Poland buys 46,000 upgraded GROT rifles for its soldiers

Poland has ordered nearly 46,000 of its domestically produced MSBS GROT assault rifles in the latest A3 configuration, signing a contract worth approximately $160 million with the state-owned manufacturer Fabryka Broni “Łucznik” Radom, with all deliveries scheduled for completion by the end of 2027.

The contract, announced June 24, 2026, by Poland’s Armament Agency, the government body responsible for military procurement, covers the 5.56 mm (0.22 in) caliber GROT in its most current form, incorporating design changes drawn directly from feedback collected during years of operational use by Polish soldiers. The A3 designation reflects improvements to ergonomics and key internal components that the manufacturer and the Polish Armed Forces developed together after studying how the rifle performed in real conditions, with the stated goal of further increasing reliability across all environmental and operational scenarios.

The GROT’s origins trace back to a Polish military research program called the Modular Small Arms System, known by its Polish acronym MSBS, a joint effort between Fabryka Broni “Łucznik” Radom and the Military University of Technology in Warsaw. The project aimed to replace Cold War-era Kalashnikov-pattern weapons in Polish service with a modern, domestically designed and manufactured platform that could adapt to different mission requirements without requiring soldiers to carry multiple weapons. The result was a rifle built around a modular architecture that allows rapid reconfiguration between a conventional layout, with a traditional stock behind the action, and a bullpup layout, where the action and magazine sit behind the trigger group to shorten overall length while preserving barrel length. That flexibility gives commanders options that fixed-design rifles cannot offer, allowing the same base weapon to serve infantrymen who need a compact weapon in a vehicle or urban environment and those who need longer effective range in open terrain.

The first GROT rifles entered Polish Army service in 2017, replacing older designs that dated to the Soviet era, and the platform has been developed through successive variants as operational experience accumulated. The A3 version represents the most refined iteration to date, and the scale of this order, nearly 46,000 complete rifle sets, suggests that Poland intends the GROT A3 to become the standard individual weapon across a significant portion of its ground forces rather than a supplementary or specialist procurement.

Poland’s defense buildup since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has been among the most aggressive in NATO, with Warsaw committing defense budgets exceeding four percent of gross domestic product and pursuing simultaneous procurement programs across armor, artillery, aviation, and infantry equipment. The GROT A3 contract fits within that broader pattern of accelerating modernization, but it also carries a specific industrial dimension that distinguishes it from foreign procurement deals. By sourcing the rifle from a Polish state-owned manufacturer using a design developed in partnership with a Polish military university, Warsaw keeps the production capacity, the intellectual property, and the employment within the country, a priority that Polish defense planners have consistently emphasized as they expand the armed forces toward a target strength of 300,000 soldiers, the largest army in continental Europe west of Russia.

Fabryka Broni “Łucznik” Radom, the manufacturer behind the GROT, is one of Poland’s oldest and most significant defense industrial institutions, with roots stretching back to the interwar period when Poland rebuilt its arms manufacturing capacity after regaining independence in 1918. The factory produced the legendary VIS pistol in the 1930s, manufactured weapons under German occupation during World War II, and spent the Cold War producing Kalashnikov-pattern rifles under Soviet license before transitioning to domestic designs after 1989. The GROT represents the most ambitious original design the company has brought to serial production, and the A3 contract reinforces its position as the primary supplier of standard infantry weapons to the Polish Armed Forces for years to come.

The contract value of approximately 600 million Polish zloty, equivalent to roughly $150 million at current exchange rates, works out to a per-unit cost of approximately $3,457 per complete rifle set, a figure consistent with the pricing of comparable NATO-standard assault rifles from European manufacturers, though direct comparisons depend heavily on what accessories and support elements each contract includes. The Polish announcement describes the procurement as covering “complete sets,” suggesting the order encompasses more than bare rifles, potentially including optics mounts, slings, magazines, and ancillary equipment, though the precise contents of each set were not specified.

Delivery of all 46,000 sets by the end of 2027 gives the Polish Armed Forces an 18-month production and delivery window, a timeline that Fabryka Broni will need to sustain at meaningful production rates given the volume involved.