The Armies
The two armies were not evenly matched. Germany’s forces were larger, more modern and well balanced. They were also expert in the doctrine of combined arms. About 1.8 million Germans participated in the campaign including Luftwaffe and Navy. Along with modern communications equipment, he Germans enjoyed a vast superiority in weapons and employed some 2,600 tanks and over 2,000 aircraft of all types.
The Polish Army, on the other hand, was well thought of in Europe and was reputed to have the continent’s finest cavalry. The infantry were tough, resourceful and brave. They were practiced in the arts of anti-tank warfare and heavy German losses of armor during the campaign would point this out. In a man to man infantry fight the Germans had no advantage over the Poles. Polish tactical style was based upon their experiences in the Russian-Polish War and emphasized maneuver and the use of combined arms. Unfortunately for Poland, maneuver meant at the speed of the slowest horse and their combined arms doctrine looked back to the First World War. The Polish Army moved on foot or horseback. A German signal battalion had twice as many trucks as an entire Polish infantry division. Another critical weakness was the complete lack of modern communications equipment even at the highest command levels. Poland did possess about 1,000 armored vehicles however three quarters of them were small tankettes of questionable value. Two brigades of 7TP Light Tanks comprised the bulk of Poland’s modern tank force. While these tanks were to prove superior to the PzI and PzII and were a near match for the PzIII, the Poles were hopelessly outclassed in the tactical use of armor. [Against 2600 German tanks -FW]
The Polish Air Force numbered about 900 aircraft of all types, most of which were obsolete [against 2000 of world best German ones -FW]. The Air Force was under the direct control of the Army and mostly limited to ground support missions. The pilots were well trained and got the most out of their outdated aircraft but could not overcome organizational and equipment shortcomings much less the sheer size and excellence of the Luftwaffe.
Thanks for the correction. The information you provided right now is much more accurate than the previous suggestion that Poland fought ONLY swords and old-type guns against the tanks and aircrafts. The proportion that 3/4 of Polish tanks were useless in September '39 can be easily taken to describe the state of SU heavy equipment usability in June 1941, before Hitler broke the Ribbentropp-Molotov pact (great T34 was only a small fraction of all Soviet tanks).