March 1, 2008: Poland has long been a
major supplier of military equipment, but most of that was done during the Cold
War, when Polish production decisions were made by Russia. Those Polish defense
industries are still around. One of them, Bumar, just made a $1.2 billion sale
to India. This included a thousand tank engines for Indias fleet of T-72s, and
upgrades for some of these tanks. Also being supplied are 200 WZT-3 tank
recovery vehicles (which use a T-72 chassis), 80 mine clearing vehicles, 100
Loara self-propelled twin 35mmÂ
anti-aircraft guns (with built in radar), and a hundred 155mm
self-propelled artillery systems (similar to the British AS-90).
Â
The Indians like to have Polish firms
help with maintaining the many Russian weapons systems India has bought over
the last few decades. The Poles have lots of experience maintaining, and
building, those systems, and also take delight in making those Russian systems
work better (while making the Russians look bad.)
Â
Â
