Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1519846
13 years ago I wrote a story for Po- lish NTW magazine, entitled "Equip- ment in the Polish Military - Status Quo and Needs" - and it was truly a tragedy at the time. Six years later, the article was updated and published in the Frag Out! Magazi- ne #18. The matters were still dire. 7 years pass, I revisit the matter, and... It's still a problem. Why is that? A brief answer is provided below. It is bad. But some things have moved in the area of individual kits (and that term has a broader me- aning these days, which I explain further down below). We shall, ho- wever, point out, that we are dealing with a backlog of at least 25 years! You are not hallucinating here. The Polish military's kit is 25-30 years outdated. The matter had been overlooked already post-1989, ex- cept for minor changes that could easily be referred to as patching up, for at least a decade following Po- land's political transformation. For the first decade after 1989, the Ar- med Forces essentially were using the leftovers, left behind by the mi- litary of the Polish People's Repu- blic, with minor, cosmetic changes happening along the way. The "moro" camouflage uniforms were replaced by wz. 93 woodland Pantera uniforms, in cut based on old airborne units uniforms (so cal- led US), poor quality buckle boots (referred to as "opinacze") were re- placed by "airborne" combat boots ("desanty"), and we also introduced the infamous wz. 988 load bearing vest, which was a retard copy of the US IIFS LBV, was introduced into service at the very moment when the US military was decommissio- ning the enhanced variant... And this was the case, until the mo- ment when deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan happened - a brutal test of quality for most of the gear, that could be compared to a kick to the groin combined with a blow ta- ken straight to one's face. It turned out that the Polish sol- diers went to a war with less than decent gear - and this is an under- statement. The leadership at the Polish MOD, and the Polish Armed Forces' command quickly realized that a problem exists. Deployed soldiers received extra money to procure personal gear, and they had a chance to get a better kiton their own. This resulted in them spending extra money out of their pocket, as the funds provided by the MOD were insufficient, to say the least. It was also a norm to acquire missing pie- ces of kit, or gear that was incompa- rably better quality wise, within the framework of more- or less official allied aid or personal exchange. Fortunately, the situation somewhat crushed the army conservatives, as something started to happen. The frantic actions led to the emergen- ce of several successful designs (like the KWM-02 body armor), while others (like Dromader system idea) died tragically. Still, the individual gear shows a lot of room for improvement. Some matters were enhanced, and some are still atrocious. Old field jackets, steel helmets, and wz.988 LBVs can still be spotted here and there. Why? Why does it happen? The an- swer here is quite simple. The individual kit is not a specta- cular part of the inventory - during exercises, parades, events, and so on. When the soldiers amass the gear blends with the uniform. It re- ally calls for an expert eye to spot the details, and differentiate them from legacy models, or to notice any changes at all. A new main bat- tle tank model is another story. Or a self-propelled howitzer. Or a war- ship, multi-role combat aircraft, heli- copter... When a politician takes pic- tures with an exhibit as such in the background, then it clearly shows those exhibits are brand new, shiny, and different from what we have (probably expensive), lethal, and so on. And individual equipment? The politician in question would need a photo: 21 BSK photo: 17 WBZ ANALYSIS