Thousands of Beryl Rifles For The Polish Army To Be Procured This Year

Back in August, the Armament Inspectorate announced that it plans to acquire, from the Łucznik Radom Arms Factory, 3034 examples of the wz. 96 BERYL 5.56 mm assault rifles, along with 209 examples of the Mini-Beryl model. An announcement pertaining to voluntary ex ante transparency notice has been published. This means that talks pertaining to the conditions of the agreement, which is planned to be signed soon, are still in progress. The above suggests that the price has not yet been set, however we do know that the delivery is to be finalized by the end of this year.

According to the assumption, before the end of 2016, all of the weapons are to be received by the ordering party. The Beryls are being introduced into the inventory of the Polish Army, due to the necessity of securing the weaponry needs of the elements forming the armed forcess, and the process is a part of replacement of the non-prospective AK/AKMS Kalashnikov family 7.62x39 mm rifles. On the other hand, Mini-Beryl systems may be used by the support units, providing significantly more firepower for the soldiers in comparison with e.g. the machine pistols. Notably, a relatively high number of weapons is to be acquired (3 thousand) in a very short period of time – by the end of the year. General Adam Duda, head of the Armament Inspectorate, also noted that a plan exists, also taking into account the territorial defence units, to repeat the implementation or expand the existing agreements concerning the procurements, however the new tenders are to begin only after the modernization plan created by the Ministry of Defence is updated.

The order is going to be granted to a single entity, since the Radom facility is the only manufacturer of this type of weapon which has been widely used by the Polish Army since 1998. Change of the contractor, as the Armament Inspectorate stresses, would lead to introduction of weaponry of a different specification into the inventory. This would create disproportionally significant difficulties in maintenance and use of any new system. Such acquisition, moreover, would complicate the operation of the existing technical subsystem as it would require expansion of the scope and inventory of the procured materials and technology, conducing training activities for the specialists working for the repair units, acquisition of additional equipment for realization of maintenance and repairs. Thus, regulations have been put into place, making it possible to proceed with the order, staying outside the public procurement law.

Back in May this year information was released, suggesting that an agreement was signed between the Armament Inspectorate and the Radom “Łucznik” facility, covering the procurement of 17,621 examples of the wz. 96 BERYL 5.56 mm assault rifles and 8400 examples of wz. 96 MINI-BERYL carbines for the Polish soldiers. The value of this record-breaking contract signed by and between the Radom factory and the Polish Army is estimated at the level exceeding PLN 156 million.