Warsaw has ordered 116 M1A1 in addition to the 250 M1A2 SEP v3 that it already ordered from the US last summer.
Poland’s fleet of U.S. Abrams tanks will be nearly 50 percent larger than committed so far. Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak on Wednesday signed a new order for 116 tanks of this model of the M1A1 version within an acquisition package that also includes a dozen M88A2 Hercules recovery vehicles; eight M1074 bridge launchers, also based on the M1A1 tank; half a dozen M577 command vehicles and 26 SECM Humvee maintenance vehicles.
The complete package adds an estimated cost of 1,400 million dollars and is added to the batch of 250 Abrams battle tanks, of the most advanced version M1A2 SEP v3, which last summer ordered the country to General Dynamics Land Systems for a cost announced then of 1,148 million dollars. The cost of these types of agreements sometimes fluctuates depending on what is included in each figure. Hence, for example, that the price of the new package is much lower than the 3,750 million that the US State Department revealed a month ago for this purchase, and that included systems and other elements that raised the amount to that figure.