Frag Out! Magazine

procuring 96 aircraft, buys 64 or 48 examples, the situation would be even more convoluted. It could turn out that the 18th Division would operate half, a third, or a quarter of attack helicop- ters, with the remaining ones being assigned to the 1st Brigade. Some of the disclosed decisions indi- cate the trends in the realm of helicop- ters, or a will to maintain some of the capabilities. The decisions made per- tain to attack, and heavy (AW101), and medium (AW149) multi-role helicopter platforms. It is still unclear whether Poland would intend to procure fur- ther heavy transport helicopters (CH- 47, CH-53), and what the plan is in the area of light helicopter platforms. The acquisition of new embarked helicop- ters and the future of the W-3 Sokół platform also remain fuzzy. Even tho- ugh Sokół helicopters may tempora- rily replace the Mi-2 in the Army, the issue of SAR W-3 helicopters operated by Naval and Army aviation, and used for VIP transport remains unresolved. As time goes by, the question of SW-4 replacement will also ultimately emer- ge. Unfortunately, the desired final structure of the rotary-winged assets inventory of the Polish Armed Forces remains unknown. And this is a re- l e v a n t , and valid question. Point-focused modernization remains a possible, yet undesirable scenario, in which one unit/component operates modern as- sets, while other elements use equip- ment that becomes obsolete. Further- more, this type of equipment gathered within a single unit will require an en- tire logistics and training ecosystem, even though aircraft as such could potentially be procured for other units, or even the whole branches. One may suspect that the problem has already been noticed, and attempts made at procuring greater numbers of S70i or AW101 helicopters (more than 4-8 examples) are aimed at mitigating this phenomenon. Unfortunately, the- re is still one question that remains unan- www.fragoutmag.com

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