According to an announcement, Poland has officially signed a Foreign Military Sales Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) to acquire 96 Boeing AH-64E Apache combat helicopters as part of its KRUK Attack Helicopter program.
This acquisition positions Poland as the largest operator of the Apache helicopter outside of the United States, making it the 19th nation to add the AH-64E to its arsenal.
“We are honoured the Government of Poland has placed their confidence in us,” said Vince Logsdon, vice president of International Business Development for Boeing Defense, Space & Security. “The AH-64E Apache helicopters will strengthen Poland’s operational capability and interoperability with the U.S., NATO, and allied nations. We look forward to delivering this unmatched capability.”
The deal follows closely on the heels of an offset agreement between the Polish Ministry of National Defence and Boeing. This agreement includes provisions for the maintenance and support of Poland’s Apache fleet by the Polish defense industry, as well as the establishment of training programs and the development of a composite laboratory.
These offset projects, claim Boeing, are expected to enhance Poland’s defence industry, create highly skilled jobs, and drive technological advancements, bringing substantial economic benefits to the country.
“Poland’s commitment to procure 96 aircraft represents the largest FMS order in the history of Boeing’s Vertical Lift division and will not only make Poland our 19th global Apache customer but the largest operator outside of the United States,” stated Kathleen Jolivette, vice president and general manager of Vertical Lift.
The AH-64E is the most advanced configuration of the Apache say the builders, combining a “battle-tested design with cutting-edge technologies to offer exceptional performance and versatility”.
Given the effectiveness of drones in Ukraine as well as modern air defences I’m not sure I would be making such a big investment into attack helicopters as Poland is now.
I can see some combination of drones for recon providing targeting solutions for ground based vehicles firing something like Brimstone being a replacement for attack helicopters very soon.
Maybe you should contact Polish MOD and tell them that they are wrong then.
please let us know what they say .
Do you have their email address?
Just type Poland Ministry of defence on Google. Let us know what they say.
Seriously though, I’d love to see the reply you get as I’m sure they would be super impressed being contacted by a commentator on this particular site.
It does make you wonder how vulnerable helicopters are based on what we’ve seen. Of course there is always the caveat that we don’t have a complete picture of what’s actually going on and also we shouldn’t always apply the same lessons to the west as we apply to two armies fighting a land war using soviet tactics. After all look at how much success Ukr has had with a little combined arms /maneuver warfare in the past week alone.
Everything from dismounted soldiers to trucks, tanks and AH, is vulnerable to a counter system, and always has been. You need a counter system to defeat the threat, as has always been the case.
Doesn’t mean you take tanks out of service or neglect to buy new AH, as some are suggesting.
Yes but just as with tanks as those platforms become more vulnerable and their capabilities more niche the cost benefit ratio changes and eventually the platform is no longer worth the cost or it’s used in ever smaller numbers.
Our experience is that our platform count (and manpower count) always reduces decade by decade – and across all three services. That is for many reasons.
We seem to be happy paying £1bn for an attack sub, but to only have 7 of them, which is a tiny number. If they went up to £2-2.5bn over the next decade or two, I wonder if we would purchase any when thinking about Astute replacement or would switch to cheaper SSK platforms.
Battleships were still highly effective in 1945 it’s just that aircraft out ranged them. Attack helicopters are still lethal but they are very expensive and have a massive logistical foot print.
If you want something that can fly and scout for you that sounds like something a drone can do much cheaper and if you then want a missile fired at something in front of you that again can be done by a drone or by a ground vehicle using data from the drone.
The only clear advantage the attack helicopter has is in its gun but then just as with the battleship is it worth the massive cost of the platform just to have the gun?
I’m not saying we should get rid of ours yet however given the lessons of the last three years I don’t think I would be investing billions in a new fleet of Apaches right now.
I dunno, the Russians did some serious damage to the Ukrs southern offensive last year using Kamov Ka-52M armed with Vikhr ATGMs, they also carry Izdeliye 305E which has a 15km range.
They did but the eventual losses of the Ka52 have prevented that from happening again. If your spending $4 billion on attack helicopters or $4 billion on drones and land based missile launchers what’s getting you the most bang for your buck.
What prevented it from happening was Ukraine failing to mount another counter offensive on the same scale since. The Ka-52s have suffered incredibly heavy losses but is that an indicator that they are obsolete or that more are needed?
While I don’t think they are wonder weapons people might have thought they were in many respects a decade or two ago – and on top of that many of their roles/applications have been taken by newer drone technology – they still play a very useful role as with all helicopters that hasn’t been fulfilled completely.
Ukraine is in the middle of a pretty big counter offensive at the moment and there is not a Ka52 to be seen.
No Bayraktars either.
One destroyed a Chally 2 this week.
Some say it was fake news – a T-64B destroyed. Don’t know, didn’t see the photo.
There were a few pics but all seemed to be different places and nothing really showed the full extent of the claim.
Red Effect on the tube proved two lost in Kursk this week
Unconfirmed and very unofficial footage and nothing I’ve read shows evidence of Drone attack.
Look at Red Effect today
Yeah, had it not been for the Ka52 the Ukr would have probalby penetrated deeper into the minefields / defences, so it seemed to be the right tacic at that time. of course now Ukr has F-16s to counter them should the Ka52s try their luck again.
Won’t those ground based Brimstone launchers be vulnerable to attack drones?
What if the recce drones cueing the Brimstone ground vehicles get taken out by kinetic or electronic means?
They will for sure, but flying above a modern battlefield at low altitude is probably way more lethal and those land based launchers could be 10 times cheaper than the attack helicopter meaning you have 10 times more.
It’s like having a frigate and battleship, if the primary role is just to fire an anti ship missile it’s more survivable to have 10 frigates than 1 battleship.
I was nearly with you until the battleship/frigate comparison. Both do or did very different jobs.
We always have a mix of capabilities to do a task – we have many ways/equipments to kill or disable a tank – I once counted well over 10 options!
Certainly AH have their disadvantages but they also have their advantages (which you gloss over) and other systems which impress you have their drawbacks. A mix enables a mission can be achieved.
The US experience in Karbala in 2003 showed how vulnerable Apaches were to normal anti aircraft fire, let alone modern MANPADs. The US army changed tactics, using the helicopters for reconnaissance and destroying targets with fixed wing air strike or artillery.
But much of Poland is forested so pop up and shoot tactics could be employed.
The right tool for the local geography. I had forgotten Poland is stuff full of trees.
Trees and terrain are little help from top down attacks using AWACS.
Helicopters are notoriously difficult to detect and track by long range radar. It is to do with the doppler effect caused by the rotor blades. It takes expensive software to recognize the patterns, as the pattern fades in and out. This is further compounded by being close to the surface, where topography and trees etc interfere with the signal. Using AWACS to find helicopters isn’t always clear cut.
Yes unless the enemy has a AWACS capability, S400 is designed to hit low flying targets using data from aircraft.
Russia has already lost 2 S50s to ground fire, so perhaps Poland believes Russian AWACS capability can be neutralized. It doesn’t seem to have been effective against Ukraine’s Kursk advance.
Yes attrition in AWACS is a factor also. My point is largely that attack helicopters are not as survivable as they once were and their costs are growing all the time. Simply hiding behind trees and terrain is not as effective as it once was.
Given the effectiveness of drones its almost certain the age old pendulum of threat – countermeasure-threat-countermeasure is going to swing to the countermeasure side for a period of time. Some serious research is going on looking at drone countermeasures like jamming.
The same happens with all platforms, like it did with fixed wing until stealth swung it back in fixed wings favour for a while. Tanks suffered when HEAT round started making their armour obsolete, then composite armour swung things back to the tanks favour for a while.
Having drones and helicopters gives some protection against being left toothless if drones find themselves frozen out. Its dangerous being totally reliant on a single platform.
Agree, drones are very much unmanned helicopters are we will no doubt see a teaming with helicopters just as with fighter jets. However the big difference is that drones can also team with armoured vehicles for a fraction of the cost of a manned helicopter but achieve a similar outcome.
The Ukrainians have already taken down a helicopter with an fpv drone.
You shouldn’t judge the usefulness of attack helicopters based on the performance of Russian attack helicopters, especially against Western ones. Primarily because the Russian ones don’t have the same levels of defensive aid systems (DAS). An Apache will have both a radar warning receiver (RWR) and missile approach warning system (MAWS), plus depending on the options list a laser illumination warner. These sensors are linked into an automated countermeasures delivery system. Which could be both passive and active (chaff, flares, IR jammer, RF jammer, DIRCM – directed infrared countermeasures).
Though being deliberately targeted by a FPV drone is a relatively new threat, that may need a specific RF jammer to counter.
The Russian Ka-50/52 and Mil-28 do not have half the amount of sensors used for detecting threats to the aircraft, which a E model Apache has. Which is why a lot of them when being filmed being attacked by a MANPAD don’t take any evasive action (they don’t know a missile is coming!).
It is difficult to accept the superiority of our equipments without proof. When you consider the performance of Abraham’s et Leopard 2 tanks in Ukraine. Even Challenger’s and AMX 10 Rc performed poorly. They get destroyed like T90 or T84 and cost 4 times the price.
The Caesar, SAMP/T, the Iris-t, Guepard air and naval drones performed well. Only the test in combat can tell. Since combat helicopters from Russia have been very vulnerable, due to the density of Sam or makeshift Sam’s, since the range of missile carried by Apache is very limited, we can guess that the machine is highly at risk from the start.
Yes but I have a woman
the poles have expanded thei forces impressively in the past twenty years the kit was formerly hand me downs from the Russians, but nowadays they are investing in quality western equipment. theyv6 by far got the best procurement policy in Europe., the poles are smart. we want the best of everything, which is why we’ve got no money.we’ll spend a £billion on a submarine that takes seven years to get. the same for a frigate that takes over a decade to even get it’s feet wet. maybe we should be recruiting from them
a d bring back national service especially with illegal immigrants. send them to work for us if they won’t kick them out of the country. women can go to nurse training men to the armed forces. if they want to be us then they should serve for us.
Sending Illegal Immigrants to work for the Armed Forces as you suggest, seems to be a rather I’ll thought out and rather silly suggestion, together with your rather sexist thoughts on women training men. Mate, seriously, stay off the Alcohol later, you’ll be rather sorry in the morning reading your comments and all the replies.
I miss read his post too, he means – women go to be trainee nurses, men go to serve.
Don’t think I miss read it.
You said women training men mate.
He didn’t put a comma in to split the -women to nurse training, men to the forces.
It was funny anyway.
That’s exactly what mad Vlad is doing now 😀
I don’t know if I like the froces idea but there’s a hell of a lot of litter, pot holes, rubbish land, dirty beaches around the UK. Ideal ,but Labour probably just want to give them benefits and leave them be.😡
If people started giving a toss about the countryside and stopped throwing rubbish out their car then there’d be less rubbish laying about. That’s the problem, the public don’t give a shit
Women do serve Andy?
And you need to be a British or Commonwealth citizen, Gurkhas excepted. Most economic migrants are not, so poor recruitment material, with you’d assume very little loyalty to the UK.
That is an ongoing hot potato re Afghan SF who served with the British Army in Afghan and want to join up again.
Furthermore, some posts are UK national only due to security clearances.
I would not want national service diluting the professionalism of the regular armed forces either.
Ahh, re read your post, makes sense now. Women to the nurses department, right!!
Do you really want 20 year old from Algeria serving in the UK Armed Force’s? Having the best people is our best strength. Having people who don’t want to serve causes more problems.
The last thing the forces need is unwilling or unsuited conscripts.
The British Subs and Frigates take at least 25 years from concept though. Poland are shopping for stuff that is already designed and being built. It’s amazing what they can purchase given the population exodus these past few decades though. UK seems to be reducing defence expenditure whilst increasing migration, Poland is the reverse. 🤔
If you want to build an army and pack it full of foreign built kit you can do this quite quickly and relatively cheaply. This is exactly what we did in 1940 as well.
If you want a blue water navy, strategic nuclear weapons, high end intelligence and air assets then you’re going to have to have your own industrial base.
If I had a land boarder with Poland I would be doing the same as them. If I lived in an island in the North Atlantic thousands of miles away from Russia and China I would be doing the same as us.
Global reach ain’t cheap, just look at the USA.
Agreed.
Para 2 doesn’t make sense. I think the trade off is if you want to boost your economy and be self sufficient or have bespoke capabilities then buy local. If you want good capabilities quickly and at lower cost then buy best in breed from global mkt. Buying from global mkt dies not negate global capabilities.
Our economy is massive relative to the size of our equipment procurement cost. The economic factor is often misnomer, we not short of jobs.
You can’t go out and buy a nuclear submarine off the shelf same goes for a number of other platforms including the very best aircraft like F22 and B21 that are simply not for sale to anyone.
Much the same can be said for intelligence and command and control, these require decades of training and experience to cultivate.
But if you want to train a citizen army and equip it with large numbers of foreign sourced weapons you can do that if you have the money and control of the sea in two to three years.
That’s what we did in 1940 and 1914 and it is what Poland is doing now.
Just as well we’ve got the Poles to look after us Andy. As for the navy you know where I stand well enough. 🙂
the rest of europe needs to look at poland for how to do proper procurement. they are getting amazing kit, lots of it and fast, all for a fraction the cost of the uk for instance.
So the Polish Apache’s are a fraction of the cost of the UK ones ?
We do look at it: EU pays for it with EU fund.
New Tanks ,Artillery ,Ships, Fighter jets now Helicopters .Wish we could spend 4% on defence 😞
It’s amazing that Poland has a smaller GDP than the UK but has bought more AH64E then the UK with 50…..
Some countries are obviously more serious about defending their country then we are….
How many nuclear submarines do they have?
Like for like comparisons are never that simple, but yes, Poland takes defence very seriously. With Russia to their east and the history they have between Germany, Russia, I don’t blame them.
Up the Poles.
Australian bang for buck comparison is a more robust comparison. 40% of population and spending 2% of GDP and they get fantastic return in capabilities..especially in airforce and navy.
Obviously Australia doesn’t agree with you which is why they are spending $300 billion on building a nuclear submarine industry from scratch and they just cancelled future F35 buys.
Argentina demonstrated very well that you can have all the destroyers, cruisers and aircraft carriers but if you don’t have an SSN your staying in port in a major conflict.
You miss my point. Zaustralua gets significantly better value from its defence budget. It procures punch.
“Up the Poles” ha, reminds me of Dad’s army, “they don’t like it up em” 😁
It’s just one type though, don’t forget the UK bought a bunch of these two decades ago and this is a new batch.
And as DM says, Poland has not got Nuclear weapons or platforms, Aircraft Carriers and all the associated cost’s of Blue water capabilities and various bases all around the globe including Gib, Cyprus, FI’s, Ascension, Far east and many others.
Global basing is something that no other country other than the US has in comparison to the UK and in a real war this global basing is a war winner. But it ain’t cheap to maintain.
Yes absolutely and that’s why I mentioned it. It’s all very well people highlighting a single purchase of certain high end equipment and saying that Poland is ahead of the UK but Poland is in a completely different geographical position and in no way comparable to the UK given the UK’s Global possessions/interests.
We bought 67 and now we are down to 50. You can’t use nukes without possibly starting WW3 so nukes are not of much use in a normal confrontation… just ask Russia. So we also need robust conventional weapons. Poland is doing the right thing. Rather than reducing our attack helicopter numbers we should be ordering another 50. We used our old WAH-64D airframes to build 50 AH-64Es. It was the normal treasury argument the E is so much better then the D we need less…..
Poland is serious because it has to be, it has a land border with Russia and it spent not much on defence for two decades, it had a lot of catching up to do. Our military is primarily designed for power projection as we face no near by threats.
Poland has recently completed the Vistula Split Canal which has opened up a large area to shipping that no longer has to use Russian owned access routes. Another strategic development that barely gets a mention.
Interesting. Didn’t know of this.
I was following it for a while, It now enables the transit of ships and goods directly to that area of Poland rather than the old route through the Kaliningrad controlled route. Russians weren’t happy about it.
I also remember an article about Israel’s planned canal from the Med to the port of Aqaba but not sure what happened to that, It looked like a massive undertaking but it was all to help being less reliant on the Egyptians apparently.
Good point
Wow. That’s a huge order and a brave move by Poland. I guess they think the attack helicopter still has a future.
Of coarse it has a future, it’s just that threats evolve as do tactics. Drones are not the be all and end all solution and Russian Helicopters are rather crude in most areas of Tech and defensive abilities.
The AA weapons of the West I believe are vastly more capable than those of Russia given what we see daily.
Very few think the attack helicopter should be phased out because it is ‘vulnerable’. So is everything on the battlefield.
The Poles are putting the rest of Europe including the UK to shame with their defence spending . While we talk the talk they are putting their money where it matters
They are buying large numbers of developed kit from other nations. We would do the same in their position. Our needs are rather different. We could do with that increase to 2.5% of GDP though, or rather an agreed increase based on stated objectives. I don’t much like the arbitrary link to GDP.
Along with the new tanks? Could be a good buy. Doctrine needs to change throughout Nato though imo. Attack is the best form of defence. Poland has historically found that an enemy can rollercoaster through in a few days. Best to rollercoast through yourself first.
Always great so see a nation taking its security seriously.
It’s life jim….