Polish Military Procures IFF Markers for the Army
The Armament Inspectorate of the Polish Ministry of Defence announced that a tendering procedure has been launched, aimed at procurement of IFF markers and identification panels for the land platforms.
The whole tender is executed as a negotiation, it has not been divided and extra options are not envisaged. The tendering procedure concerns the procurement of 165 IFF marker/panel packages for the land platforms.
The package would include: Combat Identification Panels [CIP], Thermal Identification Panels [TIP], Thermal Identification Beacons [TIB], and a spares package [ZCzZ].
Markers and panels are to provide the land forces with an ability to identify the land-based combat platforms, within the scope of designating friends/foes/unknown platforms, in the air-to-ground and ground-to-ground setting, with the use of the available thermal imaging systems that the Polish Armed Forces operate.
The offers can be submitted until 28th January - then they would be opened and assessed. A tender conclusion would follow afterward. Price (weight of 80), and guarantee (weight of 20) would be used to assess the offers. The delivery of the aforesaid systems would make it possible to secure the ongoing requirements that the land forces may have within the scope of identifying of own vehicles by other land and air platforms, operated both by the Polish military, as well as by the allies.
Equipment as such is especially relevant when one considers the fact that Poland is currently operating a lot of Soviet-made platforms (T-72 MBTs, BMP-1, BRDM). Any defensive operation would probably also involve the allies using thermal imaging targeting systems - integrated on both the land platforms and on the aircraft as well. Thus, it is required to ensure that proper means of identification are available to the blue forces, to avoid blue-on-blue/friendly fire scenarios.