Polish Armaments Group and Steelworks Stalowa Wola have signed a framework agreement to supply the Polish Army with vehicles supporting howitzers on the battlefield. The equipment interoperates with both the Polish Krab and the Korean K9 cannon howitzer.
The contract was announced by the head of the Ministry of Defence (MON) Mariusz Blaszczak in a post on the X (Twitter) portal.
“Good news for the Missile and Artillery Forces on their Feast Day. The Armament Agency and a consortium of PGZ and HSW have signed a framework agreement to provide the Polish Army with vehicles supporting howitzers on the battlefield”, wrote the Minister of National Defence.
The artillery systems currently used by the Polish Army include the Krab self-propelled cannon howitzer – a Polish design developed at Steelworks Stalowa Wola – and the K9 cannon howitzer, manufactured by the South Korean company Hanwha.
“Equipment from the signed framework agreement interoperates with both the Krab and K9. The Polish Army buys and will continue to buy everything that the Polish arms industry can produce. By building key capabilities of the Polish Armed Forces, we are developing Polish industry”, wrote the head of the Ministry of Defence.
Last July, the Ministry of Defence concluded a framework agreement providing for the purchase of 672 Hanwha Defense-produced 155mm howitzers K9A1 and its Polonised development version K9PL with accompanying vehicles, training and logistics package, ammunition stockpile and technical support. A $2.4bn executive contract for 212 howitzers was concluded in August, with deliveries scheduled between 2022 and 2026.
Krabs, on the other hand, have been delivered to the Polish Army since 2016. The Ministry of Defence has so far ordered around 170 machines to equip seven artillery squadrons. Some of the machines delivered to the Polish army, however, were sent to Ukraine as support for the Ukrainian army defending itself against the Russian invasion. After demonstrating the effectiveness of the Krabs in combat, the Ukrainian Army ordered 54 more cannon howitzers from HSW for its soldiers.
Arkadiusz Słomczyński