The Polish company Mesko is working on the Piorun MANPADS of the new generation, writes Militarnyi with reference to the vice president of the Mesko company Przemysław Kowalczuk.

According to Mr. Kowalczuk, work is currently underway on the Grzmot (“Thunder”) project, which will be the successor to the Piorun (“Lightning”) complex. This conditional Piorun-2 will have better parameters and an updated design. The vice president of the Mesko company emphasized that the new MANPADS will be heavier, and the principle of its application will be different. The Piorun-2 missile will receive a different homing head.

Work on the complex is already underway, the first tests will begin in 18 months. But it will take several years to bring the product to combat readiness.

Piorun MANPADS are actively used by the Ukrainian military. These were among the first Western anti-aircraft weapons that arrived in Ukraine a> even before the start of full-scale hostilities.

Piorun is a deep modernization of the Grom MANPAD, which was called Grom-M during development. Grom, in turn, is a modernization of the Soviet Igla. That is, the conditional Grzmot will be already the third post-Soviet generation MANPADS, created in Poland.

Piorun MANPADS showed itself very well in destroying Russian planes, helicopters and UAVs, so Poland decided to triple the production of these MANPADS. In addition, the Piorun MANPADS were purchased by the Norwegian army, Estonia and the USA.