Lwów, Wilno ... kresy - Poland have lost enormoust part of our heritage...

Poland would probably lose anyway, fighting Germany on her own, but we would certainly
last longer. The German attack was losing its momentum, the defences were getting stronger
and the plan of defending "Przedmoście Rumuńskie" was sound. The Soviet invasion finished
it all.


Weak?

armada.vojenstvi.cz/predvalecna/cisla/2.htm


One of the strongest ground forces in Europe, equipped with modern tanks and artillery.


When will you stop using Sokrates's account and what have you done to him, ****** muppet? :-)

gandalf.com.pl/b/armia-czechoslowacka-w-latach-19321938-B

Mobilization potential - 1.5 million people.
Active force of ground troops in 1938 - 720.000

Czechoslovakia had an active force of 720.000 men, its weakness was derived from the fact that some 200.000 of these were Germans and Slovaks who could not be counted upon to fight in other words Czechs had only half a milion men, thats very few given their strategic position.

Motor vehicles is a grand total of mobilised vehicles (including civilian cars) the actuall number is 12.000 with 25.000 being the goal for 1939.

So yeah it was weak.

Also why did you steal Torqs nickname? Having fun?

Exactly. So, after mobilizing for war they would have had 1.5 million soldiers, so even with
200 thousand of them being Germans and Slovaks, it'd still have been a formidable force.
Especially that their tanks were up to the highest world standards at the time and were taken
over by Wehrmacht and used extensively in German panzer forces. They also had strong defensive
lines, and were in a much better position to fight a defensive campaign against Wehrmacht than
Poland was in 1939.

So, NO - it wasn't weak.

Anyway - you still haven't told us what you have done to our poor Sokrates - you impostor!

Yes i would agree with that


those are quite useful numbers in terms of a potential ally.

Terribly useful. It's my opinion that if Poland and Czechoslovakia had concentrated on building an alliance of all the countries which wanted to stay independent, it would have been a different story. If you look at it, it's no surprise that so many countries fell so quickly - they were in the middle of fighting with each other, so they more or less invited the Soviet Union and Russia to walk in.

Of course, given that the 20's and 30's were a time of great nationalism - it's unrealistic to expect such a broad coalition. But why Poland (especially Poland!) didn't say "hang on...we're sandwiched between two great powers, one of which has already attacked us" is a mystery to me.

No, mobilisation potential stands for all able bodied men aged 18-45 in any given country, Poland had a mobilisation potential of 3.2 milion for example, the total number of active forces after mobilisation was 720.000 men.

Thats the common mistake by reporters who quote armies based on mobilisation potential, thats not how many soldiers you can have at one time but how many reserves you have.


Not with half a milion men.


No they were not, defensive lines or not they were even more encircled than Poland was in 1939 and they did not have the numbers to launch any attacks into Germany.

Poland for example launched a major offensive in 1939 which used more than 200.000 men, Czechs were unable to launch such major offensive due to physical lack of bodies to participate in them.

Poland would have a much greater chance and with Czechoslovakia but thats more due to the border covered for about a month or two and Germany having only 1800-2000 armored vehicles as opposed to 4700 but praising Czechoslovakian army as something else than a temporary border securing force is naive.


Because Czechoslovakia invaded Poland 20 years prior using polish involvements elsewhere.

950, 000 !


Poland did! Czechoslovakian government believed that against Germany they have an alliance with France, and Poland will be at war with Soviets sooner or later and they didn't wanted to got involved on polish side anyway !

Iffy, different publications provide different data but lets roll with 950.000, thats still only about 700.000 soldiers, even less when you consider the need to control the 3 milion Sudet German minority.

So we're still back to square one, Czech army was weak.

No, don't confuse mobilisation potential (the number of soldiers that can be called
to arms, meaning that there are weapons and structures to accomodate them) and
manpower (all able bodied men aged 16-49.)

For example, current Poland's manpower is 9,597,047 men available for service (and
7,860,841 fit for military service) according to CIA World Factbook's military
section on Poland...

cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pl.html

...with 38 million population, so Poland before the war, with 35 million population (which
was younger back then and families had more children) also had about 9 (7) million manpower
(not to be confused with mobilization potential.)

Ok then Czech available manpower was 1.2 to 1.5 milion depending on sources, their army when mobilised again depending on sources was 720.000 to 950.000 men with between 25% to 30% being German and Slovak ie unusable in battle against Germany.

The level of motorisation and amount of armored vehicles was much higher then in 1938 Poland but artillery was not modern, airforce was absolutely useless and again we're back to manpower.

Czechoslovakia was unable to mount any sort of offensive and Poland alone in 1938 did not have the armor and airforce to launch an offensive, a defensive war against Germany would be by definition lost.


Situation is a bit more complicated but it boils down to Czechoslovakia having an army without reserves and unable to fight outside of its borders so yeah it was weak and in an untenable strategic situation.

Now if Czechoslovakia survived intact into 1939 that might be a different story, they had a modernisation plan that was just wicked and they had cash and industry to pull it off.

Actually it was seen at that time as the best defensible country in the East...they had the usable mountain region (compared to the polish/german flatland), and their army was in higher numbers motorized with uptodate machinery than the german army.

That made the easy sellout by the West the more hurting.

But their problem zone really was that the same mountain region Czechoslovakia needed for defense was populated by a hostile german minority who was annexed against their will.

So, how that would had panned out if pushes had come to shove would had to be seen...


That might have been also the point why the West had given up on Czechoslovakia in the first place, to many people not being willing to fight for that artifical Treaty-of-Versailles-construct, who knows.

How did they feel about going up against the Russians?

It was rather their mobilization potential, not manpower. See, if Poland having 35 million
population, had a manpower of about 9 million, out of which 7 were fit for military service
and the mobilization potential was 3.2 million (about 9-10% of the population), then similarily
Czechoslovakia with the popultion of about 14 million had roughly about 3.6 million manpower,
with 2.8 million men fit for military service and the mobilization potential of 1.2-1.5 million
(they never fully mobilized though.)

The main problem with Czechoslovakia was that nobody really wanted to defend it (including
"Czechoslovaks" themselves.) There was a huge German minority wanting to reunite
with their Fatherland, Hungarians in southern Slovakia, still remembering Trianon and longing
for Greater Hungary, Slovaks who wanted their own independence and, finally, Subcarpathian
Rus that, culturally, was never a part of Czechoslovakia. Czechs (6.3 million) were a minority
of 47%, and even they were not willing to fight and die for Czechoslovakia.
Such country simply couldn't survive. But still, their army was quite an impressive ground
force (at least on paper, but I wouldn't call them weak in any case.)

"Strong on the outside - rotting from the inside"

Can we agree on that? ;)

Sure. Somebody should have written "Czechoslovakia schafft sich ab" book, but nobody did. ;)

Weak and the country was on the brink of civil war. That little bit tends to make a small difference.

Learn history then come back to me, for now dont forget to place "in my opinion" before all of your posts on the subject.


Russians were making loose offers of very generous help to Czechoslovakia, for example at one point they offered 500 fighter planes etc.


No it was not, thats exactly the reverse history i was talking about, the Czechs themselves assumed they'd be able to roll for a week before collapsing.


No BB, in 1938 Germans had 1280 tanks and 630 armored cars, thats 1910 armored vehicles as opposed to 480 Czech vehicles only 350 of which were tanks and only 150 of those were modern.

Germany had 67000 motorised vehicles while Czech army had 11.000.

Germany had 140 modern fighters and about 400 older types, Czechoslovakia had approximately 300 extremely outdated biplane fighters who could do even less than polish PZLs in 1939.

To give you some comparison, in 1938 Czechoslovakia had two fast divisions (weak armored divisions) one with 150 tanks, the other with 75 Germany had 3 armored and 4 fast divisions as well as four armored brigades.

There was no competition whatsoever and unlike Poland which if it had smart commanders could swamp german armor in huge infantry battles Czechs didnt have the kind of manpower or terrain to give away.

The only feasible way for this to work was for Poland to destory german forces in East Prussia which was doable with Czechoslovakia intact and then send 100.000+ troops to Czechoslovakia to reinforce the border and free up czech motorised and cavalry units for some sort of an offensive but Czechs would never allow polish armies within their borders.

Manno...I really had the wrong impression but I'm not an expert on the Czechs.
But I remember that there had been made alot of the modern Skoda plants etc...but that had been during my school times...;)

Czechs inherited more than 50% of the Austro-Hungarian empires industrial plants but they were still a nation of only 14 milion, the Slovaks lived in abject poverty for various reasons and there was not enough natural resources to let it roll.

They had a modernisation plan to fully motorise two infantry divisions and pair them with two armored divisions to create a mobile army, that would be 20.000 infantry, 5.000 cavalry (motorised not on horses) and 400 tanks in 2 armored divisions (100 more tanks + 160 tankettes/armored cars would go to infantry support role).

Poland by comparison only managed to fully motorise a single brigade and partly motorise another one by 1939, so the Czechs were industrially advanced but not to the point where they were a viable fighting force.

Having the advantage of hindsight the only way it could work was for Poland to talk it out with Czechs (which was not possible due to mutual enmity but lets ignore that for now) and try to draw in Romania into it all.

Czechs are just gonna sit and look pretty, they'll probably defend for 2-3 weeks which is enough for Poland and Romania to mount an offensive, in 1938 Germans dont have the 4700+ armored vehicles, they dont have 300+ tactical bombers, they have only about half the artillery and Poland/Romania could easily put together a milion strong offensive while holding another milion troops back.

That would be hard to stop and the Czechs might actually get enough breathing room to attack themselves, but then again Romania wasnt threatened by Germany so its unlikely they'd go for something like that.

Thanks for the lesson Sok!

We've been talking about Czechs so much, lets do a little show and tell since i know how to attach images now:))))

• 
  Lvt 35 - 150 built for the Czech army.
  
• 
  Vz 33 tankette around 40 built for the Czech army.
  
• 
  Lvt 34 - 50 built for the Czech army.
  
• 
  T-SI tankette prototype
  

Finds someone else the word "tankette" so funny??? ;)

..."me and my tankette"....okay...I better go now!

How do i post more than 4 images in one post by the way?


A mate of mine summed it up once, how homosexuals call a tank :D

• 
  CKDv8 heavy tank prototype.
  
• 
  PAI armored car.
  
• 
  More PAI
  
• 
  PA2 armored cars.
  

There is nothing really funny about that word "tankette".

It just means a baby tank :D

More tanks.

• 
  Swimming tank prototype, forgot the name.
  
• 
  KH50 and...
  
• 
  KH70 roadwheel equipped tanks, despite looking like total sh*tboxes these things worked.
  
• 
  LTH- this baby was exported to Sweden.
  

Heh:)

The sh*itbox has a quite tiny dick...hasn't it!

The swim tank looks actually working...

Really have to go now, till tomorrow! :)

I can only agree a 100%, i actually brought up that scenario quite long time ago. And retrospectively, they would be sure as hell working overtime to make such an alliance work.

We've been talking about Czechs so much, lets do a little show and tell since i know how to attach images now:)

would you share your secret Sok?

When writing a post below the youtube etc icons you get the [+] images thingy - press it, i didnt notice it for weeks too.

Oh, so you're saying that "Czechoslovaks", in fact, wanted to defend their country?
To fight and die for it? Well, they surely had a strange way of showing that :)


Yeah. As soon as you do the same in your posts, then we'll talk.


The Panzerkampfwagen 38(t) was a Czech tank used by Germany during World War II.
The (t) stands for tschechisch, the German word for Czech; the Czechoslovak military
designation was LT vz 38.

Used by:
Nazi Germany
Romania
Bulgaria
Hungary
Slovakia
Sweden
Switzerland

Well, they came a whole lot closer to 'winning' WWII than Poland did. They were certainly in a far better position in 1945 than Poland was (which might explain why they were in a position to try to throw off communism a couple of decades before Poland was).