Topic: Could Poland have beaten Nazis if ......?

[Topspeed]

There were 300 PZL 50 B planes ready and 600 14TP tanks ?

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[gebhk]

Not a chance

Alas you havn't even begun to address the most important factors which are, in order of magnitude

Strategic: Poland was surrounded from all sides so that the entire country was within comfortable striking distance from the air and on the ground whilst creating an impossibly long perimeter for defence. The adoption of a strategy of delaying defence, given the greater mobility of the enemy, was also and separately a recipe for disaster; the two combined, virftually guaranteed it.

C&C: faulty command structure as a result of which the CiC was trying to control thre to four times as many units as he reasonably could. What was, in any case, a recipe for disaster, was compounded by a wholly inadequate operational communications system. At the other end, the failure to produce a small radio set at all and medium set in adequate quantity in time, meant communication had to rely on cable which proved wholly inadequate in the rapid pace of modern warfare.

Equipment: Poland's artillery arm was hopelessly weak in every relevant factor and at every level from infantry battalion up.

However, correcting these deficits would only have brought the Polish army somewhat nearer the qualitative level of the WH and the Red Army. It would not have made any difference to the utterly crushing numerical and economic superiority of the combined potential of Germany, the USSR and Slovakia. A number of modern analyses have concluded that even if the modern Polish army with its 860 odd MBTs and 120 fighters and attack helicopters was magically time-warped to 1939, Poland would have probably fought the Germans and Slovaks to a standstill but would have succumbed once the Soviet invasion began.

[Topspeed]

Poland had superior fighter pilot training ! Had they had adequate planes the air supremacy may have been achieved. That is a big plus.

[gebhk]

Poland had superior fighter pilot training ! Had they had adequate planes the air supremacy may have been achieved. That is a big plus.

A number of problems as it stands:
The P50 was unlikely ever to be an adequate plane. It would have been further handicapped by inadequate logistic support.

Even if it was adequate and well supported, superior pilot training was not going to make up for a 4:1 superiority in numbers - and that's before the Soviet VVS pitched in. This disparity in numbers would have rapidly accelerated as the ability of of the LW and VVS to replace losses utterly dwarfed that of Poland.

And even if Poland gained air superiority, what was she to do with it? Without an adequate ground attack capability there was little that could be done to reduce the massive superiority of the WH and Red Army on the ground.

[Topspeed]

Poland had superior fighter pilot training ! Had they had adequate planes the air supremacy may have been achieved. That is a big plus.

A number of problems as it stands:
The P50 was unlikely ever to be an adequate plane. It would have been further handicapped by inadequate logistic support.

Even if it was adequate and well supported, superior pilot training was not going to make up for a 4:1 superiority in numbers - and that's before the Soviet VVS pitched in. This disparity in numbers would have rapidly accelerated as the ability of of the LW and VVS to replace losses utterly dwarfed that of Poland.

And even if Poland gained air superiority, what was she to do with it? Without an adequate ground attack capability there was little that could be done to reduce the massive superiority of the WH and Red Army on the ground.

PZL 50B was equal in speed with Me-109E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr4ky-UGTm4

[James A Pratt III]

The Polish position in Sept 1939 was hopeless. There army was lacking in weaponry ect to fight the Germans. Adding to the problem the poles had to hold the borders in order to mobilize their full strength. So their army was too spread out. Also do to a long dry summer the rivers which should have been problems for the Germans to cross were not. Add to this the Polish roads with it being so dry weren't to much of problem either for the Germans and there armored and motorized units. Throw in German control of the air and a breakdown in Polish communications all add up to bad news for the Poles.

[T. A. Gardner]

Poland was finished if Germany invaded. The German military could easily mobilize to several times the strength of Poland's and no amount of "better" equipment was going to fix that problem. Poland's frontiers were indefensible plains with few good defensive positions. Toss in that Poland's military was trained to fight a war that was well behind the times compared to the Germans and it's just not going to end well for the Poles.

[LineDoggie]

PZL 50B was equal in speed with Me-109E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr4ky-UGTm4

Speed is not the Only consideration though is it (if it were, the Brewster buffalo used by the Finns would have been like spitting at a MIG or YAK)

TACTICS- LW fighters used the sun diving down, gunning and running up again

Armament- Me 109 had 2x 20mm MG FF auto cannon besides the 2x 7.92mm


Rate of climb, roll etc. as a for instance ME-109E had a rate of climb over 1,300 ft per minute faster than this PZL 50's 2,400 fpm

[gebhk]

ZL 50B was equal in speed with Me-109E

Alas no. AFAIK at most 430 kph could be squeezed out of the actual real live prototype at 3Km. I don't know what the top speed of an Emil was at that height but it would have been somewhere between 518 ansd 540 kph if my data is right. The 540 BDF give is wishful thinking, unlikely to come reality given the underperformance of the prototype in relation to expectations.

As for manoevrability, the P50 failed in a number of simulated combat tests to acquire the 'enemy' in its sights when that 'enemy' was a Los light bomber!

[Carl Schwamberger]

A few years ago I looked at a variation of this. A sort of Operation Dreamland, Polish version. The idea was the Poles spent the previous twelve months preparing a split second preemptive air strike. The bomber & fighter pilots would intensively train in night navigation. The object being to hit the German airfields just before dawn as their aircraft were lined up ready to take off at first light.

Even were the attacks to be performed flawlessly the numbers just did not add up, with too few bombers to make for a decisive loss of German aircraft. At best they'd disrupt the first days operations of the Luftwaffe, but little beyond that.

[Topspeed]

ZL 50B was equal in speed with Me-109E

Alas no. AFAIK at most 430 kph could be squeezed out of the actual real live prototype at 3Km. I don't know what the top speed of an Emil was at that height but it would have been somewhere between 518 ansd 540 kph if my data is right. The 540 BDF give is wishful thinking, unlikely to come reality given the underperformance of the prototype in relation to expectations.

As for manoevrability, the P50 failed in a number of simulated combat tests to acquire the 'enemy' in its sights when that 'enemy' was a Los light bomber!

You have to check the B-model data...530 kph.

[Topspeed]

PZL 50B was equal in speed with Me-109E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr4ky-UGTm4

Speed is not the Only consideration though is it (if it were, the Brewster buffalo used by the Finns would have been like spitting at a MIG or YAK)

TACTICS- LW fighters used the sun diving down, gunning and running up again

Armament- Me 109 had 2x 20mm MG FF auto cannon besides the 2x 7.92mm


Rate of climb, roll etc. as a for instance ME-109E had a rate of climb over 1,300 ft per minute faster than this PZL 50's 2,400 fpm

PZL was superior.

[gebhk]

You have to check the B-model data...530 kph.

Alas, I cannot as no P50B's was ever built, let alone flown. There cannot, therefore, be any data for it. Indeed only the first protoype ever took to the air. Thus any 'data' for the P50B is purely wishful thinking. Given that the expectation for the P50/i prototype was that it would achieve a speed of at least 500 kph, illustrates how far short reality could fall below expectations. While the P50/i supposedly achieved a speed of 490-500 kph after syngnificant reworking of the design, this was still significantly behind that of the BF 109.

[LineDoggie]

PZL 50B was equal in speed with Me-109E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr4ky-UGTm4

Speed is not the Only consideration though is it (if it were, the Brewster buffalo used by the Finns would have been like spitting at a MIG or YAK)

TACTICS- LW fighters used the sun diving down, gunning and running up again

Armament- Me 109 had 2x 20mm MG FF auto cannon besides the 2x 7.92mm


Rate of climb, roll etc. as a for instance ME-109E had a rate of climb over 1,300 ft per minute faster than this PZL 50's 2,400 fpm

PZL was superior.

Not according to facts, YMMV

[LineDoggie]

You have to check the B-model data...530 kph.

This is stupid, the B version was never built, it's like claiming the 40 watt pulse plasma rifle is superior to the MG 42

I've heard of the Wehraboo but until now never the Poleaboo