KIELCE, Poland — European group MBDA hopes that its cooperation with Poland’s defense giant PGZ as well as participation in the country’s loitering-type munition procurement could boost its chances of securing a short-range missile defense deal.
MBDA is offering its Common Anti-air Modular Missile, which has a range in excess of 25 kilometers, as the basis for the designed Narew system.
“Last February, we signed a letter of intent with PGZ, and we are currently in talks with its subsidiaries, such as Mesko, to understand which technologies could be transferred to match their expectations,” Paul Stanley, vice president for Northern Europe at MBDA, told Defense News at MSPO, Poland‘s annual defense industry show.
“This system could rely on Polish vehicles, radars, communications, command and control systems, and other equipment made by Polish companies. We want a managed, progressive transfer of technology to our Polish industry partners,” he added.
According to Stanley, the potential air defense procurement could also bring about a strengthening of Poland-U.K. defense cooperation.
“The U.K. deputy defense minister recently made an official visit to Poland, and said there is a possibility to sign a U.K.-Polish defense treaty this year to underpin the resulting technology transfer,” the vice president said.
Meanwhile, MBDA is taking part in another Polish acquisition procedure under which Warsaw may purchase loitering munition for the country’s armed forces.
“MBDA recently responded to a request for information by Poland. We offered our Fire Shadow system that was initially developed for the British Ministry of Defence,” Alan Sinclair, a technical executive at MBDA, told Defense News. “For PGZ, this represents an opportunity to produce the entire system under a license here.”
MBDA is jointly owned by Airbus (37.5 percent), BAE Systems (37.5 percent) and Leonardo (25 percent).
Jaroslaw Adamowski is the Poland correspondent for Defense News.
