The Armament Inspectorate decided to order 120 mm APFSDS-T-TP rounds, with a sabot projectile. The announcement mentioned 9000 rounds of ammunition, with 6000 examples to constitute the basic minimum quantity which is to be ordered, while the remaining 3000 rounds could be procured optionally. The rounds are going to be used by the Leopard 2 main battle tanks.

The announcement was published as a so called voluntary ex ante transparency notice. No procurement price has been defined so far. A decision has been made to award the Skarżysko Kamienna Mesko S.A. company with the order. Justification issued by the Armament Inspectorate stated that there is no option of uploading a new set ballistic data into the internal data storage of the fire control computer of the tank (required, should new ammunition be acquired), due to the fact that no slots for the new data exist, and no unused sockets for new controllers are present in the tank’s ballistic system.

This is a valid justification, as the Inspectorate claims, for restarting the procurement from the contractor who has been providing the ammunition so far, since any change would mean that materials of other technological properties would be acquired, and this would result in lack of compatibility and disproportionally high difficulties in future operation.

APFSDS-T-TP rounds are used to train the Leopard 2A4 main battle tank crews within the scope of attacking single-point targets with the use of the Rh 120 L 44 cannons, at distances of up to 2500 meters. This type of ammunition is being manufactured at the Mesko facility in Pionki.

In November this year, the Polish General Command of the Armed Forces announced that according to the report, presented by a team of experts, the accident which took place in September last year, resulting in death of one of the crew members, was caused by the defective ammunition. According to the official press release, it was decided that procurement of the said ammunition would be suspended, until the moment when all of the testing procedures and adjustments are carried out, in order to ensure operational safety of the rounds.