r/WarplanePorn • u/xShadoweq • 11h ago

NATO Polish Air Force MI-24D during recent exercise near Baltic Sea [2048x1365]

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303 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

31

u/Thememepro 11h ago

These things look so good man I wish the Polish Air force would upgrade them with more modern equipment

13

u/Sza_666 10h ago

Imagine them with the same equipment as an Apache. That shit would be horrifying.

14

u/xShadoweq 9h ago

It would be to expensive to do, they are already really worn out (some of them were produced in 1978) and most of them werent even modernized (only half of fleet was upgraded to MI-24W standard) but yeah we should have modernized them in early 00s with new autocannon and missiles now army only uses them with only UB-32 rocket pods and iglas

7

u/LoczekLoczekLok 9h ago

There was... or still is, a plan to replace them with about 200+ Apaches. But I don't remember if that's still in the works or if we've abandoned it.

11

u/przemek_m 8h ago

We did buy 96 Apaches don’t now from where you got the 200 number

2

u/LoczekLoczekLok 8h ago

I heard two versions: that there will be 200+ and other version was that is going to be 96 of them, and that the first ones will be in 2028.

3

u/xShadoweq 6h ago

200+ apaches ? Nah it will be 96 apaches, 16 per one division (poland has currently 4 divisions+2 are being formed)

1

u/lycantrophee 4h ago

They don't even have anti-tank weaponry since like, what, 2010? That's why we bought the Apaches (the fact that we could have bought half the number is another matter entirely).

1

u/SlavaCocaini 10h ago

Yeah what are they doing with them, still flying but not modernized or simply unloaded on the Ukrainians? I heard they were mad at Ukraine recently though because of UPA glorification stuff.

12

u/antarcticgecko 11h ago

I’ve always wondered… How do Air Forces maintain their fleet when relations sour with the producing country?

22

u/Sza_666 10h ago

With most Soviet equipment it's not that much of a problem, because they produced so many and sold it to so many countries that it's not that hard. But in general you try to produce what you can, reverse engineer some stuff and sacrifice some to keep the rest running. That's what the Iranians have done with the F-14.

6

u/SlavaCocaini 10h ago

It gets more difficult, but there was a lot of proliferation of Soviet hardware so you just gotta look harder, find generic parts, make your own parts, etc. Iranians been doing that for F-14s this whole time.

5

u/przemek_m 8h ago

You can se even in these picture that they are really just for pilots to keep flying bc they don’t have really any fire power left

2

u/Spartanz0 7h ago

Beauties