Posted on 08/15/2007 10:41:49 AM PDT by lizol
Tanks roll in Warsaw as Poles celebrate Army Day
WARSAW (Poland), Aug. 15 (AP): Tanks rolled down a Warsaw avenue and F16 jets screamed overhead Wednesday as Poland's patriotic and assertive new leaders staged the country's grandest military parade in decades to mark one of its most famous military victories.
President, Lech Kaczynski, a nationalist conservative, rode in an open vehicle along Warsaw's tree-lined Ujazdowski Avenue, waving and smiling at a large crowd that had turned out to celebrate Army Day.
The celebrations were held nearly two years after ex-communists were defeated by Kaczynski and his twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Both brothers are deeply nationalist leaders who remain suspicious of former foes Germany and Russia and who have clashed often with the European Union over issues where they felt national sovereignty was at risk.
The President rode through two columns of tanks, encircled by officers on horseback who carried red banners emblazoned with the Polish eagle, the national symbol.
Kaczynski then emerged from his jeep for a wreath-laying ceremony at a statue of Jozef Pilsudski, the Commander of the Battle for Warsaw in 1920.
Polish media described the parade as the grandest Poland has seen since 1974, when the country was still under communist rule. It drew thousands of Poles to the streets, including boy and girl scouts and war veterans.
Among thousands of troops that marched were 40 soldiers from France.
The battle being marked on Wednesday, also known as the 'Miracle on the Vistula', was a victory against Russian Bolshevik forces that turned the tide in Poland's favour during the Polish-Bolshevik war, from 1919-1920.
That war resulted in a rare victory for Poland during a century which dealt the country mostly humiliating military defeats and occupation.
The celebrations come days after Kaczynski's twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said he is seeking early elections this fall, possibly on October 21, to end political turmoil. The elections would be two years ahead of polling that had originally been scheduled for 2009.
Nice. If the Germans go east or the Russians go west again, I don’t think they’ll like the reception much.
Thank you for the ping.
Awesome pictures,thanks for sharing them with us.
some of those tanks have the red barrel, some don’t. Are we to assume that this is in error ?
I think not !
Great pics. If America had a parade like that, the liberals would go into convulsions.
bttt
Wow! That’s some parade. Bumping so my Polish friend can see it later.
Very interesting mix of east and west hardware! I recognized the T72’s but were those Leopard A1’s in the mix I heard that Poland was thinking about getting M1A1’s from the US.
F-16’s and Mig 29’ flying together in Poland’s Air force, No one and I mean no one would have thought it possible just 20 years ago, they would have called you insane to think it.
God bless Poland
A brick in one hand and a sword in the other!
ttt
very nice pictures
thanks
Looks like the Boy Scout Salute!
The former NCOIC of my former AF reserve intelligence detachment was a Polish linguist, and was a -ski of Polish ancestor. One of his last annual tours before he retired was an exchange tour with the Polish Air Force.
He said much the same, he expected to be snooping on their radio traffic, or interrogating Polish POWs, not working on their airfield with them.
He also said they treated him like the Prodigal Son, returned to the Motherland.
My ancestry is Polish too, my Father having come here in 48 I had family there for a while,But there gone now however I would like to go and see where my Dad grew up, looks like August would be a good time to go.
Good I am glad to see that Polands industrial base I getting up and running, I heard that Poland even make s it’s own variant of the AK style rifle for their Armed Forces.
Beautiful! “Armed Forces Day” isn’t even publicly recognized here.
Do you have any idea who the two elderly gentlemen in the wheelchairs might be?
HOT Dang!!! I want one are there any civilian versions (Semi Auto)?
Tantal as well in 5.45mm
They also have a version of the SKS that is used for ceremony, the furniture on them is very nice.
No matter how you slice it, the basic design is that of a T72 and it has some major design flaws.
• Internal open storage of ammunition not separated from crew compartment on the carrousel. It’s a big bull’s-eye in the middle of the tank. When hit, secondary explosions and a catastrophic kill are very likely.
• Because of the autoloader design the ammunition is limited in maximum penetrator length for AP rounds which limits its performance substantially. Even though the gun is 125mm the smaller 120 and even 105mm outperform it in shear brute penetration.
• Slow reload times, GREATER than 7 seconds between a shot. That’s horrible!
• External storage of fuel outside of armor on top right side of tank that is susceptible to incendiary devices. WP from artillery, a Molotov cocktail well placed will knock a T72 out of commission.
• A design that forces the crew to abandon the tank immediately when it does burn. Something that proved fatal to several Russian crews exiting their tanks in Chechnya.
You can bolt on some more armor, improve the LRF, radios, thermals etc etc etc, but the basic inherent design of the T72 is riddled with less than ideal attributes. It’s a tank I would not want to go to war with. I would much rather have your Leo2A4 (modified) an M1 or yes even a M60A3 (in the defense). The T72 is cheap to build, easy to mass produce and logistically sustain. It’s a tank that scared the West when the wall was still up, but later upon greater discovery of what this tank was really about we realized it’s a piece of crap. Their radios sucked. They didn’t even have thermals until the T72M1 in the mid 80s and our M60 already had them. The LRF is pointing off in the wrong direction half the time, driver’s vision was limited, no digital FCS, the tracks were unprotected (more or less), the crew is cramped……… This tank should go into history as the most over rated piece of junk built.
I don't know what it is, but I know I want one. ;)
Thanks for the info. It is amazing that there are still a couple of veterans of that war. Just imagine the stories they can tell.
Actually those are PT-91s (Polish improved T-72s) and Leopard 2A4.
I could have a lot of fun with one of those on the Washington DC Beltway. ;)
Those are great pics.
So is the USA the only major country in the world (that didn't lose in WWII) which doesn't have a military parade every year?
China does. Russia does.
We certainly are a different kind of people.
God Bless Poland bump
“best efficiency-to-price ratio of all tanks”
Poor nations buy poor man weapon systems (RPG7, AK47, T72...). Despot regimes like Iran have lots of expendable people and they can operate under your MO. These despot regimes have no freedom of press, there is no political opposition, and all power is centralized into the hands of a few. In a Western free and democratic state, like the US or Poland, how many “efficiency-to-price ratio” dead soldiers can the policy maker afford politically? What is a single human life worth even in economic terms in a Western all volunteer force? In a free nation people begin to ask questions when soldiers die. How does the policy maker respond to the question of why a soldier died needlessly given there was technology that could have saved his life?
The problems with the T72 are inherent to its core design. Removing these design weaknesses would require a complete reengineering and rebuild of the vehicle ground up. You have to look at who’s buying the tank and what their threat picture is. Jordan, not to long ago spent millions on a M60A3 upgrade; I’m sure the old M60 is also a good value of a tank and for Jordan’s threats this tank is fine.
“This is something similar to the Soviet T-34 of WW2. Germans had the best but at the same time very expensive Tigers while Russians had loads of cheap and easy to operate T-34. And Russians won the Battle of Kursks as well as the whole war.” Do you also want 21 million of your people dieing in the process? The Germans killed roughly 21 million in the East, at 2 million losses of their troops. Maybe you guys are just into tragedy.
The T72 is junk, and there are many upgraded versions of this old piece of junk, which are still junk. These pieces of junk are given lots of different names by many different countries that build them because the nomenclature “T72” makes most people cringe. Against a modern Western MBT like the upgraded Leo2A4 you have (for a reason) that T72 will get chewed up. A T72M1 had a maximum effective range of 1,800m. That M1 will start plinking them off at a range over 2,500m (pH>50%) and out of his range. That’s exactly what happened in 1991 and I don’t care if you outnumber me 4:1. A normal crew can reload and get a shot off in an M1 every 4 seconds, roughly twice the rate of a T72. I can take a hit from HEAT or any of his sabots at any range into the turret and hull front. Almost any hit I place is lethal, regardless where I hit him and from what range. If I see him, I can kill him. My turret traverses more quickly. I can communicate better (better radios), my thermals are better and up until 1985 or so they didn’t even have any………. That Leo2A4 will eat that T72. It will turn into a one way shooting gallery with lots of burning T72s hulks littering the battlefield. What you end up with is what has happened every single time when modern Western MBTs meet this tank, such as at 73 Easting or even a few times in 2003. There is a reason why you bought 128 Leos and are buying 123 more (I believe) while you sell off T72s.
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