On April 5, 2022, at the location of the 1st Warsaw Armored Brigade named after Tadeusz Kosciuszko of the Polish Army in Warsaw, Polish Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak signed an intergovernmental agreement between the United States and Poland in the form of an exchange of letters of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) through the American program of intergovernmental foreign military sales Foreign Military Sales (FMS) on the acquisition of 250 main tanks M1A2 SEP v.3 Abrams. On the American side, the agreement was signed by US Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski.
Polish Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak signs an intergovernmental agreement between the United States and Poland on the acquisition of 250 M1A2 SEP v.3 Abrams main tanks. Abrams tanks were presented at the ceremony from the US Army contingent in Poland. Warsaw, 05.04.2022 (c) Ministry of National Defense of Poland
The agreement provides for the purchase of 250 M1A2 SEP v.3 Abrams main tanks with related equipment and property, including 26 M88A2 Hercules armored recovery vehicles, 17 M1074 Joint Assault Bridge (JAB) tank bridge builders, as well as training and logistics packages and ammunition. The cost of the agreement was about $4.75 billion (about 20 billion Polish zloty).
The first 28 tanks should be transferred to Poland by the end of 2022 from the presence of the US army and they will be used to train Polish personnel (it is unclear from the reports whether these tanks will be in the US or in Poland, and whether these tanks will then be returned to the US). It is not reported when tank deliveries will begin to the Polish Army proper, but all deliveries under the agreement should be completed in 2026.
"This is a very important day in the history of Polish-American cooperation, as well as a very important day in the history of the Polish armed forces. An agreement has just been signed guaranteeing the supply of 250 Abrams tanks in the most modern version for the Polish Army. Last July, together with Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, here at the headquarters of the 1st Armored Brigade named after Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a hero of two peoples - Polish and American, we announced the decision of the Polish government to purchase Abrams tanks. Today we signed the agreement, so we have finalized this decision," Mariusz Blaszczak, the Minister of National Defense of Poland, said at the signing ceremony of the agreement.
Let us remind you that in July 2021, the Polish government officially announced the upcoming acquisition of 250 American M1A2 SEP v.3 Abrams tanks for the Polish armed forces. At the same time, the Polish government sent an official request (Letter of Request) to the US government for the purchase of 250 M1A2 SEP v3 Abrams tanks through the American intergovernmental Foreign Military Sales program FMS. At that time, the conclusion of a final intergovernmental agreement between the United States and Poland within the framework of the FMS mechanism was expected already "in the early autumn" of 2021.
However, only on February 17, 2022, the US Department of Defense Agency for Military Cooperation (Defense Security Cooperation Agency - DSCA) sent a notification to the US Congress about the planned upcoming sale of 250 M1A2 SEP v.3 Abrams tanks to Poland via FMS, while the total cost of the proposed delivery (coinciding in basic parameters with the agreement actually signed now) was estimated at $6 billion.
Approval of the allocation of funds for this purchase in the amount of 23.3 billion zlotys ($6.04 billion) in excess of the approved defense budget of the country was approved by a special decision of the Polish government. In October 2021, the Polish Parliament adopted and signed by the President of Poland an amendment to the law on the defense budget of Poland in 2021, suggesting an increase in defense spending by a total of 6.96 billion zlotys ($1.76 billion), with the main item of additional expenses being an additional payment to the Armed Forces Modernization Fund in the amount of 6.3 billion zlotys (1.59 billion USD) to start financing the Abrams tank purchase program.
Earlier, according to the same scheme, Poland financed the purchase of 48 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Fighting Falcon fighters in the United States at the expense of extra-budgetary allocations, and since 2018, the acquisition of Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems by Poland has been similarly financed.
According to Polish official sources, the M1A2 SEP v tanks.3 Abrams will be equipped with four tank battalions of the Polish army (the regular composition of the battalion of 58 tanks) - two tank battalions of the 1st Warsaw Armored Brigade named after Tadeusz Kosciuszko and the 19th Lublin Mechanized Brigade, which are part of the newly formed in the eastern direction of the 18th "Iron" mechanized division. Now both tank battalions of the 1st Warsaw Armored Brigade are equipped with Leopard 2A5 tanks, and the only tank battalion of the newly formed 19th Lublin Mechanized Brigade is equipped with upgraded T-72M1R tanks. In 2022, another tank battalion from the 21st Brigade of the Podgalsky Riflemen of the same 18th Mechanized Division, also now equipped with T-72M1 tanks, is planned to be transferred to the 19th Lublin Mechanized Brigade.
Currently M1A2C (M1A2 SEP v.3) is the latest implemented Abrams tank modernization program of the US Army. All M1A2C tanks (M1A2 SEP v.3) they are not made anew, but are converted from M1A1 series tanks from the storage of the US Army. The first six pre-production upgraded tanks of the M1A2C modification (M1A2 SEP v.3) were delivered to the US army in October 2017. Deliveries of serially upgraded M1A2C tanks (M1A2 SEP v.3) the US Army combat units were launched in early 2020.
The first foreign customer of this modification was Australia, which signed LOA agreements with the United States under the FMS mechanism in January 2022, providing for the supply of 75 M1A2 SEP v.3 Abrams tanks, 29 M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicles (ABV) armored engineering vehicles, 18 M1074 JAB tank bridge-laying vehicles and six M88A2 Hercules armored recovery vehicles for the total amount of 3.5 billion Australian dollars (2.51 billion US dollars). However, deliveries of M1A2 SEP v,3 tanks to Australia should be started in 2024, so Poland will probably become the first actual foreign recipient of tanks of this modification.
Polish Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak signs an intergovernmental agreement between the United States and Poland on the acquisition of 250 M1A2 SEP v.3 Abrams main tanks. Abrams tanks were presented at the ceremony from the US Army contingent in Poland. Warsaw, 05.04.2022 (c) Ministry of National Defense of Poland
