Eastern Equipment

Ok here is the guy's stuff!

Tank!

In Poznan at the citadel there is a museum of old military equipment. Here is my first encounter with what the Germans dreamed of themselves using: `the best tank in the World', the T-34. It's rather small. Effective, manouverable and smart, this tank's heavy armour stopped the German shells and forced them to build new tanks with bigger guns. They had bigger tanks as well like the JS-2, but I was interested in the T-34.

Analysis

The 'mudflaps' are made of very thin metal and are flimsey. The armour plates are all made from small-ish sheets which are welded together. There are lots of gaps in the welding between the armour plates on the front corners of the turret/cabin. Fuel tanks are on the sides at the back.

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Not bad!

Planes!

Wow! We took a loooooooooong walk out of Cracow and reached the Polish Aviation Museum. Westerners can only dream of seeing planes like this up close: except for a f-5 Freedom Fighter, sold to third world countries in the Reagan Era, all the planes are Soviet and Eastern Block! Yessss!

First on the list, we spotted IT. This is a beautiful example of the PZL.P.11, the most ubiquitous Polish fighter of ww2. Wow! Finally I can see one up close. Early observations... it's small! There is a spitfire and Albatross II (an unmanueverable bird from 1917), next to it and this is smaller than both of them! This plane was of the early 30s generation. The top speed was only 365 km/h, which was insufficient, though it was very maneuverable. Pilot operational doctrine was therefore to engage after high speed diving. The planes were moved to camoflaged airfields before the war broke out and lasted as as fighting force, for between 7 and 14 days. 270 German planes were destroyed in the September campaign.
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