Vehicles designed, captured, or otherwise fielded by Poland, either by the Armed Forces Of the Republic of Poland or by the Home Army. Polish tanks currently comprise a single mixed line, starting with light tanks at low tiers, briefly becoming medium tanks at mid tiers, and then evolving fully into heavies at high tiers.
Polish tanks start as high speed support tanks, but eventually follow a toned-down version of the Russian KV-type doctrine, focusing on damage and armor at the cost of unimpressive mobility and poor 'soft' stats like gun handling or ground resistances.
Many of the vehicles in this line are 'paper tanks' that never left the blueprint stage, and sometimes not even the draft stage. This is due to the conquest of Poland in 1939.
Lines:
- 4TP > 7TP > 10TP > 14TP
4TP
Developed in 1935, this tank was based on the Vickers Carden Loyd Commercial Light Tank and trialed from 1937 to 1939. It was not produced after Poland was conquered by Nazi Germany. Serves as the starting tank of the Polish line.
- Crippling Overspecialization: It's extremely fast, making it a decent active scout, but its other stats are quite rubbish and restrict its utility.
- Fragile Speedster: For Tier 1, being able to put in a solid 35 kph top speed while actually having the power-to-weight ratio to reach it, let down by having miserable armor even by Tier 1 standards.
- More Dakka: Its starting gun, a 20mm autocannon that can pump out approximately 100 rounds per minute, which is not bad for low tiers.
- Painfully Slow Projectile: Its upgraded gun has a slow flight speed, making it almost useless against moving targets at range.
- Power-Up Letdown: Its upgraded gun has great penetration and damage, but its awful rate of fire and truly appalling aim time (2.8 seconds!) leaves the 4TP with the worst DPM at Tier 1.
- Starter Equipment: Naturally, being the Tier 1 Polish tank.
7TP
A modified Vickers Mk. E, produced under license, aided in no small part by improved components and upgraded armament. Originally a twin-turreted tank, but rational construction wisdom prevailed and it was remade as a conventional single-turret tank.
- Long-Range Fighter: Somewhat slow, thin armor, but a decent-damage, decent-penetration gun with good accuracy for its tier, let down only by a long aim time. As such, it's a pretty good sniper or pocket tank destroyer.
10TP
A prototype for a mixed wheeled/caterpillar tank based on Christie's designs. The prototype actually passed trials, but like many Polish tanks, development ceased after 1939.
- Contortionist: 12 degrees of gun depression is better than some American tanks.
- Fragile Speedster: 50 kph top speed, enough power-to-weight to make it meaningful, and maybe 30mm of meaningful armor total.
- Long-Range Fighter: Again, its poor armor and slow aiming speed make it a poor choice at close range. Its decent accuracy and damage are enough to give it a chance against modestly soft targets further away.
14TP
A remake of the 10TP, intended to focus on the caterpillar system. Held back by the inability to source an engine and then cancelled in 1939.
- Fragile Speedster: An even better engine than the 10TP, resulting in pretty decent acceleration.
- Long-Range Fighter: You may be sensing a trend here. Don't get close to enemies, as neither your rate of fire nor armor will impress at close range.
- Power-Up Letdown: Because of a combination of poor gun depression, weak average penetration, and mediocre view range, you will find it harder to snipe from cheeky positions like in the 10TP.
TKS z n.k.m. 20mm
A tiny 'tankette' developed in 1933 to bolster the Polish army, originally featuring machine guns. 24 vehicles were later refitted with the 20mm automatic cannon, represented here. Given out during the Polish launch event.
- Cute Machines: Even the wiki says so
. - Fragile Speedster: Top speed, acceleration, and turning ability are all pretty decent for a Tier 2 tank. It also has almost no armor, so don't get spotted.
- The Gimmick: The TKS is tiny, and its gun is placed far to one side of its hull, which has a small but disgustingly effective mantlet (thicker than American tanks 3 tiers higher!). The trick of this tank is to hide the bulk of it behind hard cover, show as little of its right side as possible, and repeatedly dump 10-round clips into any enemy who is too slow or unaware to realize the danger.
- Ramming Always Works: Against it, that is—it's tiny and couldn't reach the 3 ton weight total if it tried. It is at serious risk of destruction if it gets rammed by artillery.
- Stealth Expert: Absurdly sneaky thanks to its high camo rating as a result of its small size—smaller than a Panther turret.
- Tanks, but No Tanks: Not a proper tank, lacking a turret as it does. It is actually closer in spirit to a casemate tank destroyer because of its gun mounted in the hull.
- Unusual Weapon Mounting: Its 20mm cannon is distinctively lopsided, placed on the far right of the hull. This allows it to peek and fire with barely any of its hull visible.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Right turns. Its lopsided gun means that firing as you turn is practically impossible, as enemies will see your weak left-side hull long before you bring the gun into line. For this same reason, you are wholly unable to defend from the left side of cover.
None of these tanks ever saw the production stage. The Pudel, as a captured German tank, is an exception.
Lines:
- From the lights > 25TP Krust II > 40TP Habicha
25TP Krust II
Originally called the 20/25TP, developed in 1937 but never trialed. As a result there were no prototypes and it existed solely as blueprints.
- Cute Machines: Inverted, as it is often considered one of the ugliest tier 5 mediums.
- Fragile Speedster: A great top speed, decent acceleration, but poor armor combined with a very tall silhouette means it will get destroyed quickly if targeted.
- Long-Range Fighter: Because of its terrifyingly good top gun but poor armor, it's best kept out of the thick of the fighting.
- Expy: Weirdly, to the Soviet T28 Tier 4 medium tank, which is also large, poorly armored, but speedy and equipped with a decent gun. Oddly, both tanks also feature superfluous front mounted mini-turrets in their hull.
40TP Habicha
A hybrid of Soviet and German engineering, combining elements of both the T-34 and the Panzer Kampfwagen IV. The end result is a tank with a German turret, Russian gun mantlet, and a bizarre combination of KV and Pz IV hull. Development was discontinued after the invasion of Poland.
- Armor Is Useless: At least what you get on this one. There's nowhere that's especially tough for a Tier 6, making one wonder what good the weight of armor actually is.
- BFG: For a Tier 6 medium, boasting a honking great 90mm cannon.
- Close-Range Combatant: Thanks to the power but limited accuracy of the 90mm.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Has a pretty good gun, except that you can barely get anywhere with it, which is going to be a disappointment for those who were used to the mobility available to the first half of the line. What armor it gains is also not enough to protect it.
- Glass Cannon: Punches big holes in enemies (to the point of three-shotting other Tier 6 mediums) but buys this power at the price of mobility, and its armor is unreliable at best.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: Abominably slow. It may not look it on paper, with the 50 kph speed limit, but its acceleration is so bad that it can be outpaced by many heavy tanks. It can legitimately be outrun by a Super Pershing. It is also no longer a long range fighter thanks to its poor accuracy; players have to accept their new role as a sort of 'support brawler' moving forward, as this begins to define the role of the higher tier heavy tanks.
Panzerkampfwgen V Panther 'Pudel'
A Pz.Kpfw. V Panther Ausf G that was captured by Polish troops during the Warsaw Uprising on August 2, 1944. A German tank with Polish colors and a large Polish standard on its hull, this premium tank was released to drum up interest in the Polish tech tree.
- Bilingual Bonus: Polish for "Poodle," as in the dog breed.
- Fluffy the Terrible: A Panther tank nicknamed "The Poodle." Only funny if you're not aware that Standard Poodles are actually fast, intelligent, and capable hunters.
- Long-Range Fighter: It's accurate but does little damage per shot, and what armor it does have only really covers the turret, so it's best to stay at range like a normal Panther.
- Palette Swap: Of a standard Panther, wearing Polish colors and insignia and moved down a tier.
- Vehicular Turnabout: Nicked from the Nazis and went on to fight against them in street-to-street combat.
In real life, none of these tanks ever saw the production stage.
Lines:
- From the mediums > 45TP Habicha > 53TP Markowskiego > 50TP Tyszkiewicza > 60TP Lewandowskiego
45TP Habicha
A proposal for a heavy tank, built off the 40TP Habicha and intended to take advantage of sloped armor and an even larger gun. Never developed as the parent 40TP design was also discontinued.
- Artistic License – History: We don't have much proof that this design even saw blueprints. As such, its statistics should be taken with a considerable amount of salt.
- Attack Its Weak Point: If it gets hull down the only viable weakspot is its cupola.
- Close-Range Combatant: It isn't that accurate with its gun, requiring it to get closer to make it work.
- Hard Head: That roof on the upgraded turret is not a weak point. Your shots will ricochet off it without doing anything other than mildly annoying the driver. It is over 60mm thick and angled at nearly 75 degrees.
- Jack of All Stats: It is pretty decent overall, having a basic but usable armor layout, acceptable mobility, and a gun that is just big enough to make some good-sized holes in the enemy. It does not excel in any one area, but is only really let down by the mediocrity of its optics and radios.
53TP Markowskiego
Another proposed heavy tank design. It made it to blueprints, but remained as such due to the overall shutdown of Polish tank design.
- Attack Its Weak Point: When properly angled the tank's major weakness is its cupola—the rest is either sloped or rounded, and can bounce shells all day if allowed.
- Lightning Bruiser: It does just about everything well for a heavy tank, thanks to a capable combination of powerful armament, good mobility, and respectable armor. As a result it brawls well but also can spearhead charges, defend an area, and even act as a poor man's tank destroyer due to the power and penetration of its gun.
- Power-Up Letdown: The first 122mm gun is pretty lousy, trading off everything for better alpha damage. You're better off sticking to the stock 105mm Bofors cannon—that thing is practically a clone of the T32's top gun!
50TP Tyszkiewicza
Designed by a cadet at the Military Technical Academy of Warsaw in the 1950s. To little surprise, this design never made it out of bueprints.
- Attack Its Weak Point: The turret and the hull look very tough...until you realize you can cripple the beast by shooting its driver match and commander's cupola.
- BFG: A 130mm cannon that wouldn't look out of place on the IS-7 a tier higher.
- Mighty Glacier: You're back to being slow again, but the armor and that big gun mean that you can get close and deal hideous amounts of damage.
60TP Lewandowskiego
Another cadet design proposal from the Military Technical Academy of Warsaw. Proposed and drafted, but never blueprinted. Ends the Polish line of tanks.
- Artistic License – History: Didn't even get to blueprints, meaning most of this comes from the work of colorful imagination.
- Attack Its Weak Point: The driver's hatch again, but also the cupola.
- BFG: Apocalyptic firepower thanks to its enormous 152mm cannon. It is basically a KV-2 but angrier, having better gun handling, actual penetration on armor-piercing shells, and retains a ludicrously large high-explosive shell.
- The Dreaded: For having the raw derp potential of a KV-2, but with a faster shell, better gun handling characteristics, and on a tougher chassis.
- Hard Head: A tough, rounded turret and oddly angled hull make it very easy to trick enemies into bouncing off your armor.
- Mighty Glacier: Sluggish at just under 13 horsepower per ton, but makes up for it with toughness and a ridiculously massive gun.
- One-Hit Kill: It can erase some lower-tiered opponents with a single high-explosive shell. What part of "KV-2 but even scarier" is unclear?
50TP Prototyp
A prototype draft of the 50TP Tyszkiewicza, which was later replaced by the proper 50TP at the blueprint stage. A premium tank released at same time as the full Polish line, joining the densely packed Tier 8 premium heavy tank lineup.
- Artistic License – History: Crafted out of rejected drafts for blueprints.
- Attack Its Weak Point: The face of the driver's hatch is finally somewhat strengthened...at the expense of the side of the hatch, which is exposed if you angle the tank even slightly.
- Hard Head: The angled turret is very bouncy and will confuse people who think that the roof slopes are weak.
- Mighty Glacier: Sluggish but tough, and the damage of its upgraded 122mm cannon is nothing to sneeze at either.
