Warsaw signed a contract with the US on the purchase of dozens of FGM-148F Javelin anti-tank systems in mid-2020. The country expects to receive 60 launchers and 180 missiles along with a training and logistics support package by the end of the current year.
Poland will deploy its Javelin anti-tank missile systems in the country's eastern regions with its territorial defence formations, Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak has announced.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday after taking part in a demonstration exercise at a training ground in northern Poland, Blaszczak indicated that territorial defence forces units were already training using the system.
Thursday's demonstrative drills saw the first-ever firing of a Javelin by Polish troops. The Territorial defence troops's official Twitter published photos and video of the firing.
Developed in the 1980s and first introduced into service with the US military in 1996, the Raytheon-Lockheed Martin-manufactured Javelin portable anti-tank system has been used in a broad range of conflicts, including the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the US war in Afghanistan, and the US-instigated civil wars in Syria and Libya.
The US has also sold the system to the UK, France, Australia, several Gulf nations, Indonesia, Taiwan, Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia, Lithuania, Norway and the Czech Republic. However, Blaszczak said the Polish military was the first apart from the US itself to receive the latest version of the Javelin, known as FGM-148F…
