In 1955 Poland bought a licence for the manufacturing of the Soviet MiG-17, the basic jet fighter of Warsaw Pact countries.

In the late 1950s work commenced in Poland on developing a light attack aircraft based on the Lim-5.

The wing sections close to the fuselage were noticeably thicker, due to them containing additional fuel tanks.

They were not successful; thicker wings decreased performance, made handling tricky, and increased drag so much that the range was improved much less than planned.

The Lim-5M was regarded only as an interim variant, and work on a more advanced design continued, testing many different ideas.

They introduced new blown flaps, but tests showed problems with the modified Lis-6 jet engine and the aircraft were not delivered to the Air Force.

As a result, it was decided to redesign the thick wing sections with fuel tanks, blown flaps, double wheels and RATO and return to only slightly modified Lim-5 construction, with increased weapon-carrying capability instead.

Typical armament consisted of two Polish-made Mars-2 launchers for 16 unguided 57 mm rockets S-5 each, or 100 kg bombs.

It could also carry 250 kg bombs or launchers on standard outer underwing pods, but usually they were used for 400l fuel tanks.