Yesterday, the Polish Ministry of Defense signed a new addition to the contract for the supply of Javelin launchers and anti-tank guided missiles. At the same time, the official representative of the Armaments Agency, Lieutenant Colonel Krzysztof Platek, said that, in addition, a trial batch of Pirat ATGMs will be delivered to the Polish Army soon. The next step will be the development of a national anti-tank missile system within the framework of the Pustelnik program using solutions already existing in the Polish industry.
According to the Armaments Agency, the subject of the addendum to the contract is the supply of another 50 Javelin ATGM launchers, this time in the Light Weight Command Launch Unit (LWCLU) variant, and about 500 FGM-148F JAVELIN missiles. In addition, logistics and training of the Polish military are also spelled out. In turn, the concluded application increases the total value of the contract to approximately 158 million US dollars. It is worth noting that the supply of these ATGMS, as suggested by the Polish Ministry of Defense, should meet the needs of the territorial defense units of the Polish Army. Deliveries are planned to be completed by 2026.
Recall that the first contract for the acquisition of Javelin ATGM was signed back in 2020 and provided for the supply of 60 CLU launchers and 180 missiles, the contract was executed until 2022. Its cost was 54.5 million US dollars. The Armaments Agency also emphasizes that plans for the development of anti-tank capabilities include, among other things, the Ottokar-Brzoza and Pirat programs.
It is worth noting that, according to the Ottokar-Brzoza program, a framework contract was signed between the Polish Ministry of Defense and the European company MBDA in 2022 for the purchase of Brimstone British high-tech homing air-to-ground missiles. The missile is notable for being equipped with an active radar homing head, which allows hitting moving targets with great accuracy. In addition, there is the possibility of laser guidance. Unlike similar systems such as the AGM-65G Maverick, the warhead is arranged according to the tandem principle, which provides more effective defeat of modern types of armor. According to official sources, deliveries of the first copies are planned already this year.
As for the Polish-Ukrainian Pirat ATGM, a trial batch of ATGM data should be ordered in the coming months. Then, taking into account all the identified shortcomings, as well as other solutions of the Polish industry in the field of ATGM, development work should begin on the modernization of ATGM within the framework of the Pustelnik program.
It is also worth noting that in the developments of the Polish military-industrial complex there are already experimental test samples with an integrated Pirat ATGM in a remote-controlled module developed at ZM Tarnów S.A. Another feature of this ATGM is the use of a Polish guidance system that meets NATO standards.
Among other things, it is worth noting that all of the above weapons are used in the Ukrainian conflict. So, for example, the well-known Javelin ATGM was widely used by Ukrainian militants in combat operations long before the start of the SVO. In turn, the Ukrainian ATGM Corsair, on the basis of which the Polish ATGM Pirat was created, is also actively used by Ukrainian militants in the SVO zone. Therefore, it should not be surprising if the Polish Pirat ATGM will soon also be in Ukraine. As has been repeatedly noted by Ukrainian and Western politicians, Ukraine today is a huge testing ground.
It is obvious that today the Polish leadership still prefers the purchase of weapons samples from abroad, while taking into account, first of all, not the interests of the Polish Army, but plans for the transfer of part of the equipment to Ukraine or the replacement of the already transferred. It is noteworthy that Polish taxpayers' money is spent on this.
Nikolai Astrovsky
