Samochód pancerny wz. 34 ("armored car, year 1934 model"), was a standard light armored car used by the

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stret ...

during the

September Campaign The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after ...

of 1939.

Design

The vehicle was based on the earlier

half-track A half-track is a civilian or military vehicle with regular wheels at the front for steering and continuous tracks at the back to propel the vehicle and carry most of the load. The purpose of this combination is to produce a vehicle with the cro ...

samochód pancerny wz. 28, which entered service in 1928. The original vehicle proved to be unpopular with its crews who were unhappy with its handling, low maximum speed, as well as poor cross-country capabilities, and it was decided to rebuild it as a wheeled vehicle. The tracks were replaced by the rear axle from Fiat trucks. The cars were built in a number of versions with different engines and slightly different armored plates. They were armed with either 7.92 mm Ckm wz. 25 Hotchkiss machine gun or the short-barreled 37 mm

Puteaux SA 18 The Puteaux SA 18 was a French single-shot, breech-loading cannon, used in World War I through World War II, primarily mounted on combat vehicles. It is closely related to the Canon d'Infanterie de 37 modèle 1916 TRP, also produced by Puteaux. ...

gun. Production ended in 1938.

Versions

* Wz. 34: original version. * Wz. 34-I: version with a 23 hp engine. * Wz 34-II: version with a 25 hp engine and other improvements. Most produced version.

Service

The new version of the armored car was accepted for service in 1935. By 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, the car was obsolete but was still in use. All

Polish cavalry The Polish cavalry ( pl, jazda, kawaleria, konnica) can trace its origins back to the days of medieval cavalry knights. Poland is mostly a country of flatlands and fields and mounted forces operate well in this environment. The knights and heav ...

brigades had organic armored company made of 8 armored cars and 13 tankettes. In 10 out of 11 Polish cavalry brigades, the very armored car, wz.34, had been used. They saw action against both the

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

and the

Soviets Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Nationality policy in th ...

. Some wz. 34 captured by the Germans were handed over to the

Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist It ...

References

External links

Wz.34 armoured car
at Polish Armour 1918-1939 website Armoured cars of the interwar period World War II armoured fighting vehicles of Poland Armoured cars of Poland Military vehicles introduced in the 1930s {{mil-vehicle-stub