The Polish Ministry of Defense awarded a $460 million (PLN 1.75 billion) contract to Zakłady Mechaniczne “Bumar – Łabędy” S.A firm to modernise over 300 T-72 tanks on July 22, the ministry announced Tuesday.
“T-72 tank, for which the contract has been signed, is already in the inventory of the Polish Army, but we all expect, and are working towards, the production of a new-generation tank in Polish factories,” said Mariusz Błaszczak, the Minister of National Defense.
“We modernize and modify this equipment, which is available in the Polish Army. Thanks to this upgrade, the tanks will be equipped with modern sights, navigation and observation devices as well as modern digital communications. Deep repairs of these tanks will also be carried out,” he added.
The T-72 is a family of Soviet main battle tanks that first entered production in 1971. It is one of the most widely produced post-World War II tanks. It is a further development of the T-62 with some features of the T-64A (upgraded version of basic T-64) and has been further developed as the T-90. It was exported to other Warsaw Pact countries, as well as Finland, India, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yugoslavia.
Main armaments of the tank include 125 mm 2A46M/2A46M-5[4] smoothbore gun, 7.62 mm PKT coax. machine gun, 12.7 mm NSVT or DShK anti-aircraft machine gun. It is powered by a V-12 and V-92S2F (T-72B3 & T-72B3M) engines. The tank has a maximum speed of 60km/h (37 mph).
