Captured Weapons/Resistance Groups

[redcoat2]

Resistance groups could use captured tanks on occasion. I think it usually happened when they switched over to conventional operations from guerrilla warfare.

Here are three examples I can think of:

1) The Warsaw Uprising. The Polish Home Army (PHA) used several captured tanks and half tracks. Zoshka’s Storm Battalion used a tank to break into the Gesiowka concentration camp to liberate 400 Jewish prisoners.

A PHA Panther



2) The Battle for Paris. The ‘French Forces of the Interior’ used captured tanks against German strongpoints. These tanks were originally French tanks from 1940 and so some members of the resistance may have been familiar with them.

A photo of one of these tanks in use

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...fare_scene.png

3) Yugoslavia. Tito’s Partisans were able to capture and use tanks on occasion. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that some of the captured Italian vehicles were driven by Italian defectors. Later in the war the Partisans also received allied tanks from the British and the Soviets.

A captured Italian tank in Partisan service, 1944

[chuckfourth]

I think north africa was famous for this sort of thing here is an interesting link
http://www.histofig.com/Organisation...an-forces.html
also Ive seen pictures of Germans using captured Crusaders, 25 pounders and especially British and later American soft transport, halftracks and jeeps.
The British quite liked the Italian dovunque as it always started, It had a hand cranked engine.

[redcoat2]

British and Commonwealth forces captured and used especially large numbers of Italian tanks in early 1941. The British 6th Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) and Australian 6th Cavalry Regiment used several squadrons equipped with captured tanks. The Aussies marked theirs with large white kangaroos.

[Lt. Ketch]

Originally Posted by redcoat2

Resistance groups could use captured tanks on occasion.

Thanks, Redcoat! You do raise a good observation that most of the, shall we say, "heavier" equipment available to resistance groups, tended to come out when they brought the conflict into the open. I'll have to keep that in mind. I'll also have to look at the Italian OOB when I build my partisan force. It only makes sense as the Italians were in the Balkans before the Germans, for the most part.

[Cross]

Currently, you can choose captured equipment in a PBEM campaign, but it has to be part of your 'support' forces. I assume this is how it is in camps against the AI?

It would be nice to be able to choose captured equipment as part of your core. But perhaps there's a programing road block for this. If that's the case I guess I can live with captured equipment as support only.

I actually think it's cool that we can do this at all...


cheers,
Cross