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Originally Posted by Homer
Looking at orbat 89 and some other sources it looks like the 6th was downgraded to a brigade in 1989, with the regiments being downgraded to battalions.
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True. I can see the 6th being built back up to division strength again in light of the Soviet Union's war with China, especially when Moscow starts demanding Warsaw Pact members contribute fighting forces to the war in the East. They could do that fairly quickly, I assume, by recalling reserve/retired/discharged ex-paratroopers back to active duty. It would have only been 6-7 years since the unit was downsized.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Homer
Maybe the survivors were reconstituted following the Pact counteroffensive or were folded into a politically reliable national reserve along with the remnants of the Army and Navy Commandos? After all, Poland had a very strong tradition of both airborne and special operations troops.
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That's definitely a possibility. It makes sense to consolidate "elite" troops, instead of dispersing them among regular motor rifles units.
The other elite formations in the Polish armed forces during the Cold War were the 7th Naval Assault Division (aka Marines), which is accounted for in T2k canon, and the Podhale Mountain Brigade, which, AFAIK, is not. It's possible that the survivors of 6th Pomeranian Parachute/Air Assault Division (or Brigade) were absorbed into one of those other "elite" units. However, if that were the case with the 7th Marine Division, AFAIK, it's not mentioned in any of the canonical descriptions of that formation.
Come to think of it, where is the Mountain Brigade? Is it mentioned at all in canon? IRL, it was technically part of the Border Guard but I don't recall seeing it mentioned in any of the several entries for Polish Border Guard units in canon. I'll have to take a closer look at that.
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Originally Posted by Bestbrian
12th Cavalry was formed from the survivors of the 11th Tank Division (Koscierzyna/Gniew/Tczew, 1500 cavalry). (EESB)
If you'd like, you can assume that the 12th Cavalry also included remnants from the 12th Tank Division as well as the 11th, which would account for the numbering of the cavalry division. This would place the survivors of the 6th as elements of the 12th Cavalry and/or the 2nd. With the nukes flying not long after the survivors broke out of Czestochowa, I wouldn't have them being maintained by higher HQ as a special cadre. In the crash of civilization, I'd have them absorbed into the 12th or 2nd, perhaps as an elite squadron, but there wouldn't be too many left by 2000.
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That's also a possibility. It appears that the writers lost track of the 12th TD at some point with they were working up their late war OOBs. It happens- they had a lot to keep track of, and fewer sources to work with. Before I make up destination for those 300 or so surviving Polish paratroopers, though, I'd like to completely exhaust canon. I looked at a couple of indexes of Challenge magazine hoping to spot an article about Polish elite forces (paras, marines, mountain troops) and nothing jumped out at me- in the indexes I was looking at, T2k stuff is listed by title, not subject, so if the title isn't particularly specific, direct, or descriptive, I could be missing it.
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