Poland Made A Better Russian-Style Tank--And Gave It To Ukraine
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the Polish armys tank corps in a precarious position. Polands tankers long had ridden in Soviet tanks. A Polish firm, Bumar-Labedy, even produced a licensed copy of the T-72, then the main Soviet tank type.
But Sovietor Russiansupport was about to end. Poland was moving toward the West and soon would join NATO. Anticipating the schism, the Polish army and its supporting industries devised a plan. The goal of that billion-dollar, 14-year effort: to make Poland an independent tank power.
Polands first post-Soviet tank was the PT-91 Twardy. A faster, better-protected version of the Russian T-72M1 that, most critically, also boasts a new fire-control system with high-end optics.
Twenty-seven years after the first PT-91 entered service with the Polish army, the tank went to war for the first time ... against the Russians. In the summer of 2022, just a few months after Russia widened its war on Ukraine, Warsaw began transferring to Kyiv many of the roughly 230 Twardys in the Polish arsenal.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/poland-made-a-better-russian-style-tank-and-gave-it-to-ukraine/ar-AA17uipK