It remains a mystery and a tragedy of history that a nation ready for great heroic effort, gifted, valiant, endearing repeats stagnant errors in almost every manifestation of its rule. Great in rebellion and misfortune, shameful and shameless in triumph. The bravest among the brave, led by the meanest among the mean. - Winston Churchill on the Poles
Empire of Parpaldia
16 Mar 1640 C.C.Y./1975 P.C.
15:06
Forest at 40 Km east of Tyronth Village
Marcus with fear in his heart was lying on the ground in the forest waiting for the Poles coming from the sea. He was one of the survivors from the first line of battle. Only by incredible luck he managed to escape from this slaughter on horseback. He did not even try to put himself on the second line, he simply rushed wherever he could but as far away from the Polish troops as possible.
Fortunately, when he crossed the second line, it was already on fire, being massacred by the Polish Artillery. Unfortunately, he was unable to cross the third line safely and was caught.
He was lucky enough to be considered a panicked soldier and not a deserter, but the problem was that he was given the new weapon of the Parpaldian elite, the firing pin, and was forced to take part in the defense of the third line.
The commander of the third and last line had just enough sense to decide that it would be best to hide in the woods and wait with an ambush for incoming enemy troops.
Therefore, when the Polish Artillery began to play its symphony of death for the umpteenth time that day, it demolished only the empty fortifications which had been abandoned by Parpaldia.
Marcus took no part in the boasts and threats made by the soldiers around him. They are fools! Don't they know we have nothing to stop them! Marcus thought in his mind, all the time having in his mind the images of the defense of the first line when the shells fell on their positions and started to penetrate their defenses. The air raid afterwards only deepened the wounds on the young soldier's heart.
He felt extremely old, in just a few hours he had grown old. He no longer saw any hope of victory, he could already see the soldiers around him falling through holes from the bullets of fast shooting enemies or being torn apart by steel monsters that spit fire like their land dragons but the effects of their fire were more disastrous.
Suddenly the conversations stopped and through the bushes he heard a quiet "They are coming!". Marcus tuned his ears looking for the enemy and after a while he heard a whirring sound, which announced the appearance of Polish vehicles. Then he saw a column of three vehicles moving slowly on wheels and with turrets moving sideways. They were Polish BRDM-2s, which Marcus did not know. He could see the faces of the Polish soldiers through the windscreens, above the windscreens there were plates like eyelids over the eyes.
He could feel the tension slowly rising in the air. When the vehicles were near Marcus, suddenly an officer shouted a loud "Fire!" and cannons hidden close to the road fired at the vehicles breaking the camouflage magic they used to hide their presence.
The effects of their impact could be seen after a while, they managed to pierce the armor of the second vehicle and destroy it. The first vehicle in the column was badly hit but not destroyed, while the last vehicle avoided the hit at the last moment.
The initial shock of the vehicle's destruction turned into euphoria. "And what have you bastards got!" Shouted the soldier next to Marcus loudly, while the other soldiers made their own insults, unfortunately the joy proved to be short lived when the third vehicle reminded of its presence by opening fire from its turret cannon into one of the guns.
It took him barely a moment to cut down all the gun crew members. Then it aimed its turret at the next target. The Parpaldians were neither passive nor indebted and also opened fire, but their rifles did nothing to the vehicle. After a while the first vehicle whose crew came out of the stun they had fallen into after receiving cannonballs joined the action.
Marcus who was firing his firing pin at the vehicle suddenly felt something hit him and he looked to his right to see that the soldier who was shouting that the Poles had just lost his head.
He stared dully at what had happened to the soldier and then went back to shooting as if nothing had happened, completely insensitive. He had already had occasion to scream in horror when he first saw it and now? Oh they tore his head off? Too bad.
When he returned to shooting he noticed that the first vehicle suddenly stopped and its engine died. This was also noticed by the crew of the last surviving cannon who started aiming at the vehicle, if the crew of the vehicle had any illusions that they could restart the car they disappeared the moment the cannon destroyed their rear where the engine was.
The Parpaldia soldiers felt blood in the water when they saw what had happened. The machine guns of both vehicles started firing louder and louder as the third vehicle approached the disabled first vehicle. Marcus, knowing his intuition, quickly got up and ran to the wreckage of the destroyed vehicle, followed by several other soldiers.
Then he waited for an opportunity to shoot. He awaited after a moment, when the left side door opened and from the destroyed vehicle, and all its right side door opened. The crew of the destroyed vehicle quickly jumped out, Marcus knowing he didn't have much time, took aim and fired at them and the other soldiers with him.
The accuracy left much to be desired as only one of the three escaping crew fell to the ground screaming. A loud "KURWA" went up into the air and the gun operator of the destroyed vehicle spotted them and began chopping at them like crazy forcing Marcus and his comrades to hide behind the sheet metal of the destroyed machine.
Marcus didn't think much of it and decided to go under the hull of the destroyed machine. He aimed at the lying soldier and killed him with one shot. The rest of the crew of the first machine, seeing that there was nothing more they could do, sat huddled in the machine. The Parpaldians, thinking that they already had it easy, rushed at the enemy, but suddenly something small fell around the vehicles and smoke quickly covered the area.
They heard the loud screams of the Polish soldiers and the fact that one rifle had fallen silent, although the other continued to fire and hit, terrifying the Parpaldians. After a moment they heard a loud slamming of the door and the roar of the machine that started to run away.
After a few minutes of coughing and darkness Marcus decided to come out of his hiding place, and when the smoke cleared he saw a battlefield. Many of the Parpaldian soldiers who had rushed into the attack were already dead, and the loud cries of the wounded broke the peace after the shooting.
The squad that ran after him behind the vehicle also looked bad, it turned out that the armor of the vehicle did not protect so well against the bullets from the turret weapons. Half of them were dead, and only Marcus from the other half was surprisingly unharmed.
Out of curiosity Marcus looked through the exit hole inside the destroyed vehicle, the view wasn't too interesting, the turret gunner was missing the lower half of his body, while the rest of the 4-man crew was ragged with shrapnel from the impact and bullet penetration.
Marcus looked at the corpses with sick curiosity, especially their faces, you could see the shock and surprise and pain on their faces. The pain was especially visible on the soldier sitting on the right seat, the poor guy had bled to death instead of dying from shrapnel like the rest.
He stepped out of the middle and looked at the body of the soldier he had killed, it was being combed through by an officer and a couple of his aides, they paid particular attention to the gun. It was small like a pistol with a strange box sticking out of the handle. The soldier who was checking it accidentally pulled the trigger as far as it would go and the gun went off really fast.
She fell out of his hand from the sensation. "You idiot! Lucky you didn't hit anything!" Shouted the officer chastisingly at him and then carefully and curiously picked up the weapon from the ground. "This weapon is interesting! You are to find me more pieces in this first vehicle! With it we will win this war!" He shouted impressed at this extremely light weapon.
Marcus then took another look inside the destroyed vehicle and by the mangled corpse on the floor of the vehicle he found an identical weapon. He picked it up and pulled it out into the sunlight observing its appearance with curiosity. It had the appearance of a T with a belly on the front and was all black. Despite the blood on it, it slightly reflected the sun. Of course its name which was PM-63 RAK was a mystery to Marcus.
To the left of the silver cutout he could see small numbers and letters. Not knowing why he liked the look of this weapon, such an inconspicuous killing machine. Out of curiosity he pulled the protruding box from the weapon and after a moment it came out whole like a sword from a scabbard. He looked at it and from above he could see small cartridges for the weapon. The box itself was surprisingly long.
The soldier next to Marcus whistled rudely "Interesting patent, like with a woman in bed." Marcus couldn't disagree with the association. Further admiration was interrupted by one of the officer's aides who wordlessly approached and extended his hand. Marcus knew what he wanted and without a word gave him the gun and the box.
Then the soldier left, while the one who blew his whistle said "No culture." Marcus raised his eyebrows looking at him. "Well what? He could have politely said what he meant and not stretched out his arms like some sort of lord." He replied raising his shoulders. Marcus smiled at him at that. "What are you, running out of tongue too? And by the way I'm Aulus." Aulus said extending his hand.
Marcus accepted the gesture and replied "I'm Marcus and I haven't run out of tongue in my mouth I just don't like to talk much." Aulus nodded and then began to look at the bodies of the slain. "Nasty this war, almost a hundred dead, and what results? We only managed to kill 5 enemies. If this keeps up, we'll have to start throwing women at these Poles because the men will be gone."
Marcus nodded in agreement and then felt Aulus pat him on the shoulder. "Though, let's have something stronger before we start cleaning this up, we deserve it." And then they both walked towards Aulus' cache where something stronger was.
Empire of Parpaldia
16 March 1640 C.C.Y/1974 P.C
14:10
The Imperial Palace in the temporary capital of Romus about 400 km north of the actual Imperial Capital
Emperor Ludius read another disastrous reports from the front, he was sick of hearing them live, somehow it was easier for him to see them in writing. Fortunately he had been in the north for a long time when the invasion happened, along with his family and government. Until now the news of yesterday was bouncing around in his head.
To hear that besides the appearance of enemy soldiers cutting off the land routes to the capital, the Polish invasion army had set foot on Parpaldziej soil was quite a shock. Their desperate plan to throw their entire fleet at the enemy failed, and for the first time in decades or perhaps hundreds of years a foreign soldier appeared on Parpaldian territory proper.
The speed with which the Poles attacked was enormous, in just an hour the two great port cities of Ravenna and Firenza fell simultaneously, and with them fell the towns up to 50 kilometers north of them! Currently, it is already the 5th hour of the invasion and the Polish Army is already close to breaking the siege line of their emerging surprise attacking division two days earlier.
"This is something." Said the Emperor, "Only five hours and they have already covered nearly 250 of the 300 kilometers to the capital." If not for the fact that they were going to his capital he would have admired the artistry and skill of the Polish Army. Unfortunately, he did not see that the Poles did it thanks to luck and the fact that the enemy was too weak to stop them, they were slowed down more by the terrain and a very low level of infrastructure which could not support even a mechanized battalion.
Despite the fact that armored equipment, for example, is very light for such advanced equipment, the T-55 still weighed 36 tons. This meant that only some of the bridges could be crossed, fortunately Polish T-55s could drive on the bottom. And let's not talk about all the equipment that has to travel these 300 kilometers, it also took a lot of time to set it up in the ports.
But the biggest limitation is the fuel, the T-55 has a range of 500 km on a good road but with this level of roads it falls below the 290 km assumed in the field.
Because where the hell are they going to find fuel in a country that is just discovering things like railroads? And still the fights with the scattered troops of Parpaldia, although short, also slowed down the march. Although it should be noted that what the Poles were doing to the Parpaldians happened in Poland in the famous September 39 when the tempo of the German troops was so fast that when a Polish division withdrew to the next positions, the Germans were already there.
As a result, many divisions simply surrendered from exhaustion and fear, taking up the time they needed to organize prisoners of war. The Polish Military Police simply could not cope with such a large number of them.
But let us return to the gloomily delighted Emperor. The speed with which their opponent moved made their entire command stunned and forced them to revise their plans considerably. Nevertheless the Emperor could already see what the end would be, we had lost and the enemy they were fighting was unstoppable. No matter what they did they would only delay the fall of the empire by hours.
Like a flood they flooded their country. If a Pole heard this last, he would simply fall from his chair laughing like mad. Why one may ask, those who know the answer may skip the next sentences and those who do not know. Let them know that in XVII century Poland had such a period called Swedish Deluge. It was another of the wars for domination on the Baltic Sea. It was an unfortunate war which, according to scholars, was one of the most important reasons for the downfall of the First Polish Republic.
The scale of looting and destruction was so enormous that only World War II came close to this scale. This war coincided with the Khmelnytsky uprising and the war with Russia in the eastern borderlands. Although in the end Poland won this war by enormous sacrifice which can be seen only in the Republic as for example in the USA caused the death of half the population of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom and the transformation of the Republic into an Oligarchy which tore Poland apart from its neighbors.
Whereas here we have only the flooding of the country, without looting the territory.
Returning to the Emperor, his meditations were suddenly interrupted by a knock at the door. "Come in" said the Emperor and through the door into his office came Arde, by his look and expression you can immediately read the bad news. And the last few days had aged him more than his entire career so far.
"What is it Supreme Commander?" Asked the Emperor calmly while waiting for more bad news. "I have 2 good news and 1 bad news my Emperor." Replied Arde in a weary tone. The Emperor raised his eyebrows, is there any good news? But then he clouded "Start with the bad." Arde nodded and began "The bad news is that the Poles have cleared the way for their so-called paratroopers."
The Emperor looked puzzled and asked in surprise, "And how do you know what these dropped soldiers are called?" Arde pulled out a folder and handed it to the Emperor in his hands. "And this is where the good news begins, we were able to capture and using translation and interrogation magic to get the information."
The Emperor opened the folder and saw a picture of a Polish soldier on the first page along with information. "As your Imperial Majesty can see, by luck we managed to capture one of the Polish officers, our brave soldiers operating anti-aircraft guns shot down one of those machines called Helicopters belonging to air-dropped soldiers called paratroopers." Said Arde in a slightly more animated tone.
The Emperor smiled "Award me these soldiers for their actions and send my commendation." Arde nodded "Understood your highness." And then he continued his speech. "As the Emperor can see, our unit was able to arrive at the crash site faster and pick up the living survivors than the enemy, after which we began our interrogations."
The Emperor then took another sheet of paper. "It was reluctant at first, and it was only through the actions of our specialists that we were able to build a dictionary at a very fast pace, somewhat helped by the fact that the officer had his own with him to communicate with our men. I must admit that the idea that every soldier, when questioned, should answer only with his rank and name and some number is very good and I ask you to introduce something like that in our army."
The emperor raised his eyebrows and agreed with this statement "As the situation gets better such a reform should be made." Arde nodded once more and then continued his statement. "In the end strongly by force we managed to break the officer partially and get some interesting information, unfortunately not the enemy's plan or at least not in its entirety but the bits of information gained will help in the defense."
The Emperor looked at the captured pieces and saw such things as the general plan of attack, the number of troops sent, the names of the types of formations and other important information, but the list is too long to mention one by one. One of the information which amazed him was the number of Poland, which counted less than 34 millions, compared to Japanese 120 or Parpaldz 70, it is really a small number.
The army sent for the invasion was not large either, 6 divisions together with the rear units numbering about 100,000 soldiers, which compared to his 2 million defensive army was as nothing. "I see but what is the other good news?"
Arde smiled widely, "We managed to get our hands on some Polish infantry weapons and our engineers have started working on reversing them, it is planned that in two months we will start sending them in bulk to the frontline units." The Emperor reciprocated the smile and began planning a new speech to lift the spirit of the nation. Only unfortunately one thing was bothering him.
Would they last the two months?
Empire of Parpaldia
March 15, 1975 P.C/1640 C.C.Y.
18:19
Staff at the former mansion of the governor of the territory of Ravenna
General of Arms and Commander-in-Chief of the invasion forces Leon Kozlowski was looking at the map with satisfaction. Whole Polish army showed its class and skills. Enemy escapes or surrenders everywhere where Polish troops arrive.
Nobody and nothing is able to stop the Polish war machine. Unfortunately, there must be some bitterness in every barrel of honey. And that bitterness is ambushes and especially the disastrous loss of a helicopter with a major on board. He believed that they would not be able to get information from him so easily, but magic is still a great unknown.
And who knows, maybe this way they will get information which, although from the Major's point of view is not worth protecting, for their opponents it is worth a lot of information. A look from a lower technological level sometimes reveals something that those above do not see because they do not pay attention to it.
Another bitterness of course is the far-flung supply lines, although they were able to link up with the paratroopers pretty quickly and partially relieve them, they will have to hold the assault for a few days. The level of infrastructure is simply too low for the needs of the modern battlefield. And the sappers have enough orders for a whole month and the list grows longer by the hour.
And he should forget that they do not control the whole territory, but they have penetrated 300 km deep into the terrain through corridors and they will spend at least a whole week to secure the whole area. Other divisions that are to secure the territory are just gathering in the ports of Altaras waiting for transport to Parpaldia. Another 100,000 will land in Parpaldia.
Further analysis of the map was interrupted by the arrival of Japanese Captain Yoiji Itami assigned as an observer. Contrary to the jokes of his colleagues, he is not a lazy otaku, like a famous namesake from a certain anime, manga and novel, who is a master of escape. Although the last one is true, but in contrast to that character he uses it rather willingly and actively in a good cause.
Altaras also sent their observers, as well as Japan, but Altaras to be able to deepen cooperation and Japan to be able to analyze how the Polish Army works. The People's Republic of Poland, contrary to the expectations of experts, did not make greater difficulties in learning, although not all by Japan, of course many things.
Itami had to admit that despite everything Poland had impressive offensive capabilities, but well, it's hardly surprising when Japan didn't have any and the advisers from the Seventh Fleet of the United States needed quite a long time to give them to Japan at least in a minimum degree. Yes, Japan can make a landing and hit their enemies solidly, but in the time they would need to develop an offensive even with one division, the Poles hit the whole front.
He himself took part in the war with Luria and remembers a lot of problems they had with the beginning of the offensive, of course once they started there was nothing to collect.
Not that the Poles were perfect, but unlike Japan, they had already trained and prepared the proper procedures for a large-scale invasion, after all all the Warsaw Pact maneuvers were huge and directed offensively to the West.
And if someone thinks that in just a year Japan will effectively master the procedures for sea and land invasion, he is very wrong, the Americans are simply too few to change this and social resistance is too great. Let's take as an example the fact that Japan still has only 3 landing ships, while Poland has 23.
Moreover, Polish landing ships, although smaller, were armed and thus capable of supporting ground troops with their cannons and unguided rocket launchers and could throw their transport of soldiers directly with ease, the possibility of using landing barges was a possibility, not the only option of landing as in the case of Japanese Osumi class.
But the biggest shock for him was just the speed of the offensive, in a few hours they covered 300 km and secured land transport to the paratroopers. It was simply an unimaginable pace for him. The data of analysts from Japan assumed to achieve this but after a day or two.
He was therefore surprised that the Polish plan had succeeded, although he noted that it was more like sticking a long crooked stick into Parpaldian territory and that the rest of the units except for the 8th Dresden moved more slowly and secured the entire area.
It was the 8th Dresden Mechanized Division that was tasked with breaking through to the paratroopers from the east and it did its job perfectly. From what he was able to learn the Poles left all their 5 armored divisions in the homeland thinking that mechanized infantry and a division of paratroopers would be enough to conquer Parpaldia.
Of course the reason for this was obvious, fuel consumption, already maintaining one armored division in Parpaldia would be more wasteful than beneficial, and the tanks in the mechanized divisions were sufficient to take down any tougher opponents.
Further contemplation was interrupted by the Polish general's question "How can I help you Comrade Captain Itami?" Itami looked at Kozlowski and replied "I wanted to inform the General of the arrival of the Japanese Red Cross and humanitarian aid from Japan." Kozlowski smiled at that. This would relieve the Polish Red Cross unit and the army of much of the wounded and sick Parpalians and make it easier to control the occupied area.
Of course he saw in this Polish-Japanese cooperation an irony, on one side they secretly undermine their position and influence, on the other Poland allowed to observe their troops in action and send humanitarian aid. There are rumors that the Japanese side wants to design together with the Poles a new landing ship.
Of course, it is supposed to be only a trial of cooperation, and the ships themselves will be useful to Japan, after all, they are said to be quietly exploring the possibility of buying a few ships of that type from Poland, not that they cannot do it themselves, but it may be a safe way to start a broader cooperation, as such ships serve equally well as transport ships.
Fortunately it's not on his head, he's just making sure to follow orders and not to be beaten by those above him.
He noticed Itami continue to stand and stare at him. "Anything else Comrade?" He asked politely having orders to avoid an incident and to demonstrate full skill and effectiveness against the Japanese observers without revealing sensitive information.
"Colonel Naoki Kamo has asked me to convey his appreciation for successfully executing the strike." Said Itami smoothly hiding the fact that the Colonel was the most scared of them all if about the Polish operation, moreover he started sending alarming reports to the command in Japan. Well, there is something to be afraid of when the country you are watching sends almost as many troops as you have in total as a first wave of invasion and the delay is only a couple of decades which can be easily caught up if you know what works.
And the fact that it's outdated doesn't matter that much if your army is simply too small to stop all your opponents at important points. Not that JMDSF would allow that, but still. The Polish general only smiled, if he suspected something then he hid it well.
Then Itami saluted and walked away from the general. And Kozlowski calmly looked at the map and muttered under his breath. "I wonder if only our lancer fantasy will wake them up or if something more terrible will."
The People's Republic of Poland
Office of the First Secretary Warsaw
17 March 1975 P.C/1640 C.C.Y
In a neatly and without any display of wealth furnished office sat the lord of life and death of all Poles. The First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party.
Edward Gierek read with pleasure successive economic reports, the economic collapse ceased to threaten them for the time being and his era and successes continued. For the time being, they had gained breath and a place for their experiments in socialism with a human face.
This place, of course, was the newly occupied patches of land which appeared in the east and which partly resembled the long-lost eastern borderlands, but not entirely. Where there used to be Polesie and Pinsk marshes there is now a sea which was just called Pinsk, referring to the fact that during the thaw these marshes turned into a sea.
And from the old northern border there was a strip of land that ended exactly where the river Neman should be. And then it goes east along this coast until the place where Kaunas should be, then it goes slightly south and then east ending with a sharp curve at the place of former Vilnius.
Then it goes more or less straight down and slowly turns right to end up south of such an indentation on the former eastern border in the form of a triangle on the site of the former Brest-on-the-Bug.
Then again there is an uninhabited virgin land about 100 km from the place where Brest used to be. And so it goes to the east more or less as far as the place where the city of Rivne used to be. About 200 km to the west of the place where the city should be, the whole area goes south again as far as the Westal Continent.
A lot of space has been gained in this way, and the whole area is very similar to the old borderlands, what is more, apart from wild animals there are no inhabitants whatsoever, which makes it an ideal place for colonization. On the Westal Continent itself there are some untypical tribal communities, but the mountain range of the Carpathians and Sudetes effectively separated Poland and its New Borderlands from the primitive inhabitants.
This does not mean, of course, that there is no colonization wave, but it is weaker and smaller and most of the efforts go to colonize the new land to the east and secure this border. And the new deposits of raw materials just waiting to be extracted are roughly the same as the old ones, but a few orders of magnitude higher when it comes to occurrence. Particularly oil in the so-called "New Galicia" or "New Eastern Lesser Poland" to date, there are still disputes about how to name that region.
Gierek only giggled at this silly dispute which arose at the last session of the Sejm. Then he pulled out another report, the land invasion is going on at best with about 250,000 Polish Soldiers stationed in the Parpaldian Empire and the enemy capital is under siege. Polish Staff prefers to wait with attack on the capital until the moment of securing the rest of the terrain and effectively separating from the enemy.
Of course, he knew what was behind this, namely the logistics, which are incredibly stretched by the rapid march across the country like in Bliztkrieg, and the army needs time to be able to continue the offensive northward effectively and safely.
Shaking his head at the reports, he took another one in his hand. This one was about so called non-humans, all creatures that originated from some Tolkien's work. Orcs, Goblins, Animals and so on. Polish law does not distinguish between humans and non-humans and what's more there are territories in the north of Parpaldia which are full of non-humans and which are supported by Polish Intelligence.
As for those who wanted to settle permanently in Poland, they were treated like any other foreigners, which means that they are under surveillance and if they assimilate into Polish Culture and their children become Poles, the people's authorities have nothing to do with it. What is more, some people wonder whether their racial skills can be used in industry or in the army.
But so far very few such people came to Poland, the requirements were considerable and each uncertain was sifted from the rest, to avoid leakage. So God forbid that they should make a mess in PRL, because they would go away faster than anyone would realize.
The last thing he had to read today was of course the economy, the thing he knows best. Now they had quite an economic boom, so far Poland's economy was being squeezed out of everything it produced through trade with Soviets. This was best illustrated by a joke in which Poland sold meat to Soviets and in return Soviets took coal.
Now, when the Soviets disappeared, many things suddenly began to appear in absurd quantities in warehouses and so the entire five-year plan had to be thrown in the trash and rewritten. The first solution, of course, was simply to put it on the shelves of Polish stores, but the Polish market very quickly became saturated with it.
Of course another fact is that despite trying to produce everything in large quantities, some things like cars are still not very widely available, but the last few months have changed that. It is a fact that a planned economy is inefficient, but if you try to use a planned economy to take over the whole economy.
In a few specific industries you can use it very effectively and literally flood the markets with products on a scale impossible for the free market. Well, it's not surprising because in a planned economy you don't have to worry about economic profitability because it's more about available resources than money.
And on foreign markets, surprisingly, Polish companies were able to fight on the free market with Japanese corporations. You may ask how is it possible? The answer is simple, a long list of orders, which Japanese companies often have already arranged years in advance, and the fact that for countries that are undergoing a sudden technological shock the Polish technology works better.
To illustrate it with an example, Japanese tractors are better in every respect than the Polish ones, except for the price and operating costs. Polish tractors are much cheaper because of the more primitive technology behind them and the lack of legal barriers restricting the flow of technology as in the case of Japanese tractors.
What is more, a Polish tractor can be repaired by a blacksmith from the countryside, which should not come as a surprise, as two world wars in Poland have just set back the development of Polish agriculture to the level from before the 19th century. And the Japanese need to be sent to the service except for simple repairs because of their sophistication.
In short, for a landowner it is cheaper to take a Polish tractor and use it in spite of its lower efficiency precisely because it is more difficult to break it down in a stupid way than for peasants detached from the plough, and it is much easier to repair. The Japanese, after the initial monopoly, became a sign of either very deep pockets or high technical skills of farmers.
Another matter is that PRL at the beginning simply threw on the market a whole heap of tractors which simply had no place in Poland because of the saturation of Polish agriculture with them.
What more it was partly unscrewed during these few months, mainly in places where the PRG was only in the initial phase of existence, so one could say there existed in Poland a free market, but in agriculture, although with this freedom anyway nobody went too far.
Therefore Polish companies were able to take up a fairly equal fight with Japanese, but no wonder, if they were supported by the state, which suddenly gained a lot of income from exports with simultaneous low imports.
But at the same time it is a threat to Poland, after all the enemy may attempt an invasion from the Westal Continent and until they get close to the Polish mountains the Poles are largely blind, they don't have like Japan their satellites to see every move of the enemy.
Hell, they don't even have a space program to compete with them and plans to launch one are a distant future song. For now when it comes to missiles they are trying to develop their own anti-ship guided missile. While they have the capability to build and design such missiles against air and land, they don't have it at all when it comes to water, and any sea-based missiles are rather land-based and not very good anyway.
As for the missiles for small sea vessels from missile-torpedo squadrons, it is better to keep the curtain of silence.
Another matter is that stocks of these missiles are very small and most of them not very effective, the plundering of warehouses belonging to the USSR Navy changed little in this matter, although the possibility of reverse-engineering slightly better ones was gained, but there are still too few of them.
Eventually, Gierek's further reading of economic reports was interrupted by a telephone call. Gierek looked at it and saw that it was a red telephone, which was connected directly with the office of the Japanese Prime Minister. Gierek raised his eyebrows and then picked up the phone and asked in fluent French, "Hello, how may I help you, Comrade Yomoya?"
The answer that was given made him smile.