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Poland Armed Forces Modernization.


Damian90

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Its unfortunate  Poland has to invest so much money to modernise its forces.

Its not a wealthy country I am sure many poles would like to see there tax money spent on other things.

But its also understandable again unfortunately. 

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On 4/6/2016 at 5:42 AM, RogueSnake79 said:

 

Smart B|  $$$

 

We've had several attempts at a modular rifle system here in the US.  The magpul masada aka ACR didn't reach it's market potential because of cost, and the fact that the promised variant parts never materialized.

 

 

 

I think the ACR just wasn't any better than the AR-15.

Yhea sure it can swap caliber and barrel length on the fly, but it's cheaper just to build another AR-15...

 

Personally I wish I could get my hands on a Valmet M76 like so...

valmet_76-4.jpg

On 6/15/2016 at 9:27 AM, Damian90 said:

Tough we do not see Leopard 2's as perfect either. There are few areas where our military is not very happy.

 

1. Primary sight placement, in Leopard 2A4 is considered as creating significant weak zone in turret front protection, in A5 it is considered as improved but not perfect. Our tank crews that had opportunity to familiar themselfs with other NATO MBT's say that M1A1/A2 or Challenger 2 in this regard are superior. The Leo2 tanker I talked with said that in general after he familirized himself with M1, he is certain M1 have better armor protection.

 

2. Ammunition storage, again turret magazine is ok, but hull one means that Leo2 can end burning with turret flying just like T tank.

 

3. The issue with suspension upgrades, it seems we can't upgrade our Leopard 2A4 during modernization to Leopard 2PL with improved front hull protection, because it means expensive suspension upgrade that involves cutting and welding again area where suspension is attached, for some unknown to me and bizzare reason, this is why Leopard 2PL at least now will not have proper front hull upgrade.

 

About Leopard2A4...

 

1. OK, yes the armor isn't the best.  A standard 2A4 is now a little bit thin, and it has the weak area for the sight, but I think more important than the armor is the main gun and the fire control.  The thing that I would hate most is to have a tank that doesn't have the firepower to tackle the enemy.  You can make up for slow speed by planning to displace early.  You can make up for thin armor by fighting from good positions, using shoot and scoot tactics. 

 

You can make up for a weak gun by...Trying to get beside or behind them?  Which seems harder to me than leaving early or digging a hole...

 

2. The hull ammo storage is...Yes...  I feel like there has to be a way to increase the protection.  I'm surprised nothing has been done yet to deal with this.  I think as a designer or upgrader, I would try to improve the protection any way I could.  Give it spall protection, even if the solution is ugly like casting it into a concrete block.  Maybe wet stowage.  I would rather put 12 rounds in a box outside the turret and have only 15 in well protected wet stowage inside than just 27 rounds in thin tubes.  Maybe hull armor improvements...Which goes to:

 

3. I understand that they wanted to do a "real" hull armor upgrade.  Will they still upgrade the turret armor?  Maybe in the meantime, the Polish Army needs to plan to dig many hull-down battle positions facing to the east...

However, I understand some PT91 were retired...  Maybe the ERA tiles from those could be used just to protect the hull?

 

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As far as Leopard 2 hull armor storage, I don't see why there couldn't be an upgrade that encased that area in armor with a blow off panel out the side, bottom, or top with a curved blast door that slides around either to the left or behind the driver. I think the blast panel on the side of the hull may be best, sure it may disable the left track, idler and forward road wheels, but crew and the rest of the tank shouldn't be adversely affected. And though this may reduce the amount of stored ammo in the hull, at least it would provide much better crew protection from catastrophic ammo blow off.

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3 hours ago, Marko said:

Its unfortunate  Poland has to invest so much money to modernise its forces.

Its not a wealthy country I am sure many poles would like to see there tax money spent on other things.

But its also understandable again unfortunately. 

 

No matter the situation around the world ,Poland needs to modernise it's armed forces becouse of necessity.We have a big gap in our equipment which we have to replace ,simple as that.

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Ok before photos.

 

I was inside M1A2SEPv2, I have many interesting observations.
 
1. It's very roomy and very comfortable inside, ergonomics are absolutely top. It's definately more comfortable and roomy than Leopard 2, I could get inside through a loaders hatch and without a problem move to commander or gunner stations. Gunner station, again extremely comfortable, yeah I am only 1,75m in height but still no problem with stretching my legs, and I had plenty of space around me. No problem with reaching sights either. I was surprised that separate ocular for thermal sight is actually placed at such angle, it's no problem looking through it, it's very ergonomic. Commander station, pretty much the same, visibility through commanders cupola vision blocks is superior to that of Leopard 2. All the displays are well positioned, easy to access, commander displays do not interfere with space needed for gunner to get in or out of his position. Loaders station is nice, very roomy so manouvering round there is not a big problem, and loader can sit on his seat during loading.
 
2. Driver station is actually very small, but also very comfortable, there is new driver rear view camera display on the right side, I also seen stored behind it drivers vision enhancer (thermal vision device), I can only imagine driving M1 is a pleassure, and it's most likely the best place to sleep inside a tank. :D
 
3. Armor thickness, yep my estimations I repeated many times seemed to be correct, upper front plate and drivers hatch would be around 50mm, heavy ballistic skirts are around 70mm, non ballistic skirts 5mm maybe 10mm at best. Turret front definately 800-900mm something around these numbers. I was surprised how insanely massive is the lower front plate special armor module, and photos or videos actually do not give a good idea how much angled it is, so effective thickness definately is something around 650-700mm. Gun mantled armored mask is massive, however making meassures there was immposible, the number of people, especially kids on a single tank was insane.
 
4. Weapons other than main gun... ammo capacity of coaxial M240 ammo box is just insane, max capacity is around 2600 rounds, so lots of bullets to be fired before reload is needed. Loaders M240 position, good, nothing special really. Commander, here it gets interesting, indeed there is a separate control handle and control box for M153 CROWS-2, however it's control handle is close to the commander's control handle, very comfortable position, same with control box, it's on the right side. CROWS-2 itself is big indeed, armed with new M2A1 heavy machine gun, ammo capacity is also larger, around 400 rounds.
 
5. CVC helmets, this is something that our tankers woul really need, not only better ballistic protection for head, but also ears are well protected from noise.
 
I also had opportunity to take closer look on M7A3 BFIST, externally it's nearly identical with M2A3 IFV and M3A3 CFV.
 
1. These high hardness plates and side skirts on turret and hull, are probably something around 30mm thick, everywhere are attachement points for ERA or other addon armor.
 
2. Vehicles on parade and static display were pre ECP1 upgrade, with older single pin tracks instead of double pin tracks.
 
3. Box with optical devices that replaces TOW launcher on M7A3 is massive, optics there must be very powerfull.
 
4. It's actually not that high vehicle.
 
Unfortunetaly, because it was easier to get inside M7A3 it was occupied with insane number of kids, I was unable to get inside, and did not wanted to wait another hour or so before the damn kids would go away. :/

 

Now some photos.

 

14045652_1786252671593305_65974868864357

13962517_1786252678259971_34508617963251

14022356_1786252748259964_27468377751004

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13934797_1786252861593286_54540844301623

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13924977_1786252934926612_59569070021082

13903191_1786252984926607_62944280956796

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14055006_1786253064926599_30829389602961

13925394_1786253074926598_67076963169987

13901541_1786253094926596_16352598605956

 

Stay tuned for more. ;)

Edited by Damian90
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1 hour ago, TSe419E said:

Can you tell me more about the last six pictures?

 

 

Sure thing, these were reenactment groups reenacting Polish Army formations from the past.

 

For example the first group represents soldiers of the so called Duchy of Warsaw, while the last ones represented legendary Polish heavy cavalry, the Winged Hussars, their history is very interesting and worth to read about. ;)

As a side note, our armor and mechanized units continues traditions of Winged Hussars, one of their symbols that can be seen on vehicles is Winged Hussars Helmet with Wing.

 

1_pancerna_gen_Maczka.gif

 

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18 hours ago, Damian90 said:

 

Sure thing, these were reenactment groups reenacting Polish Army formations from the past.

 

For example the first group represents soldiers of the so called Duchy of Warsaw, while the last ones represented legendary Polish heavy cavalry, the Winged Hussars, their history is very interesting and worth to read about. ;)

As a side note, our armor and mechanized units continues traditions of Winged Hussars, one of their symbols that can be seen on vehicles is Winged Hussars Helmet with Wing.

 

1_pancerna_gen_Maczka.gif

 

 

Too bad they didn't work in the Underground to that...

 

warsaw_uprising_moonument_by_xoslox-d33f

 

 

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Well, the insignia was used by 1st Armored Division commanded by general Maczek in the west, fighting alongside British, Americans, Canadians, French and other Allies.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Armoured_Division_(Poland)

 

As for Warsaw Uprising, this was act of desperation, because Nazis were planning to use civilian population to build defense lines to the east of Warsaw, however civilians did not assembled at given time in assembly points, so Nazis were preparing to arrest them and execture, Home Army decided to act... of course this is oversimplified example, situation was far more complex.

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1 minute ago, Damian90 said:

Well, the insignia was used by 1st Armored Division commanded by general Maczek in the west, fighting alongside British, Americans, Canadians, French and other Allies.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Armoured_Division_(Poland)

 

As for Warsaw Uprising, this was act of desperation, because Nazis were planning to use civilian population to build defense lines to the east of Warsaw, however civilians did not assembled at given time in assembly points, so Nazis were preparing to arrest them and execture, Home Army decided to act... of course this is oversimplified example, situation was far more complex.

 

Oh, I didn't mean the symbol, I meant in the parade!

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Okay guys, good news.

 

October 1st me and my friend will go to Armor Museum in Poznań Poland. Right now museum is inside a military base and is normally closed for people to visit, untill it's movement to a new open area will be completed, however we were granted acess and we have some little plan to realize there that might estabilish a longer cooperation. ;)

 

My buddy got his hands on USG device and proposed museum commanding officer that we can come with it, and make some tests on some vehicles there, the museum commander was delighted and is open for such cooperation. 

 

I do not promise any photos or videos, reasons are obvious, however for this test run we gonna make USG armor meassures on IS-2, T-70 and StuG IV, to see how much their real armor thickness of war time production vehicles is accurate compared to the technical specification.

 

Now if you don't know the museum, I strongly advise visiting their facebook page.

 

https://www.facebook.com/MBPanc/?fref=ts

 

Museum have right now around 60 vehicles, majority of them restored and in running condition, very good thing is that besides museum staff and volunteers also our arms industry is helping, on one of videos you can see PzKpfw. 3 Ausf. N being restored at military factory WZM. More vehicles are currently being restored. The museum should complete it's movement to new location in the next 1,5 to 2 years and will be open for all. They also plan to present vehicles moving around during various events.

 

Here are some videos showing what museum have in their collection.

 

 

 

So yeah, hopefully museum will grow in time and will increase size of it's collection. Colonel Ogrodniczuk who is the commanding officer of the museum said they are already working on bringing in new vehicles, what are these vehicles, well it's a secret. ;)

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Having been in both tanks on EX, I prefer the Leo, it's like a Cadillac vs a Mercedes, sure the caddy is nice, but you can't beat the Germans in Quality and workmanship.

The Leopard I found is just a better layout for a crew I found, just the way I like to work in a confined space, and manage the crew. But I grew up on diesels, so that may explain a lot.

 

I would think its a personal preference, ones own country hardware has also lot to with it I know, for me it was not.

 

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The more confined the space, the more dangerous vehicle is for it's crew.

 

Besides I was comparing Leo2 FCS and M1 FCS... definately preffer M1's FCS, with it's automatic lead, easier to use, more intuitive. On the real vehicle, also controls in M1 are more comfortable and intuitive, especially the control handle for commander.

 

But as you said, personal preferences.

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Breaking!

 

It seems WPB Anders is not a dead project but is further developed! This tome focus is on IFV variant which is offered by OBRUM and Bumar plant as alternative for HSW Borsuk IFV in development.

 

14141528_1069999473083901_13722497233197

 

But there is a surprise, a new variant of PT-91 was developed in secret, rumors says it's export proposal.

 

14117858_1069999529750562_29595446326218

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