On Wednesday, 4 January, at the 1st Warsaw Armoured Brigade in Wesola, Mariusz Błaszczak, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of National Defence, approved a contract for the delivery of 116 M1A1 ABRAMS tanks for the Polish Army.

“We are strengthening the Polish Army, the armoured fist of the Polish Army, the Polish armed forces in order to realistically and effectively discourage an aggressor. One of the elements of this strengthening is providing the Polish Army with equipment that constitutes the best argument in our entire deterrence policy. Such equipment is the Abrams tanks”, said Deputy Prime Minister Mariusz Błaszczak.

The subject of the contract, concluded with the American side, is the delivery of 116 M1A1 ABRAMS tanks, which will be adapted to the requirements of the Polish Armed Forces, together with associated equipment, including 12 M88A2 HERCULES technical protection vehicles, 8 M1074 JOINT ASSAULT BRIDGE, 6 M577 command vehicles and 26 NG SECM workshops on a HMMWV chassis, as well as a training and logistics package.

The contract marks the first phase of the project, which also includes a significant number of modern combat munitions, as well as training munitions, in accordance with the US Congress-approved maximum procurement scope. Orders for anti-tank sub-calibre ammunition, or multipurpose programmable ammunition, will be carried out successively.

Deputy Prime Minister Blaszczak emphasised that Polish-American cooperation has reached a stage “where we can already talk about very tangible concretes of strengthening Polish-American relations, as evidenced by the approved agreement”.

The total value of the agreement is approximately US$1.4 billion net, of which nearly US$200 million is being financed by the US side as part of the aid funds granted to Poland, while deliveries of tanks and other military equipment will already begin this year and will be completed by the end of 2024.

Adrian Andrzejewski