A steel-cutting ceremony took place on Tuesday at PGZ Naval Shipyard in Gdynia, on Poland’s Baltic coast, marking the symbolic start of construction of the future ORP Huragan.
The ship is the third of three planned Miecznik (Swordfish)-class multi-role frigates. They are expected to become the core combat vessels of the Polish Navy, replacing its aging Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates acquired from the United States more than two decades ago.
The ceremony was attended by Deputy Defence Minister Paweł Bejda, Deputy State Assets Minister Konrad Gołota, lawmakers, local officials, Polish Navy officers and shipyard workers, state news agency PAP reported.
Guests were welcomed by PGZ Naval Shipyard CEO Marcin Ryngwelski.
Before the steel-cutting, Bejda read a letter from Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, who said the start of work on the third frigate was an important moment for both the Polish Navy and the country’s defense industry.
“After the start of construction of the ships ORP Wicher and ORP Burza, today’s ceremony confirms the consistent implementation of one of the most important modernization programmes of the Polish armed forces,” Kosiniak-Kamysz wrote.
The Miecznik programme is currently the largest modernization project for the Polish Navy. Its aim is to build three modern multi-role frigates, capable of carrying out air defense, anti-ship and other naval missions.
Two ships in the programme, the future ORP Wicher and ORP Burza, are already under construction. The ORP Huragan is expected to enter service at the end of 2031 or in early 2032.
The Miecznik frigates are based on the British Arrowhead 140 design, adapted to requirements set by the Polish military.
The programme is being carried out by the PGZ Miecznik consortium, under the Polish Armaments Group (PGZ), with foreign partners including Britain’s Babcock, which owns the ship design.
The vessels will be more than 140 meters long. Their main tasks will include defending Polish and allied forces from air attack, protecting shipping routes and energy infrastructure, and serving in NATO’s standing naval forces.
They are to be equipped with British CAMM and CAMM-ER anti-aircraft missiles, naval guns with a range of up to 40 kilometers and anti-ship missiles able to hit targets more than 200 kilometers away.
The contract for the frigates was signed in 2021 between the Armament Agency and the PGZ Miecznik consortium. Its value was initially around PLN 8 billion (USD or EUR 1.9 billion, USD 2.2 billion), but later annexes increased it to around PLN 15 billion.
The backbone of the Polish Navy’s surface fleet is currently made up of two Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, ORP Gen. T. Kościuszko and ORP Gen. K. Pułaski. Both entered service with the US Navy in 1980 and were transferred to Poland in 2000 and 2002.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP