Kubuś ( Polish for "Little Jacob") is a Polish improvised fighting vehicle used by the

Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...

in the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The single vehicle was built in secret to function as an armoured car and

armoured personnel carrier An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world. Acc ...

for assaults by the Home Army, where it suffered damage and was abandoned after two weeks of service. The original Kubuś vehicle survived the war and is on display in the Polish Army Museum, while a full-scale replica was built for the

Warsaw Uprising Museum The Warsaw Rising Museum (), in the Wola district of Warsaw, Poland, is dedicated to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The institution of the museum was established in 1983, but no construction work took place for many years. It opened on July 31, 20 ...

and frequently takes part in various open-air festivals and reenactment shows.

History

Design

The Kubuś was based on the

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of a manufactured object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

of a civilian

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157 truck which had been license-built in pre-war Poland by the Lilpop, Rau i Loewenstein company. The chassis was fitted with steel plates for protection of the crew, which were bolted to a steel frame and then welded together. The armoured car had a crew of two, could carry between eight and ten soldiers, and was armed with an air-dropped PIAT Mk I (supplied by the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...

), a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

-built DP-27 machine gun, underground-built K pattern flamethrower and hand grenades (most likely Polish-built Sidolówka and Filipinka grenades), in addition to personal armament of the soldiers. The name Kubuś was taken in honour of the wife of one of the constructors known as ''Globus'', as she was killed in early August and had used the pseudonym ''Kubuś'', Polish for "Little Jacob", but also the Polish name for Winnie the Pooh.

Construction and Service

The construction of Kubuś started on August 8, 1944, one week after the beginning of the Warsaw Uprising, in a car repair shop belonging to Stanisław Kwiatkowski in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

's borough of Powiśle, at the corner of Tamka Street and Topiel Street. The main engineer of the vehicle was Walerian Bielecki ( nom-de-guerre ''Jan''), and with no design prepared on paper, all construction was improvised ''

in situ is a Latin phrase meaning 'in place' or 'on site', derived from ' ('in') and ' ( ablative of ''situs'', ). The term typically refers to the examination or occurrence of a process within its original context, without relocation. The term is use ...

''. The construction of Kubuś was completed on August 22, taking only 13 days from the decision to build to the handing over of the vehicle to Home Army fighting units. The vehicle entered service immediately upon completion, and was attached to the "Wydra" motorised unit. The following day, together with a captured Sd.Kfz.251/3 Ausf.D named "Gray Wolf", it took part in a failed assault at the main campus of the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...

, which had been turned into a military garrison by the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

. The same assault was repeated two weeks later on September 2. During the second assault, Kubuś received minor damage and was successfully withdrawn from combat to Polish-held areas, but it was not repaired, and on September 6 it was abandoned at Okólnik Street.

After the Uprising

The original Kubuś survived the war, and in 1945 was towed to the Polish Army Museum as one of the first exhibits after the museum had been looted by the Germans, where it was restored and exhibited; it remains there to this day. A full-scale operational replica was created in 2004 by Juliusz Siudziński and is, as of 2009, on exhibition at the Warsaw Uprising Museum. One of the crewmembers of Kubuś during the uprising was Krzysztof Boruń, who would later become a prominent journalist and

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

writer.

Notes and references

External links

Improvised Armored Car "Kubuś"Gallery of "Kubuś" Armoured Car in ''Modelling market in Poland'' magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kubus Wheeled armoured personnel carriers Armoured cars of Poland World War II armoured fighting vehicles of Poland World War II armoured cars Improvised armoured fighting vehicles Home Army Warsaw Uprising Armoured personnel carriers of WWII Armoured personnel carriers of Poland