Poland will host Europe's only authorized maintenance center for the AGT1500 gas turbine engines that power the US-made M1 ABRAMS main battle tanks.

The facility will be established at the Wojskowe Zaklady Lotnicze No. 1 (WZL-1) plant — part of the PGZ state-owned defense group — in Deblin, eastern Poland, under an agreement signed on May 18 between the Polish company and Honeywell, the US manufacturer of the AGT1500 engine.

According to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the new facility will become the third center of its kind in the world, joining those already operating in the United States and Australia. Scheduled to come online by 2028, the new hub will handle a broad range of maintenance, repair and overhaul activities on the AGT1500, ensuring full operational readiness for the ABRAMS fleet — and its derivative vehicles — fielded by the Polish Armed Forces.

The agreement involves investments of roughly €70–80 million, jointly funded by WZL, PGZ and the Polish state, earmarked for upgrading technical infrastructure, training personnel, and building up spare-parts inventories. Poland is rapidly emerging as a regional logistics hub for the ABRAMS. Back in February 2024, a Regional Competence Center dedicated to the US tanks was inaugurated in Poznan, recently expanded with a new production hall that came online in February 2026. The project marks a further step in developing domestic logistics and maintenance capabilities for the M1A1 FEP and M1A2 SEPv3 variants, as well as derivative vehicles such as the M-1110 Joint Assault Bridge (Polish designation) and the M-1150 Assault Breacher Vehicle.

Warsaw is set to receive a total of 366 ABRAMS tanks from General Dynamics Land Systems under its sweeping Army modernization program: 250 of the latest M1A2 SEPv3 variant and 116 M1A1s. Deliveries of the M1A1s have already been completed — helping replace the tanks transferred to Ukraine — while M1A2 SEPv3 shipments are still ongoing.

Fleet sustainability has emerged as a particularly pressing issue in recent months. In August 2025, reports surfaced of difficulties in managing AGT1500 engine maintenance in Poland, especially with regard to full overhaul capabilities, which were not yet available in the country or anywhere else in Europe. This gap has so far forced engines to be shipped back to the United States for major overhauls, underscoring the need to progressively localize MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) capabilities.

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