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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
A Polish army tank crew has achieved second place in the Sullivan Cup, a prestigious and gruelling biennial contest hosted by the United States to evaluate the best tank and armoured fighting vehicle crews from the American armed forces and international partners.
At the event, which took place at Fort Benning in Georgia, a Polish Abrams tank crew from the 1st Warsaw Armoured Brigade finished behind the US Army’s 4th Infantry Division. The 155th Armoured Brigade Combat Team from the Mississippi Army National Guard came third.
“This is a huge success for Polish tank crewmen and confirmation of the highest level of training of our soldiers,” declared the 1st Warsaw Armoured Brigade in a post celebrating its success. Poland only began operating Abrams tanks in 2023.
The Sullivan Cup aims to find “the most lethal” crews, says Command Sergeant Major Ryan W. Roush of the United States Army Armor School at Fort Benning. “Crews must be aggressive, competent, physically fit and decisive warfighters.”
The contest includes a live-fire competition, fitness challenge, and a “stress shoot” that simulates combat conditions by requiring participants to engage targets while under duress.
This year’s event involved separate contests for crews who operate Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, and featured teams from Poland, the UK and Ireland, as well as the US itself.
On their official website, Poland’s armed forces described the Sullivan Cup as “one of the most challenging and demanding competitions for tank and combat vehicle crews in the world”.
They celebrated the 1st Warsaw Armoured Brigade’s second-place finish as “a historic achievement and further proof of the highest level of training of the Polish armoured forces”.
US Army Colonel Justin Harper, who commands Fort Benning’s 316th Cavalry Brigade, told the American Stars and Stripes newspaper that the contest is about much more than “just bragging rights or the trophy”.
“It is about real, concrete lessons learned that are going to translate into lethality” on the battlefield, he explained. “If [the international partner crews] do well, then we probably did something good [in training] that translated to a better performance.”
Poland has ordered hundreds of Abrams tanks from the United States. They began to be delivered in 2023, making Poland the first European or NATO country – other than the US itself – to operate the vehicles. However, Polish crews had already begun Abrams training earlier.
Those purchases were part of a broader military procurement spree by Poland, which now has the largest defence budget in NATO relative to GDP.
By 2030, Poland is expected to have over 1,100 tanks – a combination of Abrams, South Korean K2s, German Leopards, and the Polish PT-91 Twardy – which would be more than the UK, France, Germany and Italy combined.
Poland has signed a $6.7bn deal to buy a further 180 South Korean K2 tanks, including 61 that will be made in Poland itself.
Once delivery is complete by 2030, Poland will have more tanks than Germany, France, the UK and Italy combined https://t.co/Cw17lGKPSC
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 1, 2025
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: 1. Warszawska Brygada Pancerna/X
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
