“I accepted with satisfaction the assessment and opinion of the generals and Minister Siewiera that my efforts make sense for Poland to become part of many systems, which should ultimately create an iron dome as tight as possible over the Polish sky,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
Italian Eurofighters, as well one of Poland’s Turkish-made TB2 drones, joined Poland’s fleet of Su-22s and MiG-29s on doing road landings during a recent exercise.
“It’s clear to all of us … Poland is on the front line, stepping up to defend its homeland and our NATO alliance,” said Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden.
“Let’s say enemy strike plans are based around them going in and taking out a whole air wing at an airfield within a morning. Well that is not going to happen if they [friendly aircraft] are dispersed around the country and moving from A to B to C to D the whole time,” said Gary Waterfall, a former UK Royal Air Force air vice-marshal.
Analysts predict that a new government will keep deals under contract going, but programs that aren’t fully signed may see cuts or pivots towards European-made products.
Poland announced deals potentially worth over $15 billion on Monday, including plans to purchase Raytheon-made Lower-Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensors.
Poland signed a roughly $290 million deal for 400 Lekki Pojazd Rozpoznawczy Light Reconnaissance Vehicles, as well as two framework agreements to develop new ground vehicles for the future.
There is at least some expectation among observers that Poland will eventually end up with 32 total Black Hawks in the Aeromobile Forces, in order to have a matching number with the AW149s.
“In this experimental exercise, we are focused on figuring out what this future task force should look like and how to make it capable of striking pre-detected targets,” Lt. Gen. Tomasz Piotrowski of Poland said.
