AMAZING Polish WAR Movie: Reaction to Warsaw 44 

Using the 20 mm flak in infantry support is no BS. Most regiments had a company of then, and they were often used for heavy direct suppression fire ...The Flakvierling in motorized units was extremly usefull against both aircraft and infantery.

3:05 Man on this photo is Witold Kieżun. One of the most famous polish resistance fighters. He took part in attack of Main Post Office. After the uprising he survived gulag and returned to Poland and started law studies. In 80' he became UN expert in Burundi. Died in 2021 at age of 99. Few years before this death I had conversation with him. He was truly extraordinary man.

Women and girls most certainly took part in the Warsaw Uprising fighting. My aunt, who was petite at just 4' 10" tall was there, fighting within the AK (Home Army Resistance). Many years after the war, her activities were recognized and she received a Medal for Bravery.

The 2 cm Flak 38 was very common and very often used against ground forces. A human hit by this would be ripped apart. Quad Flakpanzers like the Wirbelwind were extremely terrifying in the ground role. Panzer II, most armored cars, most flakpanzers, several HTs and trucks also used it. It was basically the German version of the "Ma Deuce".

The gun that the polish resistance fighter was using is a Mosin-nagant 1891/30 carbine (M38), its a carbine version of the Mosin-Nagant 1891-30, it was created in 1938, but in 1944 the red army adopted the M44 carbine, which is basically the same as the M38, but it has a fixed bayonet, while at the time the most abundant and common red army weapon was the M44, but they are resistance fighter or partisans so it’s totally accurate for them to be using the M38

5:27 For someone that covers a lot of war history you'd think he would know that's a Mosin Nagant, such an iconic bolt action rifle.

I've seen this movie 4/5 times and it's always thrilling. Special effects are amazing and the direction is spot on with some really surreal scenes. The tenacity and resilience of the Polish fighters is inspirational.

The Sten was designed to use the same type of ammunition (9mm) and magazine of the MP40 so that resistance fighters could use ammo they captured from the enemy

The Germans specifically were somewhat famous for using those 20mm flak guns as "heavy mgs" on the eastern front. They used them to provide suppressive fire out to ranges of about 2000m. And because they were so common and because they were increasingly ineffective against aircraft.

As for the weapons used by the Polish resistance movement. The guerrillas used whatever weapons they could get, steal, buy from someone or get them in airdrops from the English, or they produced them themselves. They used everything from Polish, German, Soviet, Romanian, Hungarian, French, Italian and Allied weapons. The productions of the Polish resistance movement are "BŁYSKAWICA", "BECHOWIEC" (in two versions), "KIS", "KOP-PAL". They were produced from several hundred to several thousand pieces. Different units in different parts of occupied Poland could have completely different weapons.

A lot of Allied airmen flew missions to drop supplies to the Polish Home Army. Many were shot down and near my house in Southern Poland, a large plaque in a local church and small shrine remembers one crew, mainly New Zealanders, all young blokes of 20 something, who never made it home, and gave their lives to give the Polish guys a chance. They aren't forgotten in Poland.

In regards to the 20 mm AA used in a direct fire infantry support role, it’s very accurate. There’s images of soldiers using it that way and I recently read an account of artillery troops using it against airborne troops on the morning of june 6th

The Warsaw Uprising always makes me so sad, man. I think something like a quarter or a third of the soldiers in the resistance were from the Polish equivalent of the boy scouts. Ow.

As for women in the Warsaw Uprising. In addition to cooking, treating the wounded, and loading ammunition, they also took part in the fight. There was a whole combat unit composed only of women. "Disk" unit - a subversive and sabotage women's unit of the Home Army. DISC is an abbreviation for Dywersja and Sabotaż Women. During the uprising, "Disk" joined the Broda 53 brigade and fought in the "Radosław" Group. They fought in Wola (a district of Warsaw). After the fall of the district, which could not be maintained despite fierce fighting, the women, along with the rest of the troops, went through the ruins of the ghetto to the Old Town. Here they fought until they retreated through the sewers to Śródmieście, where some of the healthy, under the command of "Zofia", went to Czerniaków, and the sick and wounded remained in Śródmieście. During the fights, the women not only acted as nurses, miners, liaison officers and observers, but also developed traffic lights for Allied planes and took part in receiving airdrops. It should also be remembered that it was women-minerals who breached the PAST building, through which the second assault on this building was carried out. They were highly respected by the men fighting them, who appreciated the versatility of the members of the DISC. There were also women - privates who fought with weapons in hand (Magdalena Grodzka-Gużkowska was a sharpshooter). When the Uprising began, there were about 5,000 women - soldiers of the Home Army. During the Warsaw Uprising, they were mainly nurses and liaison officers. Women accounted for over 60% of the state in a special canal communications platoon. There were also them in the sabotage and quartermaster services, as well as information and propaganda.

I'm glad that I found this channel Glory to Polish Heroes

That aint bullshit to use AA against infantry positions. There are thousands of Archive footage of AA guns and vehicles shooting to infantry for suppression or DE. Just yesterday I saw footage of American Halftrack firing the 4x 50. Cal Mounted AA on German position in Cologne....

4:12 . It can happened. There were granite pavements so rebound fire was very effective. Germans in close combat were oredered took off helmet because to many Poles had similar gear. Mauser Kar98k was popular in 1944 perfect for long distance shots. 12:13 it was every day crime. My Grandfather as teenanger was used this way and than was taken to neogothic St. Adalbert Church. Thaks God he escaped an survived this hell. Most of his school friends were mourdered at Wola District. Those mourders and rapist - "simple" conscript Wermacht soldiers and Police Units executed civils till the end of ammunition...

14:15 if the tank fired in that scene, the blast would not only obliterate the civilians in front of the tank, but also kill the soldiers next to the gun. The barrel of many of the german tanks, and the tank in the scene has a muzzle that directs some of the blast to the sides instead of ahead. This is designed to give the tank better visability after it has fired, since it was common for tanks to be virtually blind after firing a shot because of the dust clouds it resulted in. The down side was that if u stood next to the barrel when it fired, you would get killed instantly from the blast. However this could also work in favor of the tanks, since in many situations, the blast force from the tank was more effective to kill infantry than the projectile it fired, especially in urban combat. If an enemy soldier rushed up to the tank, firing the gun would often be enough to deal with him even if the person was not in front of the tank.

When it comes To this movie, I also reccomend you to watch "Warsaw Uprising" - This movie came out this same year the "Warsaw 44" came out - it is, And I'm not joking, A Feature movie created Entirely with The Real Footage from the 1944 Warsaw Uprising... They Took the original reels that survived (Originally there was 20 Hours of footage, but only 5 and half hours of footage survived to this day), they stabilized, Digitally Restored/Reconstructed and colorized the footage... But not only that - They added sound, They hired the person that was able to read from the people's lips, and They hired many voice actors to voice people recorded on that reels (They even search for the actors who would match the body of the person they were voicing) And around that, they created an entire Plot - The plot is about two brothers, filmmakers, who film the Uprising - They are the only Fictional Characters in this movie... After watching it for like, 5-10 minutes, you forget that you are watching real footage. When It comes to the quality of the restoration - It depends, because some reels were basically copy of a copy of a copy of a copy - So some parts of the movie look like they were filmed yesterday, and some look like a VHS recording. But overall I recommend you to search and check out this movie :D

Gonna have to stop you at 10:30 - 11:00 In urban environments troops will use whatever they can get their hands on. Ingenuity in combat is a soldier his best friend. Using a 2cm cannon to blast a building is a great example. Now you say: that wasn’t it’s intended purpose. Yes that’s true. Now ask the US Marines in Fallujah Iraq if the Purpose for the Amphibious Tracked Vehicles and the D2 Combat Engineer Bulldozers purpose was to drive into insurgent held buildings so that they would collapse. (They did do this in fact) The point is in a cities and urban environments it’s easy to be placed in a stalemate so to get the upper hand you must think outside the box. Russians are even seen using Direct fire of B4 Howitzers into buildings in Berlin. Anything goes in a city.

It’s a nice feeling to wake up and find that you have a new video

Great analysis…as usual. Love these videos of yours.

The weapon the Upriser was using that you called a Sten, was actually a Polish made weapon called a "błyskawica" (Polish for "lightning"). These weapons were fabricated in basements and other secret places prior to the Uprising. They are of Polish design and, for what they were, were o.k. weapons. The truth of the matter is, the British and the U.S. wanted to airdrop supplies and weapons to the Armia Krajowa (AK Polish for "Home Army") during the uprising, but Stalin forbade them from using Soviet held airstrips and Soviet aviation fuel to help get the badly needed supplies to Warsaw. In the end, only two drops were made. A very small one by the British, and a little larger one by the U.S. The U.S. drop did not correct for wind, and the vast majority of the supplies and weapons landed behind German lines. Even then, the drops were way too little, way too late. Stalin had stalled long enough to ensure that the Germans would decimate the AK, while the Red Army sat and watched from Praga across the Vistula river.

I loved the scene of the 20mm flak gun in Saving Private Ryan, because it showed the randomness of combat. The Americans took out one of the German tanks relatively easily, but an unshielded gun manned by a totally exposed crew took them a long time to put out of commission.

Thank you for covering part of Polish history ✌

Good work on the piat my friend your knowledge is impressive. Great content.

The PIAT could certainly be an effective weapon but it was an absolute bastard to cock. It was basically a spring-powered spigot mortar, and to cock it you had to push the back end with your feet and pull the front end with all your might in order to compress the spring and engage the trigger. In practice it looked kind of like someone on a pogo stick. It was very difficult to do unless you were standing up, which is not what you want to be doing in combat. The recoil was also quite awful. But hey, no backblast.

The 50 round for the MG-42 was not a magazine but a simple drum that held a 50 round belt.

The 2cm flak was great at shooting targets hiding behind hard cover like brick walls and sandbags. Since the round could penetrate such cover and cause massive psychological terror in the people hiding behind it. So the 2cm and 3.7cm flak guns were often used against opponents that are held in fortified positions, which there are many accounts and photos of.

Wow. I am impressed your knowledge

I don’t know what is so strange about using aa against infantry. As recently as 2015 I myself witnessed how ZU-23 was used against fortifications and light armored vehicles, with a great success btw.

The 20mm flak Canon was why Germany doesn't have a 12.7mm weapon. To them it's their heavy mg.

I love your videos It would be awesome if you'd review the thin red line

Sten was not only dropped by allies, but Polish rsistance had small underground factories manufacturing Sten. Also they produced SMG's like Bechowiec or Błyskawica, frag grenades, they even made their own flamethrower and armored car named "Kubuś", but due to lack of fuel it wasn't really used during battles in Warsaw.

In the german WW2 newsreel about the warsaw ‘s battle they show the karl heavy mortars, the stugs and a shot of a crew of flakwierling 38 fire at some buildings in direct fire mode

@ 5:27 it looks to be a Soviet Mosin Nagant rifle!

At the 11:03 mark, I read somewhere that the Polish girl was killed by a round from the Panther tank. Now it seems kind of less explosive than a tank round should be. We could if we wanted to might explain this away by saying it was a defective shell, practice shell or that the outside of the building was different were she stood. Still a cool movie.

Just because something is made for one purpose does not mean someone else can find another use for it. The german 88mm Flak gun was made for AA but they realized it was also good at destroying tanks. The Soviet ZSU-23 was made for AA but then they realized it was great at destroying Chechen positions during CQB engagements due to its firepower and ability to have high angle of fire.

Please do a video about the unknown soldier its probably the most underrated WW2 film there is!

These are fast becoming my favourite RU-vid video series

Hey Alex, the rifle in question at 5:18 is a M38 or M44 Mosin Nagant. Carbine version of the M91/30. I swing towards the M38, as I don’t see the bayonet mounted on it, which is the only major sign of difference between the M38 and M44 carbines. I also lean more towards M38 as the Germans would have more of those captured than the M44 at this point, due to the M44 just entering mass use in 1944.

That soundtrack to the graveyard scene took me out of the movie. The Dirlewanger men were well represented in the movie. Good review sir. Have a nice 2022!🦊🫖

10:16 also the the Polish not having a solid front line to drop supplies behind.

my grandmother made stens in the uk , and they were good in that they are only about 30 parts so cheap , and they could use german mp40 magazines , and you could take them apart so they were easy to smuggle .

F_cking love these videos! thanks for givibg something to watch while doing my Ap history essay

its rly nice to watch stuff from someone that actually studied by reading and actually obtaning knowledge and not just spamming out words and facts that they dont know anything about i relly enjoy watching your videos man but yes they used 20mm on infantry not as direct fire but aimed at hard structures in this case the building they where in one exemple is the sdkfz 222 20mm with a 42mg that round would blown half her face and elbow of tho since the explode even the AP version specialy HE

The weapon you are asking about seems to be a Mosin Nagant M38 carbine.

🙌🙌🙌 Fantastic

5:20 I'm not a specialist, but to me it looks like a Mosin Nagant, perhaps one of the early variants, considering the bolt is sraight, and not bent downwards, so mounting a scope would be impossible

5:28 the part near the trigger looks like a mausin nagant

the gun the pole is using is the mosin nagant, possible captured from an eastern front veteran of the german army

Warsaw Uprising is a very controversial topic. In summer of 1944 germans were retreating in complete panic after operation Bagration and that raised great entusiasm around poles. But unluckly right before the uprising german comanders changed mind and decided to hold on Vistula river on every cost. Soviets expected that and their propagand radio called people of Warsaw to uprising just to use germans for dirty job in kiling as many polish patriots as posible, to make future comunization of Poland easier. Hitler himself ordered to completly obliterate Warsaw despite lack of resources on every front (proof of his madness after failed assasination atempt). German forces obeyed and used all of their heavy toys: artilery, Stuka zu FuB bombs, nebelwerfers, railway heavy mortars, even prototype Sturmtigers (Shwerer Gustaw is not confirmed). And they used just six Ju87 to bomb every building in the city one by one (Soviet fighters didn't disturb them). And after fall of the uprising germans continuded pointless destruction of the city until January 1945 !!!

The man firing the rifle out of the window is using a Russian Mosin Nagant 7.62R cal.It appears to be a m1944 carbine version.

Greetings from Poland

Using antiair 20 mm guns in anti infantry and support is accurate, imagine making swiss cheace of buildings or explosive roundseffect on people. . in balkan wars praga antiair truck was popular effective tactic.thats one example i can remember of.

He's holding a Mosin Nagant (M38) @ 5:25

I recommend continue with the reaction video, it is very entertaining and educating. I recommend you can give a shot on the Korean Movie "My Way" which can be said as the best D-day CGI movie, but in terms of the reality it was very questionable. It also depited the Russian-Japanese border conflict in 1939 and also 1941 Eastern Front (briefly)

5:24 that rifle is the mosin nagant

Also in Italy partisans use a lot of stens smg, but the majority Are The Mab-38 and MP-40 and other italian late war SMG

You could read " sonderführer w warchawyzie" by my father Dietmar Apel. Its about the uprising and some Shit my Uncle was in .....Like real scary Shit.

Best, most realistic war movie I have ever seen, hands down. A 10 on a 10 scale.

5:28 that's a mosin nagant 1891 rifle.

5:30 The gun looks like a Mosin-Nagant

And you missed to mention the polish Sten Clone ..Błyskawica. would have eben a nice Addition.

The weapon that you said looks familiar is the Soviet mosin nagant

Actually, the Polish women who fought in the Warsaw Uprising were the first women in history to be recognized as soldiers by the enemy army. The Polish firefighters made it a condition of their capitulation that all the women who fought along them would be given the POW status by Nazis. It was the first time the Nazis had to create a female POW camp. Women weren't there just as nurses but fought with guns too. Some were trained snipers for example.

That rifle from the German helmeted polish I think it's a mosin nagant or some variant probably the carbine version of the rifle.

This movie and Stalingrad were amazing ww2 films

8:46 i love how he struggles to pull out the mag like you/he sed they did not all / mostly know how to user them (: (: /8:47 (: (:

1:39 It was spring-actuated rather than rocket-driven like the Bazooka, Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust. In terms of performance the PIAT had a much worse armor-piercing capability than all the aforementioned and it lacked the range of the Bazooka and Panzerschreck.

at 5:29 that rifle is a Mosin-Nagant

5:28 polish mosin nagant. Same as the russian one except from poland. Not sure if it would have existed this early in the war but its cool to see

13:42 am I the only one who noticed the jag tiger or whatever the tank name is in the back behind the panther

5:33 It s a Mosin Nagant.

The weapon In the 5:29 mark is a Russian mosin nagant rifle used by Soviet infantry and sharpshooters

Same auto cannon as used on the sdk.fz 222 armoured car

5:33 mosin nagant ,i have one😁

The sten was so "popular" back then that my dad gave me two of them to restore.

20mm AA guns were praised by Jurgen Stroop, a war criminal responsible for pacification of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. He liked its effectiveness against fortified positions and in general as a powerful anti infantry weapon. So I think it is possible those guns were used in the same role during the Warsaw Uprising.

It’s very very hard to push the spring back down to reload

The PIAT does not have backblash but the recoil is harsh.

Well i think the PIAT wasnt better than the PzF or the Bazooka because for the reload you hat to stand up wat almost forced you to get out of cover. It also didnt have a good range because ut didnt use explosives to shoot the protectile, because it used a feathering system that you hat to reset every time and thats why you had to stand up to reload. And the rifle was a Mosin Nagant. GOOD VID DUDE LOVE IT! LIKE YOUR CHANNEL👍

7:35 German garrison or prison units often had weapons captured from allies in France.

88mm was AA also and turned out to be the best AT gun of the war. Especially with right optics.

This presenter really is knowledgeable bout the facts that he did s talking about. I was impressed with him knowing about the Dirlewanger Brigade of the SS

there are German newsreels showing the 2cm flak being used during the Warsaw rising

In school I watched the zoo keepers wide and was a good movie but I also read resistance a book on polish rebels

5:30 that gun is a moisin nagant

15:17 I think they leave that guns cause them have to run and they are heavy actually so they leave them cause they have to quickly escape that building or it’s just a mistake in a movie

About the 20mm flack not be used to it’s intended purposes doesn’t it matter ,soldiers will use anything to gave an advantage or break a defensive position , it’s that kind of ingenuity that make a scene like this feel more realistic. Flak 88 was a anti aircraft gun , that just happened to be one of the best tank destroying weapons of the war .

The Russian Advance halted outside Warsaw they could have easily saved those resistance fighters but the Russians halted until the Resistance fighters were wiped out

8:11 for the case of logistics is actually not that bad from polish partisan since most weapon used are chambered in same german ammunition. Sten MK2 are 9x19 parabellum and most rifle are chambered in 7.92x57 mauser. Few exceptions are PPSh and Mosin Nagant been chambered in 7.62x25 tokarev and 7.62x54R respectively. But ammo stock are kinda available since german actually put 7.62 x 25 mauser for the PPSh early war and rifle ammo are found in soviet outpost set back in late 1939. And side note for STEN reputation for jamming its because of the bad mag well design. The best way to shoot it is to hold the mag well from the bottom to realign the magazine to the receiver.

AA guns are tremendeously effective against soft targets. During the wars in ex-Yugoslavia 2x30 mm and 3x20 mm guns were weapons of horror for infantry.

5:28 it a mosin nagant i think

To be honest, I once saw a video of Polish fighters in Warsaw smashing German position with "2 cm Flakvierling 38" I will link it if ill find it.

5:28 Mosin Nagant

An incredible number of 250,000 polish civilians lost their lives in Warsaw Uprising. An incredible figure. Almost the entire young generation of that city died during it. And I saw the movie, it portrays very well the raw reality of the war. Its very sad what they had to be through.

That rifle you couldnt recognise was a soviel mosin nagant

The guy with a polish headband is using a mosin nagant i think

the rifle he was using the mosin nagant