ATHENS, GREECE — The Greek Minister of Defense, Mr. Nikolaos Panaiotopoulos, during a parliamentary session, informed about the decisions of the Ministry of Defense regarding the technical modernization of the Greek ground forces.
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According to information published on February 10 by the DefenseGreece-Media resource, the Ministry of Defense of Greece has decided to modernize 123 main battle tanks [MBT] Leopard 2A4, as well as purchase 250 tracked infantry fighting vehicles KF41 Links, manufactured in Germany.
According to the resource www.armyrecognition.com, this decision was preceded by meetings of the Council of the Chiefs of General Staff of the Greek Armed Forces [SAGE], held last week, as well as the Governmental Council for Foreign Affairs and Defense [KYSEA]. They discussed weapons programs for the ground forces. A proposed bilateral Greek-German defense cooperation agreement also was discussed.
Programs worth 3.5 billion euros will be led by the German companies Rheinmetall and KMW. The implementation of the project will be carried out in cooperation with the national defense industry of Greece.
250 KF41 Lynxs
According to a report published on February 10 on the website of the Greek defense magazine DefenseReview.gr, as part of the modernization program, the Ministry of Defense and the Greek government approved the acquisition of 250 German-made KF41 Lynx tracked combat vehicles and the upgrade of 123 MBT Leopard 2A4 to the Leopard 2A7 configuration [instead of 183 units as originally requested].
In addition, Germany supplied the Greek armed forces with 100 Marder 1A3 tracked infantry fighting vehicles. Another batch of 100 Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicles will be delivered from Germany in the next few months in line with the plan to replace the Marder 1A3 with new Puma infantry fighting vehicles in the Bundeswehr.
Rheinmetall announced deliveries to Greece of refurbished Marder 1A3 IFVs. This was announced in last November on 23th. The delivery was made within the framework of the Ringtausch arms exchange program. Accourding the program NATO members provide Ukraine with Soviet-made arms. In exchange they receive Western models military equipment.
According to information from open sources, the Greek army has a total of 1228 tanks, including 170 Leopard 2A6HEL, 183 Leopard 2A4, 500 Leopard 1A4/5, and 375 M48A5.
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