Kubus

**Key Features** | »RDP machine gun (x2)»Flamethrower mount (flamethrower missing)»Transport bay»Suspension engine»*"Kubuś Puchatek"* decal

## Tactical Analysis

* **Pimp my ride:** A local Polish design, the Kubus, for all means and purposes, is esentially a civilian car with lots of armor slapped onto it. The Kubus, however, can also go at reasonable speeds while transporting infantry at the same time.

* **Drive-By shooting:** It's even armed with two side machine guns, allowing it to protect those inside it from Soviet flak troopers. Note that tanks simply shrug off the fire from the Kubus.

* **Carmageddon:** Like the rest of vehicles, the Kubus would easily be sent to the scrapyard with anti-armor weaponry. And attacking aircraft is another story.

* **Flame on!:** Clever Kubus drivers can install flamethrowers atop their vehicles, adding a fiery punch to their attacks.

## Background

For the Polish freedom fighters, the improvised armored car **"Kubus"** is symbolic of two things: the ingenuity of the Polish when it comes to military matters, and their unwavering dedication to their freedom, evident in their tradition of resisting any occupying force of their country which is not of their own.

The prototype was created in a car repair shop in Warsaw's borough of Powiśle in the midst of the Uprising. Named after the contractor's wife who died in the war months earlier, the Kubus was built on the chassis of a civilian Chevrolet 157 truck. The engineering crew welded steel plates to the car for protection and armed it with an Allied MG-42, a K pattern flamethrower and hand grenades. Able to carry between 8 and 12 soldiers, the Kubus was promptly deployed to its first-ever mission: to assault the Warsaw University's main campus garrisoned by the Red Army.

Unfortunately, the motorized attack was unsuccessful; while initially, the Soviet soldiers had no anti-tank weaponry, the Home Army assault failed to penetrate the garrison due to the other side having more firepower, and Hammer Tank reinforcements forced a retreat after losing some of the resistance's men. The Kubus itself was badly damaged at the attack, narrowly avoiding Hammer shots, and the engineering team had to secure it at a secret warehouse to prevent its destruction. Following the battle, the original engineering team concluded that the Kubus APV was inferior to the Soviet Pincer ICV, which had superior armor in its twin machinegun mounts.

Even after Poland fell to the Soviets by the war's end, Walerian Bielecki, the Kubus' main engineer, had his team work on an improved variant. They placed heavier armor (salvaged from wrecked Pincer scrap) at the chassis, trading off speed for survivability, and replaced the mounted twin MG-42 guns with Soviet RDPs. The team also filled much interior space with armor, reducing the number of occupants to 4. The original Kubus prototype was housed in a hidden WWII memorial, pending restoration. Through secret couriers, Bielecki shared his prototypes with other resistance cells throughout the Warsaw Pact states, allowing them to build their Kubus transports.

Today, the new and improved Kubus serves as the Wojtek Division's armored personnel carrier. Red Army analysts estimate that the Division possesses over 75 of these vehicles - for every two they manage to find and destroy, there are three more being built at covert Home Army workshops. These are often priority targets by Soviet counter-insurgent forces, as destroying these also meant killing the rebels hidden inside. A common tactic resistance field commanders employ is for the Kubus to drop off haiduci and Roma spies into Soviet factories, where the two work together to capture the whole building and “re-distribute” ore and other resources to Home Army coffers.