Polish Police announced their procurement plans for 2018. The list contains, besides the firearms and other typical equipment, an interesting mention of eight armored personnel carriers. The Police HQ reserved PLN25 million (EUR5,9 million) for this purchase, The proceedings will start in the fourth quarter of 2018. It seems that the unit price will be around PLN3.15 milion (EUR750,000).
List of planned purchase for Police in 2018 contains 8 out of 35 APCs to be used by Patrol Police, Riot Police, SWAT units, and BOA (Anti-Terror Operations Bureau). The plans for modern APCs procurement were drawn 3 years ago /Photo: Paweł Ścibiorek
It’s worth reminding, that the Police planned the APC purchase for quite a few years. Public Orders office of the Police HQ started the two-part technical dialogue in October 2015. The dialogue concerned purchase of special vehicles in light armored carrier version LTO (Lekki Transporter Opancerzony).
The number of the LTO’s to be procured by the Police is unknown at present. The vehicles besides supporting counterterror operations, will be also useful at foreign missions, where Polish Police is involved.
The number 9 edict of the Chief of Police was introduced in May 2015 and describes the norms for equipment. One of the norms establishes the need for 35 armored carriers and the given number is most likely the maximum number of vehicles to be procured for the riot-control and counter-terror Police units.
Analysis
Currently, Police uses two types of vehicles that can be considered as armoured carriers. It’s the obsolete Soviet made BTR-60PB 8×8 and Polish Dzik-1 AT armored cars.
The 2 Dzik-1 AT vehicles were purchased in 2004 for BOA (Biuro Operacji Antyterrorystycznych) the main Warsaw based counter-terror unit. The tender, worth PLN1.2 million PLN (EUR285,000), was awarded to AMZ Kutno company. There were additional plans to procure four Dzik vehicles in 2008 and two in 2009 but the contract never materialized.
In 2014 Police confirmed the presence of Soviet-made 5 BTR-60PB 8×8 APCs in the inventory, attached to riot units. Last time these were utilized in 2004 in Warsaw, to secure the European Economic Summit.