Frag Out! Magazine

allowing the Ordering Party to decom- mission the Mi-8, and Mi-14 platforms, with Mi-17 remaining operational for some time. Unfortunately, the procure- ment in question ended up in a fiasco. The politics came into the picture, even though formally the failure of of- fset negotiation was listed as the offi- cial cause. The matter ended up in an agreement that was reached in 2021. Airbus was paid PLN 80 bn. in dama- ges, for the contract being breached. The withdrawal from the deal was not that big of a problem. The fact that legacy helicopters that had to be ur- gently replaced had no actual replace- ment was far more burning. Over the upcoming years, several formal heli- copter procurement programs were launched, like Kruk (32 attack heli- copters), Perkoz (Mi-2 replacement, 32 helicopters), or Kondor (planned procurement of up to 8 embarked heli- copters for the Navy). However, apart from the lengthy technical dialogues, and analytical-conceptual phases, lit- tle was known about them, which led to speculation on the potential bids and bidders. What was even worse, the canceled Caracal procurement created another gap that needed to be filled. Further contracts resulted, unfor- tunately, in minor procurements. In 2019, two agreements were signed. First, one concerning the delivery of 4 S-70i helicopters for SOF - these were received by the GROM in De- cember 2019. Two years later another agreement was signed, concerning another four helicopters. In April 2019 agreement was signed on the delivery of four AW101 for the Navy. These he- licopters, in ASW/Patrol/SAR configu- ration, are yet to be received by the Navy, but the first two examples are already in Poland, and one of them was presented publicly during the Armed Forces Day parade, on August 15th. As Holy Hand Grenade is associated with the number 3, and 666 is the number of the beast, 4 is the number of helicopters procured for the Armed Forces in Poland. Procurement of 4 or 8 aircraft in a situ- ation when the whole fleet consists of 200 examples is peanuts, compared to the actual needs. Furthermore, the pro- curement of maritime helicopters is the only one that partially allows Poland to upkeep the capabilities offered by the Mi- -14s. The helicopters used by the GROM may be viewed as a new component, with new capabilities - not as a way to keep the existing capabi- AVIATION

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