The governments of Poland and the United States signed a contract for the purchase of American-made Lockheed Martin AGM-114 II air-to-ground missiles yesterday. These are armaments purchased by Warsaw to equip its future AW-149 and AH-64E Apache Guardian military helicopters. No announcement on the delivery date, but the first ones could arrive as early as 2023. 

"Today we signed a contract for the supply of missiles. They will be used as armament for support and attack helicopters", Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak, former deputy prime minister, wrote on Twitter in the past few hours. 

The announcement comes more than two months after Washington approved the sale of up to 800 Hellfire missiles for about 150 million dollars, including training, support and logistics services and more. The first armaments are expected to be delivered to coincide with the receipt of the first of 32 AW-149 support helicopters in 2023, with the first of eight AH-64E attack aircraft arriving on loan in 2024. 

The AGM-114R2 Hellfire missiles are a guided armament with a 12.5 kg high-explosive armor-piercing warhead and have a range of up to 8 km. Depending on the configuration, the AW-149 helicopter will be able to carry up to eight missiles, while the AH-64E up to 16.