Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/799554
concept designed by MOD showed that TD forces were to be an integral part of the Polish Armed Forces, and that one of their main tasks involved defending the country and supporting state and local authorities in special situations. The assumptions for the structure of TD were probably discussed with appropriate NATO bodies, which were to support the proposed con- cept, developed according to the principles of functioning of armed forces in NATO. The "Concept of development of territorial forces" involved dividing Poland into three regions of army formation. A partial as- sumption was to depart from the traditions of similar units existing in the time of the Warsaw Pact, so that the soldiers serving at TD were not a mere "workforce and guards" for the forces actually involved in operations. Reorganized Provincial Military Staffs (PL: Wojewódzkie Sztaby Wojskowe; WOW) were to act as the territorial body of command for TD forces in each of the 16 provinces, subordinate to the Land Forces Command (PL: Dowództwo Wojsk Lądowych; DWL). Eventually, one TD brigade was to be formed in each province. There was an exception, however, for the province of Masovia, where the plan was to establish two TD brigades – with their commands in Warsaw and in Mińsk Mazowiecki. There was also an intention to establish other strictly specialized units, including pon- toon-bridge brigades and engineering res- cue battalions, in most units formed on the basis of the dissolved units of operational forces of a similar profile. A detailed plan of deployment of units by the end of 2003 was drawn up together with a preliminary program of expansion of TD forces by the end of 2012. iThe first stage, which was to end in 2000, was supposed to place the biggest focus on the development of TD in the east. Taking into account the deployment of the Polish Armed Forces of 1997, the east of Poland was the part of the country least densely populated with operational forces' units. In addition to that, some of those units were to be dissolved, hence it was argued for the necessity to replace them with the newly-created TD brigades and battalions in the first place. The second region of Poland was the central part of the country – the idea was to form units engaged mainly in protecting certain se- lected objects and to support operational forces in their activities. The third area was to serve as a base to develop own military potential to its fullest and to receive any possible military aid from NATO – Poland was negotiating the conditions of acces- sion to Threaty already in 1997. What's more, most of the said engineering rescue units were to be stationed in the west and in the center of the country. This was be- cause of the necessity to ensure good flow capacity of the communication system taken advantage of by the armed forces, as well as due to the risk of occurrence of nat- ural or industrial disasters in those areas. The local geographic conditions and the various tasks assigned to particular units were all taken into consideration when planning the deployment, but also when arranging the structures and planning the armaments for those units. The main assumption was to adapt the structures ANALYSIS