PL-01 Concept

A few days ago, photos and videos of the new polish infantry fighting vehicle stormed the internet. The vehicle i am talking about the PL-01 Concept is 7 meters long and 3,8 meters wide. It weights 30 tons but with additional armor and anti-landmine equipment it's weight grows to 35 tons. The vehicle has a ride height of 480 milimeters and is powered by a 700kW diesel engine. This gives it a top speed of 70 km/h on the roads and 50 km/h offroad. It should be able to cover a distance of 500 kilometers in good conditions or 250 kilometers in harsh offroad.

The default armament can be the 105mm or 120mm gun. The turret is unmanned and has an auto-loader. The loader contains 16 shells, further 45 are in the storage. The gun should be capable of doeing 6 shots per minute. There is also an active defense system and smoke granade launcher.

That would be about the vehicle itself. On the WoT Forums and all other sites that featured the new vehicle always can be found a hot discussion. "poland stronk" or simply [moderated] or similar comments are very frequent. On the other hand there are lots of comments from polish players that are pround because of the project. This causes a massiv flame and the topics are being closed in no time. It's clear to me that the tank is not gonna be included in the game, but it's an interessting construction.
"Poland lego tank". Well it may look stupid but it's very innovative. If you know the B-2 bomber the shapes should be familair to you. The idea of the tank is to remind stealth. That's why the armor is designed to disrupt the radar waves. Other idea is the exhaust gases and gun cooler. On the modern battlefield visible tank is a dead tank and modern fighter aircrafts can easily detect the warmth the tank is producing. I can understand the happines of the polish players as it is by now the only tank fitted with such solutions. But it unfortunalley might not be so polish as they think. The turret is supposed to be created in the cooperation with BAE Systems. Also it is still not clear if the chassis will be taken from the swedisch CV-90 or maybe though from another polish construction the Anders. You may ask, why is Poland developing such tank while everybody is concentrated on MBTs (main battle tank). As you can see in the first line this is not a tank but a fighting vehicle. Poland has some Leopards 2 and PT-91 and their modernisations are the current idea for an MBT i suppose.

With the presentation of PL-01 much people interessted in modern militaries were disgusted. The sooner mentioned Anders is a fully polish projekt, that due to development of the PL-01 has been scrapped. Frankly speaking it was not the only reason. As Poland is a difficult country to live in the other reason was also corruption but this is already a story for another much longer article.

By

Opa_Apo