Editing Home Army (section)

==Weapons and equipment==
[[File:MWP Kubus 3.JPG|thumb|upright|''[[Kubuś]]'', armored car used by the resistance during the 1944 [[Warsaw Uprising]]]]

As a clandestine army operating in an enemy-occupied country and separated by over a thousand kilometers from any friendly territory, the Home Army faced unique challenges in acquiring arms and equipment,<ref name="Stolarski"/> though it was able to overcome these difficulties to some extent and to field tens of thousands of armed soldiers. Nevertheless, the difficult conditions meant that only infantry forces armed with light weapons could be fielded. Any use of artillery, armor or aircraft was impossible (except for a few instances during the Warsaw Uprising, such as the ''[[Kubuś]]'' [[armored car (military)|armored car]]).<ref name="Stolarski"/><ref name="McGilvray2015" /> Even these light-infantry units were as a rule armed with a mixture of weapons of various types, usually in quantities sufficient to arm only a fraction of a unit's soldiers.<ref name="Laqueur"/>{{r|Leslie|p=234}}<ref name="Stolarski"/>

Home Army arms and equipment came mostly from four sources: arms that had been buried by the Polish armies on battlefields after the 1939 [[Invasion of Poland (1939)|invasion of Poland]], arms purchased or captured from the Germans and their allies, arms clandestinely manufactured by the Home Army itself, and arms received from Allied air drops.<ref name="Stolarski"/> From arms caches hidden in 1939, the Home Army obtained 614 heavy machine guns, 1,193 light machine guns, 33,052 rifles, 6,732 pistols, 28 antitank light field guns, 25 antitank rifles, and 43,154 hand grenades. However, due to their inadequate preservation, which had to be improvised in the chaos of the September Campaign, most of the guns were in poor condition. Of those that had been buried in the ground and had been dug up in 1944 during preparations for Operation Tempest, only 30% were usable.<ref name="Korb"/>{{rp|63}}

Arms were sometimes purchased on the [[black market]] from German soldiers or their allies, or stolen from German supply depots or transports.<ref name="Stolarski"/> Efforts to capture weapons from the Germans also proved highly successful. Raids were conducted on trains carrying equipment to the front, as well as on guardhouses and [[gendarmerie]] posts. Sometimes weapons were taken from individual German soldiers accosted in the street. During the Warsaw Uprising, the Home Army even managed to capture several German armored vehicles, most notably a [[Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer]] light tank destroyer renamed {{ill|Chwat|pl|Działo pancerne „Chwat”}} and an armored troop transport [[SdKfz 251]] renamed {{ill|Grey Wolf (vehicle)|lt=Grey Wolf|pl|Szary Wilk (transporter opancerzony)}}.<ref name="McGilvray2015">{{cite book|author=Evan McGilvray|title=Days of Adversity: The Warsaw Uprising 1944|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YYQwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PR6|date=19 July 2015|publisher=Helion & Company|isbn=978-1-912174-34-8|pages=6–}}</ref>

[[File:Błyskawica and other insurgent weapons.jpg|thumb|Polish weapons, including (''top'') [[Błyskawica submachine gun|''Błyskawica'' ("Lightning") submachine gun]], one of very few weapons designed and mass-produced covertly in occupied Europe. [[Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego|Warsaw Uprising Museum]].]]
<!--[[File:Filipinka sidolówka.jpg|thumb|Home Army-made ''[[Sidolówka]]'' (left) and ''[[Filipinka]]'' (right) [[grenade]]s, [[Museum of the Warsaw Rising]]]] commenting out per talk, least interesting of the three images of equipment mentioned here-->
Arms were clandestinely manufactured by the Home Army in its own secret workshops, and by Home Army members working in German armaments factories.<ref name="Stolarski"/> In this way the Home Army was able to procure [[submachine gun]]s (copies of British [[Sten]]s, indigenous ''[[Błyskawica submachine gun|Błyskawica]]s'' and ''[[KIS (weapon)|KIS]]''), pistols (''[[Vis (weapon)|Vis]]''), flamethrowers, explosive devices, road mines, and ''[[Filipinka]]'' and ''[[Sidolówka]]'' [[hand grenade]]s.<ref name="Stolarski"/> Hundreds of people were involved in the manufacturing effort. The Home Army did not produce its own ammunition, but relied on supplies stolen by Polish workers from German-run factories.<ref name="Stolarski"/>

The final source of supply was Allied [[air drop]]s, which was the only way to obtain more exotic, highly useful equipment such as [[plastic explosives]] and antitank weapons such as the British [[PIAT]]. During the war, 485 air-drop missions from the West (about half of them flown by Polish airmen) delivered some 600 tons of supplies for the Polish resistance.<ref name="Peszke 2005"/> 

Besides equipment, the planes also parachuted in highly qualified instructors ([[Cichociemni]]), 316 of whom were inserted into Poland during the war.<ref name="Embassy PR 2006"/><ref name="Bałuk2009">{{cite book|author=Stefan Bałuk|title=Silent and Unseen: I was a Polish WWII Special Ops Commando|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GuJLAQAAIAAJ|year=2009|publisher=Askon|isbn=978-83-7452-036-2|language=pl|page=125}}</ref> Allied air drops to the Home Army were infrequent; deliveries from the Western Allies were limited by [[Joseph Stalin]]'s refusal to let their planes land on Soviet territory, the low priority placed by Allied commanders on delivery flights to Poland and the extremely heavy losses sustained by Polish Special Duties Flight personnel. The Western Allies refused to provide significant supplies to the Home Army to avoid antagonizing Stalin.{{sfnp|Peszke|2013|loc=''passim''}} 

In the end, despite all efforts, most Home Army forces had inadequate weaponry. In 1944, when the Home Army was at its peak strength (200,000–600,000, according to various estimates), the Home Army had enough weaponry for only about 32,000 soldiers."{{r|Leslie|p=234}} On 1 August 1944, when the [[Warsaw Uprising]] began, only a sixth of Home Army fighters in Warsaw were armed.{{r|Leslie|p=234}}