Poland’s 360-degree Patriot radars move closer to fielding

The Defense Logistics Agency has asked Raytheon to price the production of support equipment for Poland’s new LTAMDS radars, the 360-degree sensors that will replace the old Patriot radar in Warsaw’s air and missile defense network, under a sole-source request for proposal posted on U.S. government’s contracting website on Oct. 20.

The agency wants the hardware added to a new LTAMDS contract vehicle that is still being set up, with the Polish production and hardware work to be awarded as a standalone delivery order once that umbrella contract is in place, and it has given Raytheon until Dec. 18 to submit its offer.

The request, issued by DLA Aviation in Huntsville, Alabama, on behalf of the U.S. Army’s STARE (Search Track Acquire Radiate Eliminate) project office, covers several items listed only by their abbreviations, including a BMC and an SRPT, along with frequency converters and non-recurring engineering work. The frequency converters will need both design and development, paid on a cost-plus basis, and production under a fixed price, while the other hardware is also planned as fixed-price work, and DLA asked Raytheon to propose its own line-item structure for the deal.

DLA did not disclose an estimated value for the work or the number of equipment sets involved, and the draft statement of work attached to the request also covers engineering services that are not part of this proposal. The agency said it posted the notice publicly so that, if another company shows interest after reading it, a formal competitive solicitation can be issued to give that supplier a chance to bid.

Poland became the first foreign buyer of the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor when it signed for 12 of the radars in 2023 as part of the second phase of its Wisła air defense program, a package that also includes 48 more Patriot launchers and a large stock of PAC-3 missiles in deals worth more than $15.5 billion. The radars are meant to give Poland’s Patriot batteries full coverage against aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, with the first Wisła Phase 2 batteries scheduled for delivery in 2026 and 2027 and the program planned for completion in 2029.

LTAMDS uses three active electronically scanned array faces built with gallium nitride, a main forward array and two smaller rear arrays, to watch the full circle around a battery, while the legacy AN/MPQ-65 radar it replaces can only look in one direction at a time. The U.S. Army moved the radar into low-rate initial production in April 2025, and in September that year Raytheon won a $1.7 billion contract for nine radars for the U.S. Army and Poland.

Production has kept growing since then, and in April the U.S. Army awarded Raytheon a $904.6 million modification for five more radars and six spare systems, pushing the program’s total contract value past $5.35 billion, as we reported at the time. Polish industry is also part of the supply chain, with state-owned Military Electronic Works (WZE) in Warsaw building energy storage modules for the radar under a subcontract that made it the first foreign supplier on the program.