Polish Army air defence systems/ The Wisła programe.

[militarysta]

As in title.
First - MANPADS systems

 

[militarysta]

First - vell known and famous GROM (thunder) MANPADS:

wiki:
Grom (missile) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 'Grom' has been used by Polish Land Forces since 1995.[3] It is also exported to other countries, including Georgia which bought 30 launchers and 100 missiles in 2007.[3] According to press releases during the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia Polish-made GROM rockets targeted Russian planes and helicopters 20 times, 12 rockets were fired out of which 9 hit their targets

http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomo...olska_bron_w_sluzbie_gruzinskiej _armii.html

GROM monography (in polish language)

Przeciwlotniczy zestaw rakietowy PPZR Grom i Piorun - DziennikZbrojny.pl

 

[militarysta]

But time is runing and it was clear that GROM MANPADS needs sucessor

So polish army had started in 2006 on completly new MANPADS - The PIORUN (Lightning), Piorun will be DOI in this october (2014) after final certyfication.

How good is Piorun?
Propably one of the best, if not the best MANPADS in whole world.

Only one comparabel MANPADS now is new russian >9K333 Wierba<

To compare:

Range:
>Wierba<: 500-6400m
>Piorun<: 9M336 400 - 6000m

altitude:
>Wierba<: 10 - 4500m
>Piorun<: 10m - not offcial yet (polish army needed at least 4000m, optimum 5000m)

max targed speed:
>Wierba<: 500m/s
>Piorun<: 400m/s (not offcial yet)

What is new in Piorun MANPADS?
Well this MANPADS is developed to destroyed not only airplanes and helicopters but mostly:

- stand off muniton including cruise missailes
- UAV
- modern helicopters whit mulstispectlar flares and IR jammers
- airplanes

In Piorun there are sevral solutions which are making Piorun hightly immune to jammers and other contrmeasures.

First in the internet photos:

one of the daily sight:

Piorun have rail to mounted sevral types of the sight (day, thermal, etc)

And the most interesting part:

what is interesting here?
despite trigger and triger for chose two general modes: chase / meeting
we have here mini keybord do choose more sophisticated modes:
type of target:
S/H - airplane/helicopter
BSL - UAV
RAK - curise missaile or stand-off

evirnoments:
DB - day without clouds
DZ - day with clouds
NOC - night

work modes:
K - controll
WD - "ask for ID (IFF)"
ZZ - close range indicator activation (not only hit indicator avaible)

Of course Piorun MANPADS can be conected whit: land batery pack, land cooling pack, BMS for air defense, etc

Polish Army is using MANPADS in REGA system

Polish Army plans needed at least 152 luncher and more then 400 missailes until this decade.

 

[militarysta]

Next polish "low defense" system:

23 MM ANTI-AIRCRAFT MOBILE GUN AND MISSILE SYSTEM ZUR-23-2KG

The ZUR-23-2-KG system is equipped with 23mm cannons, GROM missiles, traverse and elevation electric drives. It can work in external FCS, it is equipped with programmable sight CP-1 (with night and day track, LRF, two ballistics ) or collimator sight CKE-2. The system can fight the targets by means of 23mm sub-calibre ammunition type API (BZT), HEI-T (OFZT), APDS-T and FAPDS-T.

The ZUR-23-2-KG system is designed to fight (using 23mm cannons and GROM missiles) low-flying air targets such as: aircraft, helicopters, winged rockets, unmanned flying objects, landing troops and unarmoured and lightly armoured ground targets.

Main characteristics:

Weapon 2 x 23 mm cannon
2 x GROM missile launchers
Firing angles Horizontal 360 degrees
Vertical from -5 / -3 to +75 degrees
Practical rate of fire up to 400 rds./min. for one gun
Cannon range: maximal vertical/total/
maximal effective for ground targets 1500/2500/2000 m for API and HEI
2000/3000/2500 m for APDS and FAPDS
Maximal range of GROM missiles 5500 m
Height of the target flight
minimal/maximal for GROM missiles 10/3500 m
Missile firing angle Horizontal 360 degrees
Vertical from 0 to +70 degrees


high reliability,
good technical and tactical features allow to fire the targets (which appear unexpectedly and move in different directions) with great efficiency,
the collimator sight CKE-2 or programmable sight CP-1 generates automatically (during target tracking) the proper leading angles for every action on the battlefield,
firing from different places in different weather and time conditions,
adaptation to the use of new, sub-calibre ammunition and GROM missiles,
adaptation to work in external FCS.

http://www.zmt.tarnow.pl/pliki/produkty/19/zalaczniki/ZMTarnow_ZUR_23_2KG_popr.pdf

trening video:

and fire practise:


Of course orgins of the ZUR-23-2KG is ZU-23-2 from Soviet Union, but whole A-A was seriously deeply improved - add two GROM missailes, beter sight, external FCS, collimator sight CKE-2 or programmable sight CP-1 etc.

sucessor of the ZUR-24-2KG is PILICA system - so automatic ZUR-23-2KG whit next major changes -like advanced FCS, whit removed controled from central FCS etc:

PILICA will replace ZUR-23-2KG, or most of this last one will be improved to PILICA variant.

 

[militarysta]

Next V-SHORAD system in Poland is:


35MM Remote- Controlled Aerial Defence System HYDRA

Of course it not only air defense but mostly C-RAM


The Hydra Remote-Controlled Aerial Defence System with 35-mm anti-aircraft automatic cannon is meant for firing at aerial targets flying at very low, low to medium altitudes. The Hydra System is also capable of destroying lightly armored land and naval surface targets.

This V-SHORAD as Pilica ones will be the lowest atiltiude - C-RAM, anti attack helicopter and criuse missailes.

Coupled with aerial defence command and control unit (eg. Blenda) the Hydra constitutes an air defence fire unit.

http://www.pho.pl/cms/att/sprzetuslugi/5_elektronika_hydra.pdf

 

[militarysta]

Well, polish new short-range AA system SAAM is taking shape

Missaile have codename "BÅ‚yskawica" aka "Lightning" and it will be used for future polish short range SAM systems codename "NAREW" (name of the river in Poland), and propably for next level Sa-8 Gecko modernisation:

Parameters:
- max range: 1,5 - 20 km;

- atitiude: 15 m - 10 km;

- target Vmax: 0 - 1000 m/s;

- target max manevrous: up to 9 g;

- "BÅ‚yskawica" Vmax: 1 300 m/s.

photos:

test station:

 

[HMS Astute]

had heard that poland is planning to get a lot of big stuffs including apache, chinook, f35 and more tanks as well. fantastic! go poland...

 

[Damian]

apache

Not exactly, AH-64 is just one of competing assault helicopters designs. We need to replace obsolete Mi-24D and Mi-24W, thus we started program codenamed "Kruk" or "Raven" in English to seek replacement for Mi-24's.

chinook

Again not exactly, we are actually searching a replacement for Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters, but we seek not a single design but several different designs, for a lighter class of helicopters we manufacture our own designs the SW-4 "Puszczyk" and W-3 "Sokół". However we also need a larger machines, so one of the contenders is manufactured in Poland Sikorsky S-70i Blackhawk, other is also manufactured in Poland AugustaWestland AW149, and we also need a heavy transport helicopter, here are trully only two competitors, or CH-47F Chinook or CH-53K King Stallion when it will be ready, and probably will be as such programs need time to spin forward.

f35

Yes, there are rumors that our MoD is considering purchase of a 5th generation fighter jet, well currently only avaiable option is F-35 so in near future it is possible to purchase around 48. We would most likepy purchase F-35A. So we would have 48 F-16C/D Block 52+ Advanced and 48 F-35A's, but this is still not certain as there is no official program yet.

and more tanks as well.

Not only tanks. We actually have the whole armored fighting vehicles program.

So we will have to the end of 2015 nearly 250 Leopard 2 tanks, 142 Leopard 2A4's, 105 Leopard 2A5's + 2 Leopard 2NJ driver training tanks. All Leopard 2A4's will be modernized to Leopard 2PL standard, and later Leopard 2A5's will also be modernized to this standard. Leopard 2PL will be more or less Polish equivalent to Leopard 2A7 if everything goes well. Besides this we will keep also 230 PT-91 tanks which are deeply modernized T-72M1 tanks. We also have nearly 500 T-72M1 tanks, these will be withdrawn from service and their replacement will be seek.

Currently our engineers in OBRUM design bureau are working on a universal modular tracked platform, this platform will serve as a basis for new IFV, new ARV, new light or medium tank and for many other vehicles.

Currently our needs means we will need to manufacture around 2000+ of these platforms in various configurations to replace T-72's (500 needs to be replaced), BMP-1's (more than 1000 needs replacement), MT-LB's and other obsolete tracked vehicles in ground forces inventory.

We are also manufacturing wheeled APC "Rosomak" which our own improved variant of the Finnish Patria AMV, we estimate than more than 1000 will be in our inventory to 2020.

We also have a very advanced artillery programs, which are heavy tracked SPH 155mm "Krab", light wheeled SPH 155mm "Kryl", 120mm mortart system with autoloader in modular turret system which can be adapted for various platforms be it wheeled APC, tracked APC/IFV platform or stationary ground platforms (for example bunkers) or even navy vessels, this mortart system is codenamed "Rak". Then there ae also MLRS systems, one is 122mm WR-40 "Langusta-1" and "Langusta-2" systems, and we are also working on WR-300 "Homar" system which in short can be described as Polish equivalent to M270 MLRS.

And finally there is future soldier program "Tytan" with new small arms and other equipment, currently order for the first batch was made and manufacturing started, and really there is more programs pending right now, just not much is known about them, for example new short range lightweight ATGM "Pirat" or "Pirate" is currently in development for ground troops.