Owned by the Polish Armaments Group (PGZ), Mesko is accelerating work on a precision-guided anti-aircraft missile. Work on the missile’s design has begun at several PGZ plants closely protected from external intrusion and sabotage.

The new missile with a reinforced warhead, with a range of more than 10 km, will be guided to the target first by radio, and in the final phase of flight – by infrared, i.e. a source of thermal radiation (the aircraft engine), according to the “shoot and forget” principle. The design is intended to be a demonstration of the capabilities of the indigenous armoury.

“Work on the new rocket has started. We are planning to hold the first flight tests of the new design in 18 months, as part of the ‘Piorun’ project. In the group of companies and research centres concentrated around Mesko, there is full mobilisation”, says the head of PIT RADWAR, who is responsible for the development of the PGZ – Mesko ammunition and missile centre, Przemysław Kowalczuk.

PIT-RADWAR S.A. is one of the leading suppliers of professional electronics equipment for the Polish Armed Forces. The company’s products are in the armament of all types of the Polish armed forces, as well as in the equipment of foreign armies.

The impulse for the decision to develop new missiles was last year’s record-breaking orders of several thousand missiles and several hundred launchers totalling over PLN 1 billion for the Polish army.

“Finally, our army stopped buying in homeopathic quantities not bad indigenous anti-aircraft missile sets, verified in the clashes over the Dnieper”, said CEO Kowalczuk and does not hide his satisfaction.

Following the publicity about the effectiveness of Polish anti-aircraft sets, the business good fortune turned out to be significant. The “Piorun” sets have already been purchased from PGZ by the United States, Georgia, Norway and the Baltic states.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński