Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów (original) (raw)

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Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów
Industry Defense
Founded 1917; 107 years ago (1917)
Headquarters Tarnów, Poland
Key people Henryk Łabędź
Products Firearms, weapons
Number of employees 900 (2016)
Website www.zmt.tarnow.pl

A Vietnamese soldier using a WKW Wilk sniper rifle designed and manufactured by Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów

Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów (English: Tarnów Mechanical Works; [zakˈwadɨ mɛxaˈnit͡ʂnɛ ˈtarnuv]) is a Polish defense manufacturing company. Based in the city of Tarnów, the company produces handguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles and anti-air guns. It is part of the Bumar-Labedy corporation, itself a division of the state-controlled Polish Armaments Group.

Initially founded during World War I in 1917 as a local train repair workshop, in the interwar period the company was part of the Polish State Railways.[1] After the company's equipment was confiscated, dismantled and sent to Germany during World War II, 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.[2]

From 1951 the company license-built M1939 37 mm automatic air defense guns and Nudelman N-37 aircraft cannons used in LiM-2 and MiG-17 fighters.

While Poland was still in the Warsaw Pact, other types of Soviet-designed military equipment were also introduced: 57 mm AZP S-60 and ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft guns, 2M-3M naval cannons, armament for the 2S1 Gvozdika SP howitzer, DShK, NSV and KPV heavy machine guns, 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

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After 1989 the company switched entirely to home-designed weapons.[3] Those include Pallad grenade launcher, RGP-40 grenade launcher, UKM-2000 MG, LMP-2017 mortar, WKW Wilk sniper rifle, Bor rifle 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.".[4]

In 2015, ZMT SA became a member of Polish Armaments Group, which concentrate over 60 armament sector companies.[5]

  1. ^ "Tajemnice „Mechanicznych"" (in Polish). Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  2. ^ "Historia". Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  3. ^ "Historia". Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  4. ^ "Historia". Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  5. ^ "Historia". Retrieved 24 April 2022.