Taczanka in Polish army 1939

 Salvete Omnes,

September 3rd back in the 1939 - the German & allies invasion of Poland was in full gallop. 

Polish armies continued withdrawals toward the Vistula River, while the German invaders continued to increase brutalization and crimes against the Polish civilian population.

That evening  of the 3rd the governments of  Great Britain(and by being part of the British Commonwealth also Canada, New Zealand & Australia and British India, while South Africa joined on September 6th) and France declared they were at war with Hitler's Germany. They needed weeks or months to mobilize for this new war, too late for Poland.

ad rem,

three horse-tema would pull the final Polish taczanka

The taczanka (tachanka) - Polish armies adopted this horse-drawn carriage with the heavy machines gun, 1908&1910 Maxim, mounted on the carriage from the Bolshevik Red Army they fought against in 1919-20.

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During the 1930s  the Polish army intensified their search for a perfect taczanka. They constructed 1934 version, and finally so called the 1936 version, authorized for cavalry and infantry. Polish cavalry got their 1936 taczanka with the 1930 maxim, 8 per regiment  by November 1938.

  

Nazi Germany and Soviet Union also developed their taczanka vehicles during 1930s. Soviet tachanka'35 with Maxim MG, 

and German Maschinen-Gewehrwagen 36 with machine gun MG-34.

Valete

Mitrophan Grekov - painter of Red Army Cavalry

Salvete Omnes,
100 years ago Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and various 'White' Cossack forces battled the Red Army's onslaught that would be finally stopped on the flat plains of central Poland east of the Vistula River. Thus year is the anniversary of that famous battle of Warsaw.

I daresay  in the spirit of this anniversary Osprey Publishing released a book from the Campaign series by Steven Zaloga about the battle of Warsaw 1920. 
I am thinking about  addressing some issues I have seen with this book, but no promises there.
In the spirit of this centennial campaign let us take a look at one of the Soviet artists who was in fact a soldier and portrayed the famous Budyonny  1st Horse/Cavalry  Army or Konarmia of the Russian Civil War.

Artist-  Mitrophan Borisovich Grekhov/Grekov (1882-1934) - volunteered to join fight the Red Army and being a solider  he drew and painted, from nature, the Konarmia cavalrymen and their horses. And their famous tachankas - machine gun placed on a carriage that was pulled by at least 2 horse team.
there is lots of  steppe vastness and horse sprit in these paintings

Here some paintings -






 
 

 
valete