October 1, 2005: Poland, which long manufactured mobile
anti-aircraft systems for the defunct Soviet Union, is now equipping
some of those systems with American missiles, or at least American
ideas. The most striking example of this was a plan to replace the SA-8
missiles on their mobile anti-aircraft system with American AMRAAM
air-to-air missiles. This has already been done in the United States,
and the Poles see the AMRAAM as a more effective missile than the
Russian designed SA-8, and easily made compatible with SA-8 launchers,
radars and fire control equipment. Then, it was noted that the Russian
version of the AMRAAM (the RVV-AE/AA-12 "ARAMski") cost less than a
third as much as the AMRAAM and had very similar capabilities. Cost
would be an important factor with such weapons, as the most likely
buyers would be frugal customers like India, China or
Pakistan.
