This is intended to be the first in a series of articles giving background information for scenarios rather than a scenario. The series looks at the combatants of Europe that exited World War II in the early stages of the war—September 1939 through September 1943, in terms of the new weapons and the quantities of those weapons that they might have been able to bring on line in the next year or two if they somehow managed to remain independent. I may also look at what was in the pipeline for the major powers at the end of the war, though I think that has been covered enough places that I wouldn’t have a lot to add. I’ll concentrate mostly on armored vehicles and planes, but in a few cases I’ll look at other weapons and organizational considerations. There is a very large uncertainty in terms of what would have actually gone into production and how soon it would have actually gotten in the hands of the troops in quantity. With that in mind, let’s start with:

Poland:

Overall view: Poland was a poor, primarily agricultural country in 1939. It was simply not capable of spending money on war materials at the rate Germany or the Soviet Union did in the mid-to-late thirties. On the other hand, both Germany and the Soviet Union were spending money at a rate far beyond what their economies were capable of sustaining in the long term.

The Poles did not simply sit paralyzed and watch as their two giant neighbors built up the forces that eventually crushed Poland. The Poles responded to the extent their limited resources allowed. A large French loan added to Poland’s ability to build up their military starting in 1936.

The Poles had a choice. They could use their money to buy weapons abroad, or they could use it to build up their industrial capability, and then produce the weapons themselves. Buying weapons abroad would have been less expensive, but it would have left Poland dependent on overseas suppliers, which might have led to arms embargoes if the Poles did something unpopular with the French or English. It would also leave them very vulnerable to Germany cutting off the Polish Corridor during a war.

The Poles opted to build up their industries and then build their weapons themselves. They were working to build up defense industries in a “Central Industrial Area” as far from the German and Soviet borders as possible in the period 1936-39, then ramp up weapons production in 1940-41. The time division wasn’t quite that clear cut, but that was the division in terms of primary emphasis.

The Polish government intended to reduce the production cost of their home-built equipment by selling some of it abroad, and by 1939 they had actually been successful in selling a fairly substantial number of fighter airplanes to the lesser powers of Europe. Turkey bought some, as did Romania, Greece, and a few other countries. The Poles were apparently trying to sell tanks and other armor abroad by 1939. They also sold some of the World War I small-arms that they had inherited from the various armies that fused to become the Polish army after World War I. The Poles sold arms to both sides of the Spanish Civil War, overcharging the Spanish Republic outrageously for elderly rifles and machine-guns. That money was then plowed into modernizing the Polish army.

The Poles bought licenses to produce many of their weapons, and generally made pretty good choices in terms of what to license. They were license-building very good anti-tank and light anti-aircraft guns, though nowhere near enough of either. They were also building army trucks, motorcycles and artillery tractors in fairly large numbers, though nowhere near enough to mechanize their army at the level that the Germans and Soviets were working toward.

Specific types of weapons:

 

Airforce: In September 1939, the Polish airforce was still flying gull-winged fighter monoplanes .with fixed undercarriages like the P.Z.L. P.11. Those planes had been state-of-the-art in the early-to-mid 1930’s, but when Great Power airforces switched over to low-wing monoplanes with much higher performance in the late 1930s, Poland was not able to produce a comparable plane. As a result, the Poles faced the Luftwaffe with planes that were up to a hundred miles per hour slower than their opponents, and that had a great deal of difficulty even intercepting German bombers.

The Poles were aware of their problems in the air, though they may not have realized quite how badly outclassed they were. They were working to bring their airforce back up to a more competitive level. A Polish-designed low-wing monoplane called the P.50 Jastrzab was in the late prototype stage in September 1939, with an initial batch of 30 planes under construction. Speed-wise, the Jastrzab would have been a major improvement over the P.11, but would have still been slower than the newer model ME109s. The prototype was capable of reaching 311 miles per hour. If war had not come until Spring of 1940, or if the Poles had been able to hold out that long, the P.50 would have probably been available in quantities that would have been insignificant compared to what the Luftwaffe could bring to bear, but significant in terms of increasing Polish airforce performance. As 1940 went on, it would have probably replaced more and more of the older fighters in front-line service.

The Poles also had a more advanced version of the P.50 in the design phase. That design had not yet flown though it was fairly close to doing so, so I suspect that it would not have reached the Polish airforce in any great numbers before very late 1940 or early 1941 even under the most favorable conditions.

The Poles were also working on a line of twin engine “attack fighters” in September 1939. The P.38 Wilk was at the flying prototype stage, but was not slated for production. A more advanced twin engine fighter called the P.48 Lampart was in the works, but prototypes had not been completed by September 1939. I suspect that the P.48 would probably not have made it into the hands of the Polish airforce until 1941, if then. The P.38 Wilk had a maximum speed of 289 mph. The P.48 would presumably have been somewhat faster.

The Poles were not depending solely on getting their new designs into production. They had been designing somewhat more powerful versions of the P.11 for the export market. With the growing threat from Germany, the Poles decided in spring 1939 to produce a somewhat more powerful version of the P.11 called the P11g for their own airforce as a stopgap measure until more powerful fighters could come on-line. The Poles planned to get the P11g into production sometime in early 1940 and produce around 400 of them.

The Poles also had 160 French Morraine-Saulner MS406s on order in September 1939. Fifty of those planes had already been produced, but had not been shipped to Poland yet. Poland fell before they could be shipped. The MS406 was by no means a match for the latest versions of the ME109 in May 1940, but with a top speed of a little over 300 mph it would have been a major step up in speed for the Poles.

The Poles were also evaluating a British Hawker Hurricane I in September 1939, and there is a possibility that they might have been allowed to buy some in late 1939 or early 1940 as Hurricane production ramped up. The British did sell small numbers of Hurricanes to Turkey, Finland, Romania, Belgium, and Yugoslavia. Belgium and Yugoslavia also got manufacturing licenses for the Hurricane. None of those orders were very large—no more than a couple of dozen at most, so if the Poles did get Hurricanes it would probably not be in large numbers. As a crucial ally they might rate as many as 50, but the planes were too scarce for the British to spare much more than that. The Poles were also trying to get access to evaluation copies of the Spitfire, and were in line to receive some of the obsolete British Fairy Battle bombers.

What would the Polish airforce have looked like if the war had somehow been postponed to May of 1940? The Poles would probably have a few P.50 Jastrzabs in service—probably the initial batch of 30 plus a few more. They would probably have some Hurricanes—maybe 50 or so. If the P.50 was delayed significantly, they might be trying to get license-built Hurricanes into production. They would probably have all or almost all of the 160 MS406s by that time. Historically the French had pretty much finished the MS406 production run and were actually phasing the plane out by May 1940. So the Poles would have approximately 240 reasonably modern fighter planes—of which only the Hurricanes would have really been up to the level of the most modern ME109s. They would have four hundred of their P.11g fighters in the pipeline, and possibly a few of them in service. The older P11s would probably be in use as trainers or they might be rearmed for a close-support role.

Would that airforce do any better than the Polish airforce of September 1939 against the Luftwaffe? It obviously wouldn’t win against the full weight of the Luftwaffe. On the other hand it might give a better account of itself than the historic Polish airforce did. It would have one major advantage: the new fighter planes would be faster than almost all of the Luftwaffe’s bombers. That means that the Luftwaffe would quickly find that unescorted bombers were easy prey for reasonably modern fighters. That would be a good thing for the Poles for a variety of reasons. First, it would mean that large numbers of Luftwaffe fighters were tied up escorting bombers as opposed to sweeping through skies over Poland strafing communications. Second, German dive-bombers would be very vulnerable to those fighters, and far less effective than they were historically.

Historically, the Polish airforce did better against the Germans than most people think. Contrary to some popular accounts, the Polish airforce was not caught on the ground by initial German strikes. They moved their front-line fighters to secret fields prepared for the purpose and fought from those fields. They did actually shoot down slightly more German planes than they lost in air-to-air combat, though nowhere close to the ratio they needed. Both sides lost a little over a hundred planes in air-to-air combat, but that was a very substantial portion of the Polish airforce and only a few percent of the Luftwaffe.

This hypothetical May 1940 Polish airforce would probably suffer the same fate unless the French and British intervened early and massively. That intervention would be a little more likely in May 1940 than in September 1939 because the allies would probably have felt themselves somewhat more ready for war, though given the leadership of both countries aggressive actions seem unlikely. One advantage the May 1940 Poles would have would be that the British and French would have a much larger inventory of planes on hand to replace shot-down Polish planes. Given time Polish losses could be replaced, assuming that the Poles still had the pilots to fly the new planes.

The number of pilots in the pipeline is a big unknown. It takes time to produce a fighter pilot good enough not to get shot down on the first mission, and it also takes time to establish or expand the flying schools necessary to train the pilots. During World War II the US could produce an adequate fighter pilot in roughly 18 months if I recall correctly. That means that a major airforce expansion takes a while, as does replacing pilots if you don’t have enough in the pipeline.

Armor: The Poles had one tank in production in September 1939 and a few others at the prototype stage. The 7TP was the mainstay of their armor. It was an improved version of the British 6-ton export tank, roughly equivalent to the Soviet T26. The Poles had 169 of them in September 1939, plus a few dozen of the original British 6-ton tanks. They also had 693 machine-gun armed tankettes of the TK series, as well as a few World War I era French FT-17s. An improved version of the 7TP was in the works, with better armor and some other detail improvements.

The Poles also had a prototype tank with a Christie-type suspension called the 10TP. The 10TP was designed to run on either wheels or tracks, sort of like the Soviet BT-series tanks that eventually led to the T34. The Poles probably would not have put the 10TP in production in the form it was in as of September 1939 because they had concluded that the ability to run on both wheels and tracks was not worth the extra weight and expense. A more advanced Christie-style tank called the 14TP that dispensed with the wheel-and-track business was also in the works, though my guess is that it probably would not have been in production until late 1940 at the most optimistic, with sometime in 1941 more realistic.

The Poles also had a smaller tank called the 4TP at the proto-type stage. It was very roughly comparable to a Panzer II, with a 20millimeter main gun and light armor. To the best of my knowledge, the 4TP was not a serious candidate for production in September 1939. It had some fairly major technical problems, and was an outmoded concept by that time anyway.

Until at least late 1940, the Poles would have probably had to settle for continued production of the 7TP and possibly improved variants; along with upgraded tankettes (a few were being rearmed with 20 millimeter guns to give them some anti-tank capability). The production rate for the 7TP was low. It had been in production since 1934, but the rate of production by 1939 was probably no more than around 50 tanks per year. That rate was probably slated for an increase in 1940, and the Poles could ramp that rate up a little anyway given a situation of imminent war. The Poles would have probably had between 200 and 250 7TPs by May 1940 if the start of the war had been postponed that long.

Poland would also have access to some French or British tanks. The Polish military wanted the French Somua S35, but had to settle for Renault R35s. They had 100 R35s on order in September 1939, of which 50 had arrived before the start of the war. They apparently also had a few H-38s for evaluation purposes.

The R35s were well armored but slow—intended to accompany infantry and not particularly good at much else. By May of 1940, the Poles would have probably gotten all of their initial order of R35s, and might have been allowed to make additional orders. Historically the French produced slightly over 1000 light tanks in the R35 to R40 and H35 to H40 lines between September 1939 and June 1940, so they would have been in a somewhat better position to share the wealth by May 1940. The Poles might have gotten another 100 or so French light tanks, mainly R35s, but possibly including a few H38s. The H38s would have been much more useful—faster and designed to fill a more cavalry-like role. The Poles were also evaluating British Matilda infantry tanks. I’m not sure which version they were looking at, but I doubt that they would have gotten either version before May 1940, given the shortage of tanks in the British army.

The Poles planned to set up four Motorized Cavalry Brigades. They had one in place in September 1939 and put another one together on an improvised basis during the war. Oddly enough, those brigades used the original British-made 6-ton tanks rather than the improved Polish versions. The Poles also intended to set up 8 independent tank battalions.

The French R35s would not have been suitable for the Motorized Cavalry Brigades, though they might have been pressed into that role on an emergency basis. I suspect that at best the Poles might have had one or two more Motorized Cavalry Brigades by May 1940. The one Motorized Cavalry Brigade that the Poles had in September 1939 didn’t have the power to stop a Panzer division but it did fight a tenacious delaying action against one over most of the period of the war.

How would Polish armor have done in May 1940? It probably wouldn’t have done much better than it did historically, and it might have done worse. The Germans historically had a lot more Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks as well as a lot more captured Czech tanks in May 1940 than they did in September 1939. On the other hand, as the Poles got more cannon-armed tanks, the machine-gun armed Panzer Is and even the light Panzer IIs of the German army would have become more obsolete than they already were, and that would have had a considerable impact given that those tanks made up over two-thirds of the German tanks that invaded Poland in September 1939.

If the war had held off until late 1940, the Poles might have gotten enough French tanks to make the struggle a little more equal. French tank production might have been somewhat higher than it was historically if the war had been delayed. The French botched their mobilization by drafting people in war industries when they mobilized, and many of those people never got back to their jobs. On the other hand being at war presumably added some urgency to French production, so the two factors may have approximately cancelled each other out.

One thing in the Poles favor would have been that the Germans would probably not have been able to produce as many tanks or planes between September 1939 and May 1940 in a scenario where Poland was still around as they did historically. Polish resources—skilled and unskilled labor, coal and iron from Silesia, oil from the oil fields of eastern Poland, agricultural products, and the modest Polish industrial base—helped increase German production to some extent. Raw materials from the Soviet Union helped also, as did revenue from the sale of captured Polish military equipment, which allowed the Germans to buy Romanian oil. On the other hand, if the Germans had not gone to war in September 1939 they would have still had unhampered access to raw materials because they would not have faced the British blockade. Of course they would have still been limited by the amount of foreign exchange they had available, which was very low by September 1939.

My guess is that German war production in the period would have on balance been substantially lower than it was historically. The Germans might have even been forced to cut back on arms production from their September 1939 level. The Germans were pouring resources into rearming at a rate that they couldn’t sustain without further conquests. They would have had to cut back military spending by about 25% in early 1938 if they hadn’t been able to loot Austria. Sudetenland gave them another shot in the arm in October 1938, and the rest of Czechoslovakia gave them another windfall in March 1939. In the absence of another windfall in September 1939, I suspect that German arms production would have had to have fallen. Would that have been enough to let the Poles make up enough ground to make a difference in the fighting? Probably not, but it would be interesting to look at the possibility in more detail.