You may laugh at many things related to Poland, but it shouldn't be Polish cavalry.
Polish cavalry
Posted on 11/05/2007 11:50:17 AM PST by lizol
We want you for the Polish army!
05.11.2007
Polish army is launching a special campaign to encourage young people to join the army voluntarily. Defense Ministry hopes to be able to end the draft and create a fully professionaly army by 2013.
Joanna Najfeld reports
We want you for the Polish army! Soldiers trained especially for the occasion will be promoting the military profession all over Poland. The aim of the campaign is to attract young men and women with a passion for the army, says Poland's Defense Minister Aleksander Szczygło:
'First of all passion and interest in the army, crave for adventure and clear rules of the game.'
To make the offer even more attractive, professional military personnel is about to receive a pay rise with the beginning of the new year and the next one within a year. Captain Dariusz Drążkowski is working with the campaign in Zamosc, south-eastern Poland:
'Our region does not offer many well-paid work places and I think there are young people here who would like to make a career in the army and get decently paid for that.'
Most NATO armies are more or less professional and the idea of creating one in Poland appeals to experts, such as Artur Bartkiewicz, editor-in-chief of "Redakcja Wojskowa" - military periodicals publisher.
'As in any other parts of public service it's better to have professionals than to have amateurs forced to serve in the army and the second thing is that when we don't have a professional army, most soldiers spend only nine months in the Polish army and this is too little time to train them properly.'
As a member of the outgoing cabinet, Defense Minister Aleksander Szczygło hopes that once he's gone from the post, the new defense minister will continue to implement the plan.
'It's not a secret that I would like to talk to my successor in the defense ministry and inform him of the most important things that he should know about, so that the process of passing on duties is fluent and safe for the army. This is not just another ministry for folk dances. This is about the health and life of soldiers.'
Campaigns like the Polish one promoting professional army instead of the draft have been successful for example in the United States. Artur Bartkiewicz of the Redakcja Wojskowa military periodicals publisher again:
'Soldiers and other people who will be promoting the army will go to these parts of Poland where the unemployment rate is quite high and they will have not only brochures, not only nice warm words about the army, but there will also be some extra elements to help them. For example, they will be presenting military equipment. I think it can be quite interesting. It's one of the ways to just talk young people into the army.'
About 70 soldiers have been trained to promote the professional army in their tours of Poland. General Waldemar Skrzypczak, commander of Poland's land forces hopes that next year as many as four thousand young people will enroll to become professional military personnel.
For an idea as to how it should be done:
goarmy.com
MV
Question: How do you stop a Polish army on horseback?
Answer: Turn off the carousel.
Great wisdom from a bubblehead.
The Polish army saved Europe from Islam in the Battle of Vienna, and from Communism in the “Miracle on the Vistula.”
The Polish army saved Europe from Islam in the Battle of Vienna, and from Communism in the “Miracle on the Vistula.”
Learn to charge tanks on horseback!
Q: How do you know if a Pole has been using a computer?
A: There’s whiteout on the screen.
My uncle was 6’8” tall and polish, he could have told you a million of them.
Don’t you mean in the Miracle of the Fistula?
Hmmm. Which part of Europe was spared Communism by
the Polish army?
From 1945-ca1990, EEurope was under Communist dominion.
In that same time period, WEurope was under US dominion.
Seems like the Polish army spared EEurope from capitalism
for a period of time.
MV
Don’t forget they also put up a hell of a fight against the Mongols as well.
Hitler laughed. Cavalry be no match for Stuka divebombers and
Panzers.
In fact, mounted cavalry did not stand up well (no pun intended)
when the other side started targeting the horses. Cavalrymen
on the ground were mere footsoldiers w/ long knives.
Shoot the G**%$#@ horses!
MV
Maybe, but it was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants behavior.
Or, more appropriately, fly-from-your-poor-dead-horse
behavior.
I have seen photos of Polish Cav assaulting German Panzers only
to be left slaughtered. Sheer madness. Sheer stupidity. Someone
somewhere along the chain of command should have realized the
futility.
And the Polish Cav on the ground were no more effective against
the Germans than they were when mounted.
An interesting question arose when viewing those
pics of PolCav vs GerArmor. What exactly were they going to
do w/ their sabres once they got to the tank?
MV
Mounted charges against an infantry unit equipped w/ several
then-modern machine guns was still madness. Again, it boils down
to
SHOOT THE G**%$#@ HORSES.
That’s why Poland fell in a matter of days. Was not the German advance
thru Poland the record for territory covered in a single day
prior to the US run to Baghdad in 2003?
BLITZKRIEG!
MV
Despite of the propaganda pictures of mechanized units, many (if not most) units in WW2 on the German, Polish and Russian side relied on horsepower. We don´t see many pics from horses in WW2, because it wasn´t favourable to show “old-fashioned” horses. My Grandpa had three horses during the war, he was a engineer in the first line of the eastern front, preparing/checking the roads and brigdes for the use of tanks. All of his horses saved his life - two times by taking the bullets/grenades for him, and one time by providing horsemeat (that was on the retreat). Horrible times.
By the way, your coming Prime Minister really seems to be a good guy we can work with. And congratulations for the highest participation rate in free Polish elections ever! That expresses a lot about the stability of the Polish democracy.
We will build a center about expulsion, and it would be better if Poland worked with us on it, so that the expulsions in Europe (East Poland included!) can be documented.
I read where they had been told that the tanks were just paper mache.
Easy to fix: Find leaders like General Stani Sosabowski, and the youngsters will reenlist just to be around them.
With too few free Poles to form a division in England, then 49-year-old Colonel Sosabowski attended and passed the para training course, and formed the free poles into the 1st Independent Parachute Brigade.
Promoted to General to lead them, Sosobowski jumped with his men into Arnhem during the failed British-planned Operation Market-Garden, then was used by the British as a scapegoat for their failure.
No matter. Poles know, particularly the ones who jump out of airplanes. He was known then and is still as Papa Sosabowski
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