M1A2 Abrams and K2PL “Black Panther” tanks, K-9 “Thunder” howitzers, pontoon bridges, F/A-50 light fighters, helicopters [AH-64E « Guardian » et AW-149, batteries de défense aérienne Patriot PAC-3, lance-roquettes multiples, chasseurs-bombardiers F-35A, frégates Arrowhead 140, etc… Ces derniers mois, le ministère polonais a enchaîné les commandes de nouveaux équipements. Surtout depuis le début de la guerre en Ukraine. Et cette liste, déjà longue, n’est pas terminée.
En effet, ce 25 novembre, le groupe suédois Saab a indiqué qu’il venait d’être choisi par Varsovie pour développer et livrer à la marine polonaise deux navires spécialisés dans le recueil du renseignement d’orgine électromagnétique [ROEM ou SIGINT]under a contract worth 620 million euros.
In detail, Saab will be the prime contractor for this program, including for the mission systems. And the two ships, which will belong to the “Delfin” class, will be built by Remontowa Shipbuilding SA, in Poland.
“We are proud that Poland has chosen Saab as a partner for its intelligence vessels. We will contribute with our capabilities by building advanced platforms, equipped with state-of-the-art sensors and fully integrating complete mission systems, for which we have a long experience”, commented Micael Johansson, CEO of Saab.
He gave no further details on the ships ordered by Poland. However, it is likely that they will be inspired by the HSwMS Artemis, a 2,200-ton building dedicated to the collection of signals intelligence and commissioned by the Royal Swedish Navy.
For Warsaw, this program will replace the ORP Nawigator and ORP Hydrograf, two “electronic reconnaissance” ships built in the 1970s by the Gdansk shipyards [devenus, depuis, Remontowa Shipbuilding SA, ndlr] and still currently used by the 3rd Flotilla of the Polish Navy.
If the final financial details of this order have yet to be specified [ils devraient l’être d’ici la fin de cette année, assure Saab]these two new ships will significantly improve the capabilities of the Polish Navy to collect intelligence near the neighboring Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and to follow Russian maneuvers in the Baltic Sea.
Such capabilities might be supplemented by new submarines… A program, called Orka, has also been launched in this direction… But it has still not materialized, while the Polish Navy no longer maintains in service only one ship of this type, the ORP Orzel, which is moreover of Soviet design [classe Kilo]. An interim solution would be for Warsaw to procure two ex-Swedish Södermanland-type submarines. Unless the sharp increase in the Polish defense budget [qui va plus que doubler l’an prochain] don’t speed things up.
Photo : HSwMS Artemis – Saab
