Armed forces at the outbreak of World War Two

With these weapons, the greatest European powers were about to take part in the greatest conflict ever recorded in History.

GERMANY - ARMY

The limitations imposed by the Versailles Treaty obliged the German Government to keep the troops of the German Army under 100,000 men. Besides, this Army was not allowed to possess artillery nor tanks, whose production was expressly forbidden in the Treaty. The limitations set by the victors of the First World War for preventing the rearmament of Germany had been skilfully avoided by means of certain tricks. For example, the 100,000 men allowed by the Treaty had been trained as highly specialized officers and subofficers. At the same time, while their production was avoided, tanks, cannons and special elements were being researched, so when in 1936 Hitler decided to start the rearmament of Germany everything was ready for passing from the stage of research to the stage of production. In 1939 the Wehrmacht could mobilize six army commands, eighteen army corps, forty-six infantry divisions, three mountain divisions, five light motorized divisions and five armored divisions, for a total of 1,200,000 men. During the mobilization the divisions could be duplicated, so at the outbreak of the war Germany fielded about 75 divisions, whose number would yet again increase in the last months of 1939. While the divisions employed against Poland were complete, those deployed in the Western Front were short of men, weapons and equipment, and totally lacking tanks. The infantry was armed mainly with the diverse versions of the Mauser 98k 7.92-millimeter rifle, with some types of machine guns (MG 13, MG 08/15 and MG 15), with the Bergmann and Schmeisser submachine guns, with a 81.4-millimeter mortar, with a 37-millimeter anti-tank cannon, with 20-millimeter fast-firing anti-aircraft cannons and with a 75-millimeter support cannon. The artillery units were armed with 105-millimeter howitzers and long-range cannons of 105-millimeter and 155-millimeter caliber, besides the famous 88-millimeter anti-aircraft cannon, which was also very effective against tanks. The tanks were: the PzKpfw I, with a weight of 6 tonnes, armor with a thickness of 8 to 13 millimeters and two machine guns; the PzKpfw II, with a weight of 9 tonnes, armor with a thickness of about 30 millimeters, one machine gun and one 20-millimeter cannon; the PzKpfw III, with a weight of 15 tonnes, armor with a thickness of 20 to 25 millimeters, two machine guns and one 37-millimeter cannon; and the PzKpfw IV, with a weight of 20 tonnes, armor with a thickness of 25 millimeters, two machine guns and one 75-millimeter cannon. The discipline and the perfect training, besides the excellent armament, infused the German soldiers with great confidence in their success. The Chief of the Army was General Von Brauchitsch, with General Halder as Chief of the High Staff. Brauchitsch was 58 years old, profesionally expert but weak in character. He crumbled when facing Hitler, who he feared to the point of being frightened and who he obeyed literally. The chiefs under his command were Von Bock, Von Rundstedt, Von Kluge, Von Küchler, Von Blaskowitz, Von Reichenau and Von List, who would soon become well known.


German Panzerkampfwagen IV tank. Fitted with a 75-millimeter cannon, it reached a maximum speed of 40 kilometers/hour.

GERMANY - NAVY

Unlike the Army, the Kriegsmarine was almost taken by surprise by the outbreak of the conflict. Its chiefs had prepared the rearmament by trusting the statements from Hitler that the war would not start until 1944. If it actually had had a timespan of five years at its disposal, the Kriegsmarine would have presented a very powerful fleet: thirteen battleships, four aircraft carriers, thirty-three cruisers, at least sixty destroyers and about two hundred fifty submarines. However, even with the modest fleet of 1939, Germany felt almost capable of confronting France, because of the limited extension of the German coasts and the possibility of protecting its own merchant fleet, as well as the modernity and high quality of its vessels. Besides, unlike what had happened in the First World War, when the powerful German High Seas Fleet was employed cautiously, it was intended to utilize the vessels audaciously to achieve the best possible results. Some of the German ships had a very ample operational range and could deliver war to merchant ships in far away seas, whereas the small submarines which were in service in 1939 operated in coastal waters. Great importance was given to patrol torpedo boats (Schnellboote) as well. Officers and mariners were severely trained according to fair employment criteria, albeit from some sector it was insinuated that the German were not good sailors, an opinion which would be confirmed by the fact that more than one German vessel was stranded during the war; however, those ships were manned by improvised mariners, who were enlisted as the development of operations grew. The ships of the same class were absolutely identical to each other, which was advantageous for training and for emergency situations which would take place during the war. The deadly power of German naval artillery was known since the First World War, and now it was assisted by the first radar devices, which were fitted to the German vessels even before their adversaries had them installed in their own ships. The 21st August 1939, when she left Wilhelmshaven for taking position in the Atlantic Ocean, the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was fitted with an orientable radar antenna, whereas the British ships still used a fixed one. On the other hand, at the beginning the German torpedoes were defective, whereas the mines - a weapon which had been always well appreciated by the German - were good ones, and the first mines of magnetic activation would soon be laid. The Kriegsmarine had 228 aircraft at its disposal and six bomber groups of the Luftwaffe were assigned to maritime operations, such as laying mines or attacking merchant ships. There was a lack of aircraft carriers, albeit one was in construction and the keel of another one had been laid. However, they would never be completed.


The battleship Bismarck in the summer of 1940, right after being delivered by the Blohm und Voss shipyards. Note the absence of the fore primary fire control director.

GERMANY - AIR FORCE

Four years after its constitution in 1935, the Luftwaffe was already by far the most powerful and modern Air Force in the world. In 1939 Germany had 4,800 military aircraft, of which 1,670 were bomber aircraft and 1,213 were fighter aircraft. The German monthly production reached 1,100 aircraft, which was almost twice than the British one. A pride of the Luftwaffe was the Stuka, a single-engine dive bomber aircraft which had already given excellent results in the Spanish Civil War and which was the foundation of the strategy known as Blitzkrieg (Lightning Warfare). The Stuka (Junkers Ju 87) was actually an aircraft which was full of defects and which had limited possibilities, but in the short-range operations in which it took place in 1939 it had no rival or competitor. For high-altitude bombing there were the Heinkel He 111 and the Dornier Do 17, fast and maneuverable twin-engine aircraft, while a third twin-engine aircraft, the Junkers Ju 88, was effectuating its first flights. This one was a very fast bomber aircraft which was intended to surpass the former two, and which could carry out their roles besides dive bombing and low-altitude gunfire attacks. Less important, because it was an obsolescent type, was the Henschel He 123 biplane dive bomber and attack aircraft, but also this one would contribute to the annihilation of a considerable number of targets in Poland, including bridges, railway junctions of lesser importance and infantry columns. There were many types of fighter aircraft in service, but only two of them were fundamental: the Messerschmitt Bf 109, a single-engine aircraft of brilliant performance, which was absolutely the best of the German aircraft; designed in 1935, it would be continuously produced during ten years in progressively improved series and subseries, until reaching the incredible number of 30,000 exemplars; and the Messerschmitt Me 110, a twin-engine heavy fighter aircraft which would be later adapted to night fighting. Worth of mention are also the twin-engine Heinkel He 115 and the three-engine Blohm und Voss BV 138, being both of them seaplanes of not very advanced concept but nonetheless excellent aircraft which would be very effective in the roles of maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare. Finally, it should be remembered as well the Fieseler Fi 156 "Storch", a small reconnaissance aircraft, and the Junkers Ju 52, the famous transport aircraft which would be adapted to a multitude of roles and which was easily recognizable by its peculiar coating, which was wholly made of corrugated plates. With aircraft of such quality, besides their numbers, Hitler's Germany was confident about winning the war, albeit almost all of them - besides the many other types which have not been mentioned - would not achieve their goals, because the strategy and tactics of aerial warfare would change much faster than what the High Staff of the Luftwaffe had expected. Interferences from commanders and systems, subordinations of principles to the demands from the Army, expert technicians forced to follow the absurd guidelines set by Hitler and, above all, the lack of a single type of strategic heavy bomber aircraft are the most evident causes of the bad result which, in the end, the Luftwaffe would achieve. But in 1939 it was the most powerful aerial weapon in the world.


German personnel loading bombs on a Heinkel He 111 medium bomber aircraft. Because of the enemy air superiority, this aircraft ended its days of service as a transport airplane.



FRANCE - ARMY

In 1939 the French Army was universally considered to be the strongest one in the world, according to its number of men, tanks, artillery pieces and special elements. At the outbreak of the war, the metropolitan France mobilized eighty-five divisions, of which seventy were deployed along the border with Germany and the rest were deployed along the border with Italy, in the Alps. The French divisions comprised three infantry regiments, two artillery regiments, one engineer battalion and services. The infantrymen were armed with the 1886/16 8-millimeter rifle, a 7.5-millimeter semiautomatic rifle, the St. Etienne and Hotchkiss 8-millimeter heavy machine guns, a 7.5-millimeter machine gun, the Brandt 81-millimeter mortar and a 60-millimeter mortar. The cavalry divisions were turned into five light cavalry divisions with one horse brigade and one motorized brigade, and two armored divisions, which would not be ready until 1940, were being formed. The artillery pieces comprised cannons of 75-millimeter, 105-millimeter and 155- millimeter caliber. The anti-tank artillery had the Hotchkiss 25-millimeter cannon and the production of a 47-millimeter cannon was underway. Regarding armored elements (either for reconnaissance or for combat), these constituted forty scattered battalions which were at the disposal of the infantry or integrated into the light cavalry divisions. There were two types of reconnaissance automitrailleuses: one with a weight of 6 to 7 tonnes, armor with a thickness of 13 to 15 millimeters, two machine guns and one 25-millimeter cannon; and another one with a weight of 7 tonnes, armor with a thickness of 15 millimeters, one machine gun and one 37-millimeter cannon. There were diverse types of tanks: Renault R 35 and R 35/40, Hotchkiss H 35 and H 35/39, and FCM. Those weighing 12 tonnes were heavily armored with a thickness of up to 40 millimeters, to the detriment of their speed and operational range, and were armed with one machine gun and one 37-millimeter cannon. Those weighing 15 to 16 tonnes had an armor with a thickness of 20 to 25 millimeters and an armament which was similar to the former. The SOMUA tanks weighed 20 tonnes, had an armor with a thickness of 30 to 60 millimeters and were armed with one machine gun and one 47-millimeter cannon. The French people entered the war with reluctance and the Army resented from that frame of mind. The Chief Commander General Maurice Gamelin, who was sixty-seven years old and had presided the preparation since 1930, firstly as Subchief of the High Staff and subsequently as Chief of the High Staff, Vice-President of the War Council and, from 1938, Chief of the High Staff of the National Defense. He had the fame of being an excellent organizer, but lacked experience in the command of war and had a weak character. Henry de Jouvenel described him with a sarcastic sentence: "A man full of wit, cultured and excellent conversationalist, who has all of the attributes of a military chief with the exception of the backbone". The chiefs of the large units were of relatively advanced age. They had distinguished themselves in the First World War, but, like Gamelin, they were anchored in the experiences of that time. Only Charles de Gaulle and some young officers had intuited that the methods from the First World War era had been already surpassed.

Note from the author/translator: SOMUA is the acronym of Société d'Outillage Mécanique et d'Usinage d'Artillerie (Mechanical Tooling and Artillery Machining Company).


Side view of a SOMUA S-35 medium tank. Note the doors and the access panels. This tank had the same turret as the Char B1-bis and the Char D2, one fitted with an SA 35 47-millimeter cannon and a Model 31 7.5-millimeter machine gun.

FRANCE - NAVY

With the exception of five battleships, the French war fleet was a completely modern one. None of its units had been in service for over thirteen years. They were well built, strong and fast vessels. Especially thirty-two destroyers were clearly larger and better armed than similar foreign units. Some classes of destroyers were close to the light cruisers of other navies. The mariners trained day and night, with a good criterion. Discipline and seriousness imbued the mood. However, the lack of radar devices and echogoniometers, the scarcity of heavy anti-aircraft machine guns, the lack of modern aircraft carriers (the keel of one had been laid shortly before, in addition to the only existing one, which was mediocre and slow) and, therefore, the lack of aircraft over the operational units greatly reduced the effective value of the war fleet. As a conclusion, it can be said that the French war fleet would have been an excellent one in the decade of 1920, but not so at the end of the decade of 1930, when the combined aeronaval strategy was revealing itself as a fundamental method for a modern war.


The Dunkerque as she was built in 1937. Note the characteristic all-forward arrangement of the primary artillery mountings and the quadruple installation in the primary and secondary artillery mountings.

FRANCE - AIR FORCE

L'Armée de l'Air of 1939 was in disastrous conditions. It had no more than 1,300 aircraft and almost all of them were five to ten years old. The only modern and effective French bomber aircraft were the twin-engine Lioré et Oliver LeO 451 and Potez 633. Of the first type only five exemplars were ready the 3rd September 1939, the day when France entered the war. The other types (Amiot 354, Framan 223, Bloch 200, Bloch 201 and Bloch 210) were simply annihilated when they took part in offensive actions. The Potez 540, a high-wing twin-engine aircraft with the engines hanging from the wings, suffered less casualties, but only because its utilization was limited to a few short- range reconnaissance flights. Very surpassed as well was the Breguet 521 "Bizerte" biplane seaplane, and surpassed were the Morane Saulnier MS 406 and Caudron 714 fighter aircraft, whereas the Dewoitine D 520 was a good aircraft. Barely 204 exemplars of this latter would be built, of which no more than ninety would manage to take off before the end of 1939.


In 1939 the Dewoitine D 520 was the most modern French fighter aircraft. It was armed with one 20-millimeter cannon firing through the propeller cone and four 7.5- millimeter machine guns installed in the wings. It was propelled by an Hispano-Suiza 12-cylinder 930-horsepower engine which allowed it to reach a maximum speed of 540 kilometers/hour.



GREAT BRITAIN - ARMY

After the First World War, the British Army retook its characteristic traditions: the abolition of mandatory recruitment, the long-term enlistment of volunteers and the employment of indigenous people for the colonial army. It was constituted by five infantry divisions and three brigades. Each brigade was composed of three battalions and had one of them deployed in India or in other places. One division and one brigade of mechanized cavalry, one hundred thirty-seven artillery batteries and five tank battalions were part of the British Army as well. Besides, there was a command structure for constituting, in the event of war, a metropolitan army for the defense of the British Isles, which would be composed of fourteen infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions and fourteen anti-aircraft defense groups, which in 1939 would have had one hundred fifty-three batteries at their disposal. In the British Isles there were only 120,000 men ready for combat, because 100,000 were deployed in India, distributed in forty-four infantry battalions, sixty artillery batteries and six tank companies. In India were deployed as well the regular forces, which were constituted by eighty infantry battalions, twenty gurkha battalions and twenty-one cavalry regiments. This made a total of 220,000 men, besides the 35,000 men who belonged to the forces of the Indian States, and who were armed by the chiefs of those states, which were under British control. In the "dominions" the permanent armies had very reduced forces, but in some of them the constitution of a territorial army or militia in the event of war had been envisaged. In Canada there were 4,000 men of the permanent army and 90,000 of the militia; in Australia there were 1,086 and 26,800, respectively; in New Zealand there were 415 and 9,000; in the Union of South Africa there were 1,000 and 130,000; and in the Irish Free State there were 6,000 and nearly 50,000. Until the 27th April 1939 it was not approved in Great Britain the law which imposed the military service, and in July of that year the first contingent of 34,000 men was called for service. The infantry was armed with Enfield rifles, Maxim machine guns, mortars and anti-tank cannons. The artillery units were equipped with the new 25-pounder cannons. The tank types were only a few. Besides the Carden-Loyd 3-ton armored car, there were the Vickers 6-ton tankette, armed with one heavy machine gun and one light machine gun, and the Matilda 26-ton tank, armed with one 40-millimeter cannon and one 7.7-millimeter machine gun. The morale of the British Expeditionary Force was that which is proper of a professional army: the sense of duty, discipline and perfect training prevail over enthusiasm. General Sir Edmund Ironside was the Chief of the Imperial High Staff. Lord Gort, who had been a brave Battalion Chief during the First World War, was the commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France. He had under his command generals who would soon become well known: Alan Brooke, Miles Dempsey, Harold Alexander and Bernard Montgomery.


Onboard a Crusader medium tank, British General Alan Brooke attends military maneuvers which were carried out in England in 1939.

GREAT BRITAIN - NAVY

At the beginning of September 1939 the British Royal Navy was the strongest war fleet in the world, albeit the United States Navy followed it closely. Strengthened by a glorious past and a well deserved fame, it had vessels in every sea and its flag inspired respect. Its superiority was undisputed until the autumn of 1935, when Italy accepted in some way the challenge posed by the concentration of British fleets in the Mediterranean Sea. Dominions, colonies and possessions, along with the largest merchant fleet in the world, rendered a powerful war fleet necessary for the British Empire, to exercise its interests, protect its possessions and regulate the merchant traffic, especially that which was connected with the homeland. The Home Fleet along with the forces of the English Channel and the Humber Stuary, the Escort and Sweeping command, the Mediterranean Fleet, the North Atlantic and South Atlantic commands, the China station, the America and East Indies station, as well as the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Indian Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy, constituted the naval forces in which the British Royal Navy was subdivided. It was a select corps, formed only by volunteers who were conscious that the Navy was the most important armed force of their country, above the Army and the Air Force. Being not so rich in resources as it had been few decades before, the British Royal Navy employed its means rationally and often advantageously. Its sailors were expert men, its maneuvers were realistic, its preparation was up to date (its capability for night combat would constitute a bitter surprise for other navies) and it applied the sane rule according to which the commander who directs the bow of his ship towards the enemy is always right. This aggressive spirit is visible as well in the arrangement of the artillery mountings in some vessels: all or the largest part of all aiming forward, therefore intended for attacking. The British Royal Navy was the first navy which had aircraft carriers built with an armored flight deck, and it had a first-class naval aviation. It had as well an effective system (called ASDIC) for detecting submerged submarines, and had already installed radio direction finders (RDF) in some vessels. And, in the end, a heavy industry and a large amount of shipyards allowed to build and repair a large number of vessels quickly.


A squadron of the Home Fleet, the British metropolitan war fleet. A modernized dreadnought battleship of the Revenge class is followed by heavy cruisers of the York class.

GREAT BRITAIN - AIR FORCE

The Royal Air Force was still weak at the beginning of the conflict, but not as much as the Berliner High Staff thought. The top chiefs of the RAF knew very well that if the Luftwaffe was in an advantageous position this was only because of the rearmament policy ordered by the Führer already in 1933. Meanwhile, the modernization programme of the British squadrons progressed at a fast pace. In the first line were the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Vickers Wellington and Handley Page Hampden high- altitude bomber aircraft; all of these were twin-engine aircraft and slower than their German counterparts, but quite more adapted to strategic purposes. They were just a few, but the most important thing was that they were available and that within two years they had replaced the old Handley Page Harrow and the archaic Handley Page Heyford. Excellent was as well the Bristol Blenheim twin-engine light bomber and ground-strike aircraft. An aircraft of this type, which belonged to the 139th Squadron, successfully performed the first war mission against Germany one hour after the outbreak of the war (a reconnaissance flight over the port city of Kiel). On the other hand, the Fairey Battle, a modest single-engine fighter-bomber aircraft, was a failure. Some fighter squadrons were already equipped with the unbeatable Supermarine Spitfire, which was a derivative of the Supermarine aircraft which took part in the Schneider Cup races, and the valuable Hawker Hurricane. Other squadrons were equipped with inferior aircraft such as the Paul Defiant, the old Blackburn Roc and the Gloster Gladiator biplane aircraft, being these latter not intrinsically bad, but clearly outclassed nonetheless. Long-range maritime reconnaissance and bombings were entrusted to the Short Sunderland four-engine flying boat, and aerial torpedo attacks were entrusted to the Fairey Swordfish, a small and very slow biplane aircraft. But things would change within an incredibly short time.


The Hawker Hurricane was the most numerous aircraft within the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain, a dramatic event which took place in the summer and autumn of 1940.



POLAND - ARMY

In 1939 the Polish Army had thirty infantry divisions, two mountain divisions, one cavalry division, twelve cavalry brigades, forty-two artillery regiments, six tank battalions and armored cars of diverse types, many of them outdated and of little effectiveness. The character of this army was closer to 1914 than to 1939. It still trusted the traditional employment of cavalry. At the moment of the mobilization it could form up to sixty divisions, but the German attack took it by surprise when it had mobilized only two divisions and eight cavalry brigades, which were increased to thirty and fourteen, respectively, during the first days of the war. The morale of the troops was extremely high, but the confidence in surpassing the enemy was excessive. The Commander in Chief was Marshal Edward Rydz-Smigly, who was 53-year old and had distinguished himself as Colonel in the Polish Legion commanded by Jozef Pilsudsky, and later as the Prime Minister of War in 1918 and as a General in the brief campaign for the conquest of Vilnius. In May 1935 Pilsudsky had appointed him as his substitute for being the General Inspector of the Armed Forces. Smigly and the top military chiefs had not yet realized that things had changed since the times of the victories against the Russians, and entered the war with the blind certainty of being capable of defeating Germany.

POLAND - NAVY

In 1939 the Polish Navy was one of modest size, composed of few vessels which were unable to resist the power of the enemy. In 1936 an ambitious 10-year program had been conceived for the construction of three battleships, one hybrid cruiser/aircraft carrier, twelve destroyers, twenty-one submarines and other ships, but in 1939 only a minor part of the work had been undertaken.

POLAND - AIR FORCE

In 1939 the Polish Air Force possessed some hundreds of aircraft of national production, among which were the LWS RWD-14 "Czapla" ("Heron") reconnaissance aircraft, the PZL P-11 and PZL P-24 fighter aircraft, which performed the deed of shooting and bombing the German tanks at low altitude, and the PZL P-37 "Los" ("Moose") bomber aircraft, which hammered to an unvelievable extent, with their limited means, the columns of the invading Russians.

Categories: Statistics - World War Two - 20th Century - [General] - [General]

E-mail:

Website: Military History

Article submitted: 2026-03-22

Article updated: 2026-03-22