Kraków Defence Forces

[ChalkLine]

Component units in the Kraków Defence Forces.

The unit controlling Kraków is listed as the "8th Motor Rifle Division", which is actually something of a misnomer. The Polish called those units "Mechanised Divisions"

By the way, I really don't think the 8th are going to disband the colours and call themselves an OTK unit if for no other reason that the local OTK unit was already in place.

Here's the official Order of Battle from 1985:

8th Dresden Mechanised Division
- 16th Dnowsko-Łużycki Tank Regiment
- 28th Sudecki Mechanised Regiment
- 32nd Budziszyński Mechanized Regiment
- 36th Łużycki Mechanised Regiment
- 4th Artillery Regiment
- 83rd Anti-aircraft Artillery Regiment
- 47th Rocket Artillery Battalion
- 1st Tactical Missile Battalion
- 15th Division Artillery Commander Command Battery
- 5th Reconnaissance Battalion
- 19th Sapper Battalion
- 13th Signal Battalion
- 8th Supply Battalion
- 8th Maintenance Battalion
- 39th Medical Battalion
64th Chemical Defence Company

Also, the 8th will be associated with a few other units that would have been in Kraków. These are:

3rd Carpathian Brigade WOP ("Border Protection Troops")
- 264th WOP battalion
- 32nd WOP battalion
- 34th WOP battalion
Kraków Territorial Defence ("OTK"). This is who we think the "ORMO" were. They are the local military defence unit.
Kraków Civil Defence Units ("OP")
Kraków Militia ("MO") This was the pre-war police force. It must be remembered that Polish police were paramilitary.

One unit you'll notice that are not here is the local ORMO units. This is because the ORMO was an arm of the Polish communist party, the guys the 8th are rebelling against.

Also I should belabour the point that Polish society in the Cold War was more militarised than what we in the west (assuming the reader is western) are used to. Some sort of civil training was very common. Civil Defence was especially widespread. Note that "civil defence" meant just that; not only did they do disaster relief and medical services but the OP also did things like create strongpoints, assist AA weaponry and other military functions.

[Raellus]

I've been under the impression that the ORMO weren't ideologically "pure". In other words, some of them may have been hard core communists, but others were just trying to stay on the party's good side, and/or out of the active duty military. The Pol-com government didn't put too much faith in them. I wish I could find it, but IIRC, that was what a Polish forum member said a few years back.

Now, the ZOMO... they were the hard core riot police. They were the ones who beat up and arrested the Solidarity types. I don't see those guys turning their backs on Lublin, and even if a few did, I reckon they'd be in big trouble when someone they'd roughed up recognized them on the streets of Krakow or wherever.

[ChalkLine]

I've been under the impression that the ORMO weren't ideologically "pure". In other words, some of them may have been hard core communists, but others were just trying to stay on the party's good side, and/or out of the active duty military. The Pol-com government didn't put too much faith in them. I wish I could find it, but IIRC, that was what a Polish forum member said a few years back.

Now, the ZOMO... they were the hard core riot police. They were the ones who beat up and arrested the Solidarity types. I don't see those guys turning their backs on Lublin, and even if a few did, I reckon they'd be in big trouble when someone they'd roughed up recognized them on the streets of Krakow or wherever.

There were cases where the MO and the ZOMO held back but the ORMO went in and viciously attacked protesters. The 1981 University Protest is the first that comes to mind.

ORMO didn't get any pay but instead got benefits. This led them to create a culture of surveillance and denunciation that made the Polish loathe them. While the MO and thus the ZOMO were police forces the ORMO were normal Polish people and this made them embedded in the population.

However the Twilight War changes everything. Extreme cultural shifts should be expected. The ORMO might rise up and become respected, although what they are supposed to do in the T2K world is already done by the OTK which are much more like the USA National Guard and the UK Territorial Army.

However on your point about some people being there just for the benefits, I think we should hold that for every force everywhere. It's a good insight that should be in more games and it stops cartoon-like simplifications.

While wikipedia has good entries in English there's far more information in the Polish wiki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORMO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZOMO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milicja_Obywatelska
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_Defense_Forces_(Poland)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Protection_Troops

[Raellus]

However on your point about some people being there just for the benefits, I think we should hold that for every force everywhere. It's a good insight that should be in more games and it stops cartoon-like simplifications.

Thanks. I generally like the playing cards NPC motivation system intro'd by v1.0, but there are definitely some gaps there.