The Polish Navy has never before had ships with such extensive combat capabilities, and the domestic shipbuilding industry has never built such technologically advanced vessels.

They are like a shield and a sword in one. Although this is a considerable simplification in the context of  the Polish Navy’s operations, it fully reflects the importance of introducing the Miecznik-class frigates into service.

Each of the two flotillas of the Polish Navy – the 3rd Ship Flotilla with its headquarters in Gdynia and the 8th Coastal Defense Flotilla based in Świnoujście – can carry out both offensive and defensive missions. However, the specific tasks assigned to them justify describing the former as the ‘sword’ and the latter as the ‘shield.’ The 3rd Ship Flotilla is the largest tactical unit of the Polish Navy, tasked with conducting strike operations against enemy forces, engaging their surface and subsurface vessels, air forces, as well as ground forces. Its capabilities are based on squadrons of combat ships, submarines, support vessels, hydrographic survey vessels, and a reconnaissance group. The land-based component includes, among others, a Naval Missile Unit, a sapper battalion, and an anti-aircraft squadron.

The core of the 8th Coastal Defense Flotilla, which focuses on mine countermeasures operations and minelaying and transport tasks, consists of the 2nd Minelaying and Transport Squadron, the 12th Minesweeper Squadron, the 13th Minesweeper Squadron, a sapper battalion, and an anti-aircraft squadron.

Unsettling Diagnosis

An analysis of the current capabilities of both flotillas leads to a rather unsettling conclusion – while our ‘shield’ is quite good, our ‘sword’ leaves much to be desired. The key vessels of the 8th Coastal Defense Flotilla are Project 258 minehunters (Kormoran II class). The ships that have already entered service – ORP Kormoran, ORP Albatros, and ORP Mewa, as well as the three that have already been launched and are currently undergoing trials and testing – ORP Jaskółka, ORP Rybitwa, and ORP Czajka, are the most advanced vessels in their class operating in the Baltic Sea. Experts are not afraid to claim that it would be very difficult to find equally advanced mine countermeasures vessels anywhere in the world today. Unfortunately, at the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the 3rd Ship Flotilla, whose combat capabilities fall short of needs and expectations. This is perfectly illustrated by the fact that the most modern ship in that tactical unit is the ORP Ślązak patrol corvette that began its service life as a Gawron-class multi-role vessel. Apart from it, the strength of the Polish Navy’s fleet consists of two Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates: ORP Gen. K. Pułaski FFG-272 (launched in 1979), ORP Gen. T. Kościuszko FFG-273 (launched in 1978), and the heavily worn-out submarine ORP Orzeł (launched in 1985), which fails to meet the requirements of the modern battlefield.

Breakthrough Changes

The Ministry of National Defense, together with the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, aware of the Polish Navy’s weaknesses, planned to strengthen its combat capabilities with three coastal defense ships, codenamed Miecznik, when adopting the Technical Modernization Plan for 2013–2022 at the beginning of the last decade. At the time, it was stipulated that these would be corvette-class vessels with displacement of approximately 2,000 metric tons, armed with one 76-mm gun, two 40-mm guns, torpedoes, and numerous missiles, including anti-aircraft, anti-ship, and water-to-land cruise missiles.

Unfortunately, due to decision-making turmoil, the tender for the construction of the Miecznik-class ships had never been announced, and after the entire project had been canceled and restarted several times, some breakthrough decisions were finally made in 2020 to change the classification and intended use of the vessels. Instead of coastal defense ships, the Polish Navy would acquire multi-role air defense missile frigates – vessels it had never previously had in its fleet.

In order to understand why defense industry experts view Miecznik-class vessels as gamechangers for the Polish Navy, it is necessary to realize just how powerful these ships will be. Miecznik is to be equipped with an advanced radar sensor system, the heart of which will be the Thales UK SM-400/410 4A FF multifunction radar (with four AESA 2.0-class active phased array antennas), supported by a Thales UK NS-58 FM 4D radar, capable of detecting air targets at a distance of up to 350 km and sea targets at a distance of approximately 80 km.

Miecznik will be able to destroy air targets using various types of anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missiles. Although British missiles from the CAMM family will serve as its primary weapon, the ship’s VLS launchers will also be capable of firing the long-range SM-3 anti-ballistic missiles, the standard SM-6 or SM-2 Block IV, as well as the SM-2 Block IIIC missiles. The VLS launchers will also be used to engage land-based targets – though this will require, for example, RGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles. To combat enemy ships, Miecznik will be equipped with 76-mm guns, torpedoes, and NSM anti-ship missiles with a range of approximately 200 km (which can also be used to destroy land-based targets if necessary). Anti-submarine warfare helicopters are also to be stationed aboard Miecznik, and the vessel will be equipped with highly advanced electronic warfare systems: the Artemis IRST EW/ESM and the KORA-18 RESM/CESM (the former to be supplied by Thales, and the latter by Rohde & Schwarz). All of the above makes for a ship with combat capabilities never before seen in any vessel under our flag.

Three in Three Years

The PGZ-Miecznik consortium – comprising the Polish Armaments Group (PGZ, Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa) and PGZ Naval Shipyard (PGZ Stocznia Wojenna), supported by the British company Babcock – is responsible for the construction of three Miecznik-class missile frigates: ORP Wicher, ORP Huragan, and ORP Burza. The first Miecznik was launched on August 12, 2026, and the launching of the next two is planned for September 2027 and 2028, respectively.

Although the representatives of the Polish Navy and the contractors emphasize that the process of introducing the first vessel into service is always time-consuming, they declare that the first Miecznik-class vessel, ORP Wicher, will join the 3rd Ship Flotilla already in 2028, and it will definitely be a gamechanger for both the Polish Navy and the entire Polish Armed Forces.