tend to think of the decades of Russian rule, and yes those soviets were right dirty bastids when it came to the rising.

I'll keep an eye out as I set up my new workshop/games room and anything suitable which I find I'll be only too happy to send to the Peoples Republic of Zomerzet.

[Anatoli]

The Soviet occupation was indeed worse (on a different level), with executions of former resistance members, deportations to Siberia and corruption of facts on incidents like Katyn massacre and the role of the Polish army during the outbreak of the war. Everything to destroy the national spirit. It also lasted decades longer. But I won't turn this into a political discussion, anyone interested in the "commie years" of Poland can easily look that up on the internet or a book.


Anyways, Mr. Marx how fleshed out is the Warsaw list provided by Battlefront? If you intend to go that route I think it will be hard. The Armia Krajowa lasted as long as they did mainly because they fought in an urban setting. They completely lacked anti tank guns and only had a couple of tanks which were captured during the uprising itself. If you would run them in the open field, historical accuracy would call for them only being armed in small arms and a few anti tank weapon. From my experience, you will get steamrolled by all those tank crazy mid/late war players out there.

The Hubal cavalry partisan list would also be lightly armed, but in Early War Blitzkrieg that wouldn't be as much of a problem.

[Mr.Marx]

If you want to make an unique Polish resistance force you can create something around the partisan leader Henryk Dobrzanski aka "Hubal"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henryk_Dobrzanski

The first partisan force in Europe made up of a cavalry unit that even kept their Polish uniforms to rub it into the occupying forces. You would then have to play them in Early War because it was when they were active.

If you want to make an Armia Krajowa then I really think a Warsaw setting is the best - simply because it was where they fought. Their actions elsewhere were small scale and primarily sabotage, assassinations, prison breaking and collecting information. The entire period up to the Warsaw uprising was a long buildup - and even though plans were initially made for a country wide uprising the Soviet advance forced a change of plans.

Btw, I did a platoon of Armia Krajowa for a Warsaw setting for Secrets of the third Reich, complete with captured Hetzer and halftrack. Great fun modeling and painting those.

I like the idea of the stray Polish cavalry unit, but I am rather set on a Later war malita force. Interesting reading though, perhaps a project for another day.

I have to disagree with you on Warsaw being the only place where the Polish Resistance / Home Army faught 'en mass'. Whilst Warsaw was the largest action and most famous, probably in no little part due to the 'Russian Betrail' and the terrible Nazi warcrimes, other large-scale actions are generaly overlooked, the liberation of Lwów, Vilnius and Nowogródek being key examples.

The Soviet occupation was indeed worse (on a different level), with executions of former resistance members, deportations to Siberia and corruption of facts on incidents like Katyn massacre and the role of the Polish army during the outbreak of the war. Everything to destroy the national spirit. It also lasted decades longer. But I won't turn this into a political discussion, anyone interested in the "commie years" of Poland can easily look that up on the internet or a book.


Anyways, Mr. Marx how fleshed out is the Warsaw list provided by Battlefront? If you intend to go that route I think it will be hard. The Armia Krajowa lasted as long as they did mainly because they fought in an urban setting. They completely lacked anti tank guns and only had a couple of tanks which were captured during the uprising itself. If you would run them in the open field, historical accuracy would call for them only being armed in small arms and a few anti tank weapon. From my experience, you will get steamrolled by all those tank crazy mid/late war players out there.

The Hubal cavalry partisan list would also be lightly armed, but in Early War Blitzkrieg that wouldn't be as much of a problem.

*edited* I  fully intend do this force as a 'what-if' force of Polish Resistance forces fighting the Soviets after their occupation, in addition to it being a 'historical' force. I feel I should stop 'talking politics' now before I get myself into trouble.

On the subject of the Battlefront Warsaw list… I have no delusions to the fact that the list has been written with competitiveness in the deepest and darkest corner of the authors mind. The list is mainly composed of militia with rifles, although these get a good number of Home-Made Flame-Throwers, Bazookas or PIATs and PanzerFausts. In terms of supporting arms, they get ample numbers of captured heavy machine guns, home-made mortars, captured anti-tank guns (ranging from 37mms to 75mms) and even access to up to 6 German heavy artillery pieces (10.5cm). You can also take a number of different captured tanks, Including Panthers, Tigers, Hetzers or police armoured cars or even Home-made half-track / armoured cars (I have scratch-built an armoured motor- plough myself – based in that big black armoured car in my first post) assault units. If you really want to bulk it out you can take a full supporting Russian Infantry Company. The entire force suffers from poor training, with the elite troops being average. On their side however, they are superbly motivated and will almost never break or flee and are able to move quickly though terrain, meaning if they can get into any good cover they will be able to sit there for just about forever. You can also buy barricades that help funnel the enemy troops into bottlenecks whilst also providing excellent protection to your own units. All in all, the force is fairly adept to defending an objective, but is very, very limited when faced with any offensive action at all.

An interesting project... the oddest part is how (IMHO) we always think of the Germans in Poland as the worst years but the Poles tend to think of the decades of Russian rule, and yes those soviets were right dirty bastids when it came to the rising.

I'll keep an eye out as I set up my new workshop/games room and anything suitable which I find I'll be only too happy to send to the Peoples Republic of Zomerzet.

Thank you! I'd be happy to take any '15mm' figs 'of your hands'. Im fairly sure that I can convert or paint just about anyone so that they fit in.
Infact, I have a fair bit of spare time at the moment, so if anyone wants to chalenge me to make 'Zork the Unstopable' work for ww2......I'll give it a go!

Thanks For all the interst and support. I'll have the first test teams painted up and finished by tonight hopefully and will post up pictures.

Andrew Marx

[Helen]

Lets keep the discussion to the actual topic and not include politics please.

Cheers,

Helen

[Mr.Marx]

Lets keep the discussion to the actual topic and not include politics please.

Cheers,

Helen

Sure, sorry. I probably got a bit carried away. Ive edited my last post to remove the politics, if anything else needs changing just say.

Marx

[Shipka]

Would be interesting to see this modelled in 28mm scale

[Truscott Trotter]

I have a mate that has done the army in 15mm AND 28mm will see if I can get some piccies from him

[cuprum]

This Polish improvised armored car "Kresowiec" on 1919.

Here's a real polish armored car "Kubus" the period of the uprising in Warsaw:



https://www.google.ru/search?q=%D0%BA%D1%83%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%81+%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C&newwindow=1&biw=1075&bih=785&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwirqIT9-bTJAhXHFCwKHWINCmIQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=_

The Polish Home Army was the largest partisan and resistance force of the Second World War, by the end of the war turning into a full sized army that was able to seize and liberate occupied towns and cities.

This is mistake. In the "Army Craiova" There were about 350 - 380 thousand partisans and underground fighters. The number of Soviet partisans in the occupied territory of the USSR was about one million people (and this is only directly with arms). Soviet partisans in the German rear have formed real full-fledged Divisions and were considerable territories (in remote areas), where partisans recovered Soviet power in the German rear.