Steel Cut for Polish Miecznik Programme's Third Frigate Huragan at PGZ Stocznia Wojenna
Gdynia, 28 April 2026
Key points
- PGZ-MIECZNIK Consortium and PGZ Stocznia Wojenna held the steel-cut ceremony for the third Miecznik frigate Huragan on 28 April
- Three-ship Arrowhead 140-based programme: Burza (steel cut May 2025, keel December 2025), Wicher (launch August 2026, commissioning 2029), Huragan (delivery end 2031)
- 138-metre, ~7,000-tonne hull configured for maritime air defence, surface, anti-submarine and coastal strike — the Polish Navy's largest combatant since the early 1990s
PGZ Stocznia Wojenna held the steel-cut ceremony for the third Polish Miecznik frigate Huragan on 28 April, closing the front end of a three-ship Arrowhead 140-based programme intended to give the Polish Navy its first modern multi-role surface combatant in three decades.
Huragan follows Burza (steel cut May 2025, keel laying December 2025) and Wicher (launch expected August 2026, commissioning 2029) under the PGZ-MIECZNIK Consortium framework, which combines PGZ Stocznia Wojenna and CRIST S.A. as build yards under a Babcock-licensed Arrowhead 140 design. Delivery of Huragan is currently scheduled for end-2031, the PGZ release confirmed.
The 138-metre, approximately 7,000-tonne hull is configured for maritime air defence, surface, anti-submarine warfare and coastal strike, with capacity for the Mk 41 VLS family, NSM coastal-defence missiles and an embarked helicopter. The combat-system architecture has not been publicly finalised, but procurement decisions on radar and air-defence layer are expected ahead of Wicher's 2029 commissioning.
The programme positions Poland as one of four European Arrowhead 140 operators alongside the United Kingdom (Type 31), Indonesia (Merah Putih) and the Polish-licensed build itself — a hull family that has emerged as the principal mid-tier European frigate baseline outside the German F126 and Franco-Italian FREMM lineages. Huragan's steel cut also confirms PGZ Stocznia Wojenna's industrial throughput against the SAFE-funding window opening 30 May, the Polish naval-industrial pattern documented in Signal No. 49.
Sources: PGZ Stocznia Wojenna, PGZ-MIECZNIK Consortium, CRIST S.A., Polish Navy, Babcock International.
First reported in Signal No. 49, 29 April 2026.