page_title: Tanks of the Polish Armoured Forces
section_title: Cold War
hierarchical_section_title: Tanks of the Polish Armoured Forces / Cold War
caption_attribution_description: English: PT-91 Twardy tank Polski: Czołg PT-91, stanowisko dowódcy
context_section_description: With massive quantities of weapons and tanks from World War II, the Soviet Union was able to help build the armoured forces of the satellite states within its sphere of influence quickly and the Polish Armoured Forces received some of these.
  In the late 1940s and early 1950s the Polish Army was under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin Rokossovsky, who was given the additional title Marshal of Poland and was also Minister of National Defense. It was increasingly tied into the Soviet structures however this process was stopped in the aftermath of the Polish October in 1956.
  
  The LWP also took part in the suppressing of the 1968 democratization process of Czechoslovakia, commonly known as Prague Spring. As the operation against Czechoslovakia, columns of tanks and motorized rifle troops of the LWP headed toward Prague and other major centers, meeting no resistance.  The 28,000 troops of the Polish 2nd Army from the Silesian Military District, commanded by general Florian Siwicki, were the main Polish force.
  In the late 1980s the Polish Army modernized all of its obsolete T-55 tanks to the T-55AM Mérida standard. The successful conversion convinced the General Staff that similar modernization could also be applied to other Soviet-designed tanks made in Poland and used by the Polish Armed Forces. In late 1988 it was decided to prepare a project of modernization for the T-72M1 design - using the experience from production of licensed T-72M (obiekt 172M-E3 - Polish army designation T-72), T-72M1 (obiekt 172M-E5), T-72M1K (Polish army designation T-72M1D).
  The Gliwice-based Research and Development Centre of Mechanical Systems OBRUM (Polish: Ośrodek Badawczo-Rozwojowy Urządzeń Mechanicznych) was chosen as the main design bureau. However, initially the work progressed at a very slow pace, mainly because the Polish General Staff was also considering the purchase of a newer version of T-72 (T-72S) or the modern T-80.
  After the political changes of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet bloc, Polish-Soviet talks on purchase of modern tanks came to a halt and the design of a new Polish tank gained momentum. The first design proposed by the bureau was code-named Wilk (Polish for wolf), but the project was cancelled. Instead, the priority was shifted to a different project named Twardy. The basic aim of the conversion of T-72 was to adapt it to the reality of modern warfare and fix its most visible deficiencies. Among those were low mobility, insufficient armour, lack of a fire control system and poor stabilisation of the main gun, which resulted in poor firing accuracy, and additional problem of lack of passive night vision aiming systems.
  Starting from July 1991 T-72 modernization programs were implemented by the Bumarcombine which had been producing T-72s under Soviet license. The modernized main battle tank was designated PT-91 Twardy. In 1993 the Polish Defense Ministry ordered 20 PT-91 tanks to be used for field trials and Armed Forces tests.
  The main battle tank's protection from high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) projectiles and missiles was increased by new Erawa dynamic armor developed by the Poland Military-Technical Institute which consists of 394 tiles with explosives, detonating in case of a direct hit. The Twardy used steel anti-HEAT screens instead of the rubber used on the T-72. The Erawa's main difference from the Soviet analogs is that Erawa's containers fit almost without gaps while on the Soviet modernised T-72 the gaps reach 10 – 15 mm noticeably decreasing defense effectiveness.
  Experiments showed that the Erawa dynamic defense decreased the high-explosive jet impact depth by 50 - 70% and penetrator (APFSDS) projectiles by 30 - 40%. Furthermore, explosive containers don't detonate when hit by shot of up to 30 mm calibre, shell or mine fragments, or when covered in burning napalm or petrol.
  The Twardy was armed with the same 125 mm smoothbore gun 2A46 used in the T-72, fitted with an automatic reloading mechanism which reduced the tank crew by one as it replaced the gun loader, and gave a rate of f
caption: POD-72 commanders sight
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