WARSAW — Lockheed Martin has obtained a foreign military sales contract from the US Air Force to supply an undisclosed amount of joint air-to-surface standoff missiles (JASSMs) to upgrade the Polish Air Force’s F-16 fighter jets.
“Lockheed Martin is providing hardware and software, documentation, program management and missiles in support of the Polish Shield initiative. Poland is the third international customer for JASSM,” the manufacturer said in a statement.
Poland’s military will acquire precision-guided cruise missiles for its fleet of 48 F-16s to further increase its long-range strike capabilities.
The contract was confirmed Sept. 14 by Pawel Osiej, project manager at local PR firm Propublic, which represents Lockheed Martin in the Polish market.
The value of the deal was not disclosed by Lockheed Martin.
The manufacturer says its JASSM is a long-range, semi-autonomously guided, conventional, air-to-ground, precision standoff missile, enabled to destroy high-value, well-defended targets.
The procurement is part of Poland’s ongoing 139 billion zloty (US $37.3 billion) military modernization program for 2013 to 2022. Other planned procurements for the Air Force include the acquisition of new helicopters, UAVs and transport aircraft, according to the Defense Ministry.
Email: jadamowski@defensenews.com
