Poland's first SAN counter-drone battery will arrive in 2027, the Defence Ministry confirms, as PGZ insists the programme is on schedule

TLDR

• Gazeta Wyborcza reported on 6 November that the first SAN counter-drone battery will not reach the Polish Army by end-2026.¹
• Poland's Ministry of National Defence confirmed that deliveries begin in 2027, without giving a date.¹
• Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ) says SAN is being delivered to the timetable agreed with the customer.¹

Gazeta Wyborcza reported on 6 November that the first battery of Poland's SAN counter-drone system, planned for this year, will reach the armed forces only in 2027, according to Portal Obronny's summary of the report.¹ The Ministry of National Defence confirmed that deliveries will start in 2027 without specifying a date.¹ PGZ replied the same day that the programme "is being implemented according to the schedule agreed with the Contracting Authority".¹

Gazeta Wyborcza's explanation, as relayed by Portal Obronny, is that the SkyView command-and-control software, which is meant to tie together the radars from Advanced Protection Systems (APS) and the Kongsberg guns, is still not finished.¹ The newspaper relies on unnamed military sources, and AdriaDefense says these claims have not been independently confirmed.² AdriaDefense adds that APS chief executive Maciej Klemm said in October that the company was meeting its contractual milestones.²

AdriaDefense reports that the SAN contract was signed on 30 January 2026, covers 18 counter-drone battery modules and is worth about PLN 15 billion.² Earlier contract information indicated the first three fire platoons by the end of 2026.² According to the latest reporting cited by AdriaDefense, the ministry now expects factory acceptance testing of three platoons before the end of 2026, with physical deliveries to the armed forces starting in 2027.² AdriaDefense stresses that factory testing does not mean a complete battery has been delivered or is combat ready, and that Polish authorities have not said whether the revised milestones amount to a formal contractual delay.²

Portal Obronny notes that SAN is largely financed through the EU's SAFE loans, that Poland has received a first tranche of €6.5 billion, and that later payments are tied to project milestones.¹ It says late delivery could put further tranches at risk.¹ Defense Express, which cites Wyborcza.biz, says SAN is built from existing components and that the original plan called for deliveries to run until January 2028; it speculates that this end date could now slip, and also raises the possibility that the story is political and that deliveries could still be fitted in on time.³

Why it matters: SAN is Poland's flagship layered counter-drone programme, but the reported cause of the slip rests on unnamed sources and PGZ disputes the delay, so it is still unclear whether any contractual deadline has actually been missed.¹²