Military power (Poland #21 in the world)

Globalfirepower.com has somewhat recently updated its information. And judging from the looks of it is much more accurate now (especially with Poland) which btw improved by roughly 15 spots in the rankings.

Obviously USA stands #1.

Russia has replaced China for #2.

Turkey, South Korea, Israel, Brazil, Iran, Poland, Ukraine and Taiwan have improved.
(Especially South Korea and Iran)!!

Germany and North Korea have dropped quite a few spots I was surprised by this actually.

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For those interested discuss :)

What happened here? I know Russia was planning a major modernization program but I'm sure if it's already taken effect.

I heard about it too I believe. Russia has been making some tech advancements recently actually.

youtube.com/watch?v=0dWX2demtwY

They have the intelligence and man power. However they dont have as fast growing production like USA also Russias economy while fine has a much smaller budget than the US.

USA for example has plenty of new F22s.

Here is some info:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_jet_fighter

Im using aircraft as example as they are one of the most important military craft.

Poland has these aircraft:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Air_Force

We (Poland) have some Soviet/Russian planes, some American planes (not fifth generation though), etc.

Oh dear, looks as though they are ready and willing.



I was surprised to see the French outdo the Germans, must be hangover from WWII.

Nice film never seen it before!


The big statistics that seems to be the deciders is the active military personal, total aircraft, and land based weapons (in each case France has more).

The website does not mention nuclear weapons but I just wanted to point out that Germany and Japan were not allowed to have this after WWII. France has a few hundreds nukes.

Finally Germany has only 1 percent of its gdp going to war things.
There economy is awesome (same with Japan) and if there was a war they would easily be top countries again.

I forgot about that one, yes that definitively puts them ahead.

I don't know how reliable that data is. For Ukraine they put 1 million active reserve and Poland has 20,000. Either we are crazy or our military reserves are far overblown. Anyhow, I don't know much about military stuff.

Yay Poland's reached the legal drinking age!

Germany was offered nukes in the 1950's, but they declined, AFAIK.

Just a few years ago Poland also had a larger army and more reserves. But they decided for the army to be "Professional" and smaller.


Hmm didnt know that.

Good move. I hope the nonsense of inflated active army reserves will end here too.

Globalfirepower is completely worthless.


Like i said GF uses some magic numbers but numbers dont tell the story, Ukraine for example has almost twice the tanks Poland has but only 300-500 of them are capable of even driving from point A to point B.


Reason they "declined" was Russia which basically threatened to nuke Germany if it accepted, still Germans had nukes just not their own.


It can't, more than a milion people would lose their jobs, thats enough to collapse ukrainian society given that the army is one of the few things that holds Ukraine together.


Nothing, Globalfirepower is not a reliable site rather a political shoutbox for american media.

True, in case of a war they would have had direct access to the American nukes. BTW: do you know about Poland? Did they have access to the Soviet nukes at all?

"Tysiąclecie Państwa Polskiego" - It was pure propaganda. However, rather famous. Some streets have been named after this event.

Speaking of nukes...

I propose the following:
USA and Russia have the most nukes they balance each other out.
Western Europe has nukes in England and France.
Maybe Poland and Ukraine can get some to balance out the East vs West
(Too be honest I dont care just more to discuss about).

Too answer your question:

Poland itself has never possessed nuclear weapons, but as the part of Warsaw Pact was equipped with aircraft (such as MiG-21, Su-7 and Su-22), as well as short range ballistic missiles (such as R-300 Elbrus, 9K52 Luna-M and OTR-21 Tochka) that could be used to deliver Soviet nuclear weapons, which would be provided in time of war.[1] Since the end of the World War II the Soviet Union maintained large amounts of troops on Polish territory, these troops were equipped with nuclear weapons. In 1991 Poland announced they would remove the nuclear capable delivery systems from their weapons inventory. They decided to keep about 40 of the OTR-21 Tochka systems armed with conventional warheads for self defense.[2] These launchers have now been completely retired.-wiki

There was a documentary about this Secrets of the Warsaw Pact...

very interesting and saddening. thanks for that video.

Both Germany and Poland were in the same situation, no nukes plenty of carriers.

In case of war Poland was to be peppered with nukes from UK, US an France (today history is silent about it) in a manner that would glass 30% of the country and kill the rest by radation, the resulting fallout would kill everyone in Germany within a week.

So no one would be using much nukes, Poland would die in a few hours, Germany in the next few days.

Specificially there were stores of tac nukes that polish bombers would carry to Germany.

I've read projections of it somewhere and its a horror story, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic States, Low Countries had a projected fatality rate of 100%, France had a projected fatality rate of 40% just from the initial fallout, Italy only 20% initially but over 70% overall due to water irradiation.

The craziest thing was that while Europe was projected to lose half of its population over a period of 24 hours and a total of 80-90% in the space of a month there were entire armies protected and outfited for the express purpose of fighting in that enviroment, you'd have in excess of a milion soldiers on both sides fighting for almost two months after the nuclear exchange untill they too would run out of supplies and die.

Glad someone didn't press the red button. No one wanted a full scale nuclear war and certainly not in Europe. The arms race was just for keeping a balance of power between the superpowers made each side fully aware of the Mutual assured destruction (MAD)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction
resulting in the end of all nations involved. Off the record the superpowers have therefore long ago came to an agreement that their imperialistic ambitions and wars over ideologies will be settled in the Third World at the cost and expense of the local population (ex. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan).

They are all a bunch of fools. China, India....Neither of them can feed a large portion of the populations. But they maintain these huge militaries.

Thank god Poland has no such plans. Europe has no need for nuclear weapons...they have learnt that peace is more profitable.

Exactly. Can't provide their citizens with a high living standard but have global ambitions as if people are gonna look at the military and not know in what state their people live in. Unless you're 100% planning a war or know your enemies are plotting one against you don't arm yourself like that. A weapon unused is a useless weapon.

When have you seen the last time tanks on Ukrainian streets, historian? In Lviv it was in 1944 :) Army doesn't hold our society.
Regarding the jobs: when people are doing nothing, producing nothing and getting money, how worse can it be to have them work for a bit more, but producing something?


If B is Poland, all of them will get there, no worries ;)

In 1944 Lwów was occupied by Russians, not a single ukrainian tank or soldier entered.


Ukraine is one of the major military manufacturares in the region, no army = no industry.


Unlikely, as recently as in 2009 Ukraine had issues feeding its soldiers, let alone finding spare parts for its tanks.

Yes it is propaganda, you might have noticed that as they were going through the different eras and major events in Polish history, they conveniently omitted to mention the Polish-Bolshevik War instead they conveniently skipped to WWII. I wasn't aware that several streets were named after this event.

Would you know how they select the soldiers to be part of the "Batalion Reprezentacyjny Wojska Polskiego", is it the luck of the draw or do they have some other selection criteria?

I would like to ask you the same question


you seem quite knowledgeable about army matters.

At that time? You need to be tall and fit and serve in the Warsaw central command disctict (aka be a part of Warsaw garrison units) then if you fit the criteria you were drafted into the Battalion, today soldiers file an application as its voluntary and considered prestigous.

In communist times you were also required to be an able equestrian to join the mounted company, today they teach you how to ride a horse since horses have become rare in the countryside.

So back then if you served outside of Warsaw you wouldn't get in?

Do soldiers generally file an application from outside of Warsaw?

Would this be like the equivalent of the Household Cavalry in Poland?

In a ceremony like the one above, would they try to have representatives from allover the country to be represented on parade? Or would these be primarily soldiers from the Warsaw garrison, if not, How would they decide on who gets to go on parade?

I originally came to Poland to teach those guys and can assure you they ant that well thought of by the rest of the army for very good reason.

What is the reason?

Maybe it's changed since then, but in those days it's where people went when they weren't quite up to more demanding jobs. I remember a lot of vodka drinking early in the morning and some too drunk to speak or even stand by the afternoon. Also I was propositioned a few times. Mind you, these were officers close to retirement - the younger generation might be different, though having met a few I wouldn't bet on it.

Sure you did, you're also an astronaut and and a superhero, got any more imaginary life tales to share?


Correct, still correct, the soldiers are drawn from units in or around Warsaw.


The battalion itself consists of several detachments, the salute platoon (the guys who do the shoot in the air) several guard companies and a mounted company, the mounted company is the exact equivalent of various household and guard regiments in other countries like UK.


I didnt make it clear, the soldiers of the representatvie battalion are garrisoned in Warsaw hence you have to serve in the general area for convenience sake, privately you can live in Gdańsk or Kraków or wherever but you have to serve in Warsaw.

As for all over country, every polish division has its representative component, not all the same but representative battalion is the national level representative unit existing for the express purpose of well... presenting.

All other representative units are dudes who serve as regular grunts every other day.