The following is the order of battle of the Polish Air Force prior to the outbreak of the Polish Defensive War of 1939. During the mobilization waves of March and August of that year, all peace-time units were deployed to airfields throughout the country and attached to respective commands of Air Force, Naval Air Service and squadrons supporting each of the Polish armies. In the last stages of the air campaign, whole units coordinated all actions in the fight against the invaders.
In modern use, the order of battle of an armed force participating in a military operation or campaign shows the hierarchical organization, command structure, strength, disposition of personnel, and equipment of units and formations of the armed force. Various abbreviations are in use, including OOB, O/B, or OB, while ORBAT remains the most common in the United Kingdom. An order of battle should be distinguished from a table of organisation, which is the intended composition of a given unit or formation according to the military doctrine of its armed force. As combat operations develop during a campaign, orders of battle may be revised and altered in response to the military needs and challenges. Also the known details of an order of battle may change during the course of executing the commanders' after action reports and/or other accounting methods as combat assessment is conducted.
The Polish Air Force is the aerial warfare military branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej. In 2014 it consisted of roughly 16,425 military personnel and about 475 aircraft, distributed among ten bases throughout Poland.
Contents
- Command structure
- Reserve of the Commander in Chief
- HQ units
- Pursuit Brigade (Brygada Poscigowa)
- Bomber Brigade
- Army aviation
- Aviation of the Modlin Army
- Aviation of the Pomorze Army
- Aviation of the Poznań Army
- Aviation of the Łódź Army
- Aviation of the Kraków Army
- Aviation of the Karpaty Army
- Aviation of the Narew Independent Operational Group
- Naval aviation
- Aircraft in active service in September 1939
- Combat aircraft
- Support aircraft
- See also
- References
The Polish fighters claimed 134 air victories, including 7 enemy aeroplanes shot down by Polish PZL P.7a fighters, 125 by PZL P.11 fighters of all types (mostly P.11c, several P.11a), and 2 downed by PZL P.11g. In addition, the Polish air forces had a number of PZL.37 Łoś and PZL.23 Karaś bombers, as well as a number of non-combat planes used for reconnaissance, observation, communications, army cooperation and transport. Among the latter were Lublin R-XIII, LWS-3 Mewa, RWD-8, RWD-14 Czapla, PWS-10 and PWS-26.
The PZL P.7 was a Polish fighter aircraft designed in the early 1930s at the PZL factory in Warsaw. State-of-the-art construction, and one of the first all-metal monoplane fighters in the world between 1933 and 1935, it was the main fighter of the Polish Air Force. It was replaced in Polish service by its follow-up design, the PZL P.11c. More than 30 P.7 fighters remained in service during the Invasion of Poland, scoring several kills despite its obsolescence.
The PZL P.11 was a Polish fighter aircraft, designed and constructed during the early 1930s by Warsaw-based aircraft manufacturer PZL. Possessing an all-metal structure, metal-covering, and high-mounted gull wing, the type held the distinction of being widely considered to have briefly been the most advanced fighter aircraft of its kind in the world.
The PZL.37 Łoś (moose) was a Polish twin-engined medium bomber designed and manufactured by national aircraft company PZL. It is also known as "PZL P-37" or "PZL P.37", but the letter "P" was generally reserved for fighters of Zygmunt Puławski's design.
