Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów ( en, Tarnów Mechanical Works; ) is a Polish

defense Defense or defence may refer to: Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups * Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare * Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks * Defense industr ...

manufacturing

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

. Based in the city of

Tarnów Tarnów () is a city in southeastern Poland with 105,922 inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of 269,000 inhabitants. The city is situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999. From 1975 to 1998, it was the capital of the Tarnów ...

, the company produces handguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles and anti-air guns. It is part of the

Bumar-Labedy Bumar-Labedy is an arms manufacturer based in Poland. It is a division of the Polish Armaments Group. In 2010 the firm won the contract to build Hitfist OWS remote-controlled turrets for Polish armored vehicles. In 2016 the firm was awarded the ...

corporation, itself a division of the state-controlled

Polish Armaments Group The Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ SA) is a holding company established by the Polish government to unite Polish state owned defence industry companies. The headquarters of this group is in Radom. The Group comprises over 30 companies (including ...

History

Initially founded during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in 1917 as a local train repair workshop, in the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...

the company was part of the

Polish State Railways (''PKP S.A.''; en, Polish State Railways, Inc.) is the dominant railway operator in Poland. The company was founded when the former state-owned enterprise was divided into several units based on the need for separation between infrastructure ...

. After the company's equipment was confiscated, dismantled and sent to Germany during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the factory was rebuilt as a train repair workshop, but in 1951 it was turned into a defence contractor producing guns, firearms and machine tools.

Warsaw Pact years

From 1951 the company license-built M1939 37 mm automatic air defense guns and

Nudelman N-37 The Nudelman N-37 was a 37 mm (1.46 in) aircraft autocannon used by the Soviet Union. It was designed during World War II by V. Ya. Nemenov of A.E. Nudelman's OKB-16 to replace the earlier Nudelman-Suranov NS-37 and entered service in ...

aircraft cannons used in LiM-2 and

MiG-17 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-17; NATO reporting name: Fresco) is a high-subsonic fighter aircraft produced in the Soviet Union from 1952 and was operated by air forces internationally. The MiG-17 w ...

fighters. While Poland was still in the

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...

, other types of Soviet-designed military equipment were also introduced:

57 mm AZP S-60 AZP S-60 (russian: Автоматическая зенитная пушка С-60, abbrev. АЗП (AZP); literally: ''Automatic anti-aircraft gun S-60'') is a Soviet towed, road-transportable, short- to medium-range, single-barrel anti-aircraft ...

and

ZU-23-2 The ZU-23-2, also known as ZU-23, is a Soviet towed 23×152mm anti-aircraft twin-barreled autocannon. ZU stands for ''Zenitnaya Ustanovka'' (Russian: Зенитная Установка) – anti-aircraft mount. The GRAU index is 2A13. Developm ...

anti-aircraft guns, 2M-3M naval cannons, armament for the

2S1 Gvozdika The 2S1 ''Gvozdika'' (russian: link=no, 2С1 «Гвоздика», "Carnation") is a Soviet self-propelled howitzer based on the MT-LBu multi-purpose chassis, mounting a 122 mm 2A18 howitzer. "2S1" is its GRAU designation. An alternative Rus ...

SP howitzer,

DShK The DShK 1938 (Cyrillic: ДШК, for russian: Дегтярёва-Шпагина Крупнокалиберный, Degtyaryova-Shpagina Krupnokaliberny, links=no, "Degtyaryov-Shpagin large-calibre") is a Soviet heavy machine gun with a V-shaped but ...

, NSV and

KPV heavy machine gun The KPV-14.5 heavy machine gun (KPV is an initialism for Krupnokaliberniy Pulemyot Vladimirova (Large-caliber Machine gun Vladimirov), in Russian as Крупнокалиберный Пулемёт Владимирова, or КПВ) is a Soviet de ...

s, as well as domestic designs. The latter group included ZU-23-2M Wróbel universal naval gun and its successor, the artillery-rocket set ZU-23-2MR Wróbel II.

Independence and NATO years

After 1989 the company switched entirely to home-designed weapons. Those include

Pallad grenade launcher The Pallad (also known as the wz. 1974) is a 40 mm Polish underslung grenade launcher, developed for use with the AKM assault-rifle and intended to replace the kbkg wz. 1960 grenade-launcher rifle. The name of the weapon reflects the Poli ...

, RGP-40 grenade launcher,

UKM-2000 The UKM-2000 (''Uniwersalny Karabin Maszynowy'', "Universal Machine Gun") is a 7.62×51mm NATO general-purpose machine gun designed and manufactured by Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów in Tarnów, Poland. Development On March 12, 1999, Poland join ...

MG,

WKW Wilk The WKW Tor or ''Wilk'' (Wolf) is a modern anti-materiel and/or sniper rifle produced in Poland by the Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów factory. The nickname "WKW Tor" stands for Wielkokalibrowy Karabin Wyborowy or Large Caliber Sniper Rifle. Its mil ...

sniper rifle,

Bor rifle The Bor is a Polish bolt-action 7.62×51mm NATO and .338 Lapua Magnum caliber sniper rifle. The weapon received the code name Alex during development, after the name of the lead designer Aleksander Leżucha, creator of the 12.7×99mm NATO Wilk ...

and ZSMU-36 missile and anti-missile system. Among projects currently developed in the Tarnów Mechanical Works are the WLKM-12 Szafir 12.7 mm multi-barrel machine gun, ZSMU-70 missile system and GA-40 belt-fed grenade launcher. In 2012, the company merged with R&D Centre “Ośrodek Badawczo-Rozwojowy Sprzętu Mechanicznego sp. z o.o.”. In 2015, ZMT SA became a member of

, which concentrate over 60 armament sector companies.

References

External links

ZMT−Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów website
�� Defence companies of Poland Firearm manufacturers of Poland Weapons manufacturing companies Companies based in Tarnów Polish brands Manufacturing companies established in 1917 1917 establishments in Poland {{poland-company-stub

History

Warsaw Pact years

Independence and NATO years

See also

References

External links