Co-operation between the Military University of Technology (WAT), the Ministry of National Defence’s Department of Transformation, and the RAPORT-wto team resulted in the conference Advanced Technologies for Weapons Systems, opened by Minister of National Defence Bogdan Klich on the exhibition’s first day. The conference was chaired by Wojciech Łuczak.

After several years, the MSPO has returned to the tradition of meetings between government ministers responsible for Poland’s defence industry and the CEOs of armaments companies. It’s been a long time since they exchanged views so frankly. The historic meeting took place on the first day of the XVI MSPO.

At last year’s MSPO, Lubawa SA won a Defender prize for its TNP/2008 Technical Pneumatic Tent. This year the factory is additionally presenting new pneumatic tents which form the basis of complete sleeping quarters. The tents are on display at Lubawa’s stand and at the exposition of the armed forces.

On the first day of MSPO, Minister of National Defence Bogdan Klich took part in the premiere of the new P99 Rad 9-mm self-loading pistol offered by Fabryka Broni Radom, and was the first person to test it on the shooting range.

Wojskowe Zakłady Elektroniczne (WZE) in Zielonka and CNPEP Radwar have signed an agreement on co-operation which could lead to the merger of these strategically important armaments companies. The signing was attended by deputy ministers: Dariusz Bogdan of the economy, Krzysztof Łaszkiewicz of the Treasury, and Zenon Kosiniak-Kamysz of national defence as well as Bumar’s president, Edward Nowak.

Szafran-ZT, a system developed by the Telecommunications Research Institute (PIT) based on standards agreed between the NATO countries, which is being rather slowly implemented at the 12th Mechanized Division, has received full approval as the command support system for the Multinational Corps Northeast (MNC NE) in Szczecin.

The Huta Stalowa Wola Military Production Centre (CPW HSW) is showing its latest 120 mm MAHSW (Automatic Mortar from Huta Stalowa Wola) for the first time at MSPO 2008. Assembly of a complete MAHSW model ended in August, and in-house functional tests were successfully performed, too.

The Ministry of National Defence has begun a long-anticipated systemic replacement of its truck fleet. The winning bid in a tender for general-purpose vehicles was selected in August, while 5 September marked the start of a long-expected tender for high-mobility medium load capacity vehicles, of which up to 3,500 are to be purchased over the next decade.

Among the equipment shown at MSPO is a demo version of a universal command vehicle fitted on a chassis from the Patria AMV 8x8 family. The onboard equipment and the concept of the vehicle was developed by WB Electronics in association with the Telecommunications Research Institute (PIT) and supported by Transbit.