PT-91 Twardy

The PT-91 Twardy ("hard","tough" or "resilient") is a Polish main battle tank. It is a development of the T-72M1 and first entered service in 1995. The PT-91 was designed at the OBRUM (OBRUM for Ośrodek Badawczo-Rozwojowy Urządzeń Mechanicznych – Polish for Research and Development Centre for Mechanical Appliances) and is produced by the Bumar Łabędy company – part of Polish military consortium – Bumar Group. Changes from the T-72 include a new dual-axis stabilized fire-control system, reactive armour, a more powerful engine, transmission and new automatic loader. Unlike many other T-72 upgrades the Polish Army PT-91s are upgraded using elements created almost exclusively by domestic companies (this includes new engine, fire control system and all communication system elements). Many of those elements were used to upgrade existing fleets of T-72 tanks in countries like in Czech Republic – T-72M4 CZ, Georgia – T-72SIM-1 or India – T-72 Ajeya Mk2.

History

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).