Polish Army Acquires Grom MANPADS Missiles

The Armament Inspectorate is going to procure 180 missiles for the Grom portable anti-aircraft system.
Mesko Company, based in Skarżysko-Kamienna, is going to act as the contractor. 

The order is being realized as a single-source procurement procedure, its value has not yet been revealed to the public.
The details pertaining the order are still being arranged, ex-ante transparency of the agreement has been announced in the Official Journal of the European Union. The Armament Inspectorate notes that the aim of the placed order is to complement the inventory of the Grom missiles, providing the Army with option of executing the test-firing exercises. Acquisition of any other equipment, in the present circumstances, would be a cause for disproportionally significant difficulties, related to application of the new systems, also when it comes to the logistics. Thus, the Grom missiles are being acquired via a single-source procurement procedure.

Grom anti-aircraft missiles are being used by the Polish Army both in a portable form, as well as in a form placed on the self-propelled ZSU-23-4MP Biała platforms, and on the ZU4-23-2KG Jodek-G towed systems. Grom missiles are also going to constitute the effector of the Poprad self-propelled systems, which soon are going to be introduced into service in the Polish Army. Grom missile is IR-guided with the use of a dual-band seeker, it is capable of neutralizing the airborne targets at distances of up to 5.5 and altitude up to 3.5 kilometers.

The Polish Army purchased ca. 400 portable Grom launchers, in order to replace the Striela-2M systems of Soviet origin.
Grom missiles have also been acquired by Georgia, Indonesia, Lithuania and Japan. Currently, it is expected that modernized Piorun missiles are going to be introduced into service. These missiles have a longer range, and they are capable of striking targets at higher altitudes. They are also more resistant to the countermeasures.Grom missiles introduced so far could not fully replace the Striela-2M launchers.

It seems that the Army should continue procurement of both the launchers, as well as the missiles, until the moment when the new system is introduced into use, since Grom systems could (after the Piorun missile is implemented) be used by the formed territorial defence elements or by other forces that are going to be potentially mobilized.