Poland to arm M28 Bryza aircraft for hunting drones

Poland is arming its M28 Bryza light transport aircraft for drone combat, with the first prototype set for modification to carry barrel weapons after a contract between the Armed Forces Support Inspectorate and the executing contractor is signed, according to Major General Ireneusz Nowak, who disclosed the program at the Defence24 Days conference during a panel titled “How to achieve air dominance?”

General Nowak confirmed that a similar solution was successfully tested in Ukraine and described the results as very promising, according to Defence24’s reporting from the conference.

The Ukrainian precedent involved armed An-28 aircraft, direct ancestors of the considerably more modern M28 Bryza, which were filmed pulling alongside heavy kamikaze drones in flight and destroying them with multi-caliber side-mounted machine gun fire. Video footage later emerged showing An-28s additionally carrying interceptor drones under their wings, with a combined payload of six to ten units. In those engagements, the aircraft would position behind the target drone while maintaining a slightly higher altitude by a distance of roughly ten to several tens of meters, and an operator seated in the cargo bay would then launch a kamikaze interceptor drone that struck the target from the rear hemisphere. General Nowak indicated that similar or other effectors may be implemented on Polish Bryza aircraft as well, Defence24 reported.

PZL Mielec, the Polish manufacturer that produces the M28, is the only producer of the type, giving Poland direct access to all relevant technology, modernization pathways, and modification capabilities that a foreign-designed airframe would not provide, according to the Defence24 panel report. Several dozen M28 aircraft remain in Polish service at various technical levels, including digitally equipped aircraft and modern Glass Cockpit variants.

The domestic ownership of the production line eliminates the dependency on foreign approval, licensing, or engineering support that has complicated modification programs for other Polish aircraft types. Notably, when Poland purchased M28s from the then-American-owned PZL Mielec plant roughly fifteen years ago, critics questioned the rationale for acquiring so many small short-takeoff-and-landing transport aircraft. The current armed drone-hunting mission provides an answer that those critics did not anticipate.

The M28 Bryza is a twin-turboprop light transport with short takeoff and landing capability, derived from the Soviet-era Antonov An-28 and developed to significantly higher standards at PZL Mielec. Its operational ceiling, low cruise speed, and ability to operate from unprepared airstrips make it well-suited for the kind of intercept missions the Ukrainian An-28 experience demonstrated, where matching the speed of a slow-moving kamikaze drone matters more than outrunning it. Shahed-136 type drones, which Russia has fired in their thousands against Ukrainian targets, cruise at speeds typically around 180 kilometers per hour, well within the performance envelope of a turboprop aircraft that can throttle back to match the target’s speed while maintaining the positional advantage needed for a gun or drone intercept.