Thread: ORMO
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Old 05-03-2009, 08:58 PM
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chico20854 chico20854 is offline
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Raellus-

A load of thoughts:

first, the RL Polish internal armed forces are listed http://forum.juhlin.com/showpost.php?p=5640&postcount=7 . I quickly stopped trying to sort them all out and figured (maybe optimistically) that with NATO troops tearing across the country they would be thrown under a single commander, which GDW for convenience called the ORMO, (with the exception of some ZOMO units, which are left separate in line with their treatment in Black Madonna). For purposes of wargaming out the battle of Poland, I put a division of internal troops in Warsaw (14 infantry battalions, 2 T-55 battalions, some engineers (civilian construction equipment) and some 76mm guns), a brigade (6-8 infantry battalions, some engineers, some 76mm field guns and a battalion or 2 of obsolete tanks, such as the T-55s manned by cadets that fought in the Battle of Czestakowa) in major cities (over 500,000 prewar) and a regiment in smaller cities (250-500,000).

As for what could be sustained, some more figures. The prewar Polish Army is 15 divisions, 8 of which are Category A. The remaining divisions can be brought up to full strength by retaining one conscript class - 1/4 of the enlisted force. So effectively at that point the Polish state has called on its youth from ages 18-20.5. Then there are 5 mobilization-only divisions. These would require another one third of the enlisted force, which we'll call the previous year's entire class of demobilized conscripts - those from 18-21.5 years old. If you figure 100% casualties, not unrealistic given the intensity of the battles across Poland, you'll need another 4 year's worth of youth - those from age 18-25.5 are now committed. (Now, finding officers, NCOs and equipment would be a problem, a big problem, which a large cadre of retired colonels isn't really going to help, but at least they're troops!). Or to put it another way, assuming that each division is 20,000 troops (and Polish divisions were smaller than an equivalent Soviet one, but figure higher-level overhead), the 20 divisions of the Polish Army would require 400,000 troops, out of a Polish population of nearly 40 million, or 1% of the population! So there's lots of room for more troops, even if you double the number of troops in the divisions. Again, how many could be called up, trained, equipped and led before Advent Crown is an answer that can at best be guessed at.

On the individual level, by 2000 I'd say almost anything goes. The conventional war marched across Poland twice, leaving a detrius of small arms and equipment from around the world behind. Whatever uniforms were issued are only fragments. What they had in 1997, I'd say is a mix of old stuff. The Polish Army was transitioning to a new camo uniform in the late '80s/early 90's, so the old raindrop pattern http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...stary.wzor.jpg would be available for mobilization-only and ORMO troops. Looking at what has arrived in the surplus market in the US over the past 15 or so years from Poland, I'd say small arms would be AKs in 7.62, Mosin-Nagants and Mausers, both captured from the Germans in 1945 and pre-war production. Poland never produced a copy of the SKS (although some were bought from the USSR and are still in use for ceremonial purposes), so they would be relatively rare. In addition, if the USSR equipped units of various kinds in the summer of 1997 (a repeat of the Polish army in exile on the Eastern Front in WWII), they could have a variety of old Soviet guns (including SVTs and the mountains of Mosins) and captured weapons (from WWII up to weapons captured from the Chinese in 1995 and 1996).

In a more specific T2k context, I haven't seen anything much beyond the v1 canon. I think Free City of Krakow's description of the ORMO is by far the most detailed, but Krakow's is also IMHO quite unique and well organized - many more would more resemble the local militias in Warsaw...
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