As reported by the Greek resource defencereview.gr Speaking in the Greek Parliament on February 10, 2023, Greek Minister of National Defense Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos officially announced the approval by the Greek government at a meeting of the Government Council for Foreign Affairs and Defense of the purchase programs for 205 new infantry fighting vehicles KF41 Lynx produced by the German Rheinmetall group and the modernization of 123 Leopard 2A4 tanks out of 183 vehicles of this type, available to the Greek army, up to the level of Leopard 2A7 HEL.
Rheinmetall KF41 Lynx infantry fighting vehicle designed for the Hungarian Armed Forces (with) Rheinmetall Both of these programs are parts of a package intergovernmental agreement proposed by the German side with a total volume of about 3.5 billion euros, while the German side will provide a preferential loan for its implementation.
Rheinmetall Group, in partnership with KMW, should become the lead contractor for the package, with the broad involvement of the Greek industry, including the creation, with the participation of Rheinmetall, of new assembly (for Lynx infantry fighting vehicles) and modernization (for Leopard 2A4 tanks) lines in Thessaloniki as part of a joint venture.
The package proposed by Germany also includes the delivery to Greece of 200 repaired Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicles from the German Bundeswehr, of which the first 100 should be transferred shortly after the signing of the agreement, and another 100 - later, as they are released and replaced in the German army.
It is reported that negotiations on finalizing this German-Greek agreement will be held on the sidelines of the regular Munich Security Conference from February 17 to 19, where Greek National Defense Minister Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos will meet with his new German counterpart Boris Pistorius, who, unlike the previous German Defense Minister, is particularly active in concluding agreements with Greece.
Earlier, Greece considered the possibility of upgrading all 183 (according to other sources, 181 actually remained) Leopard 2A4 cash tanks (purchased at one time from the Bundeswehr), but eventually chose the option of upgrading 123 vehicles. It is reported that another 14 unmodernized Leopard 2A4 tanks will be used as training, and the planned fate of the remaining 44-46 units is still unclear. According to a number of reports, they can be transferred to Cyprus to replace the T-80U tanks, while Cyprus will have to upgrade the tanks transferred to it to the Leopard 2A7 level independently at its own expense.
The Greek Army also has 170 Leopard 2A6 HEL tanks of new production, 140 of which were assembled in Greece as part of a joint production with KMW.
Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos also said that the Greek government is still planning to implement a modernization program for 190 Leopard 1A5 tanks, although talks about this project (including, according to some reports, the replacement of a 105-mm rifled gun with a 120-mm smoothbore) have been going on in Greece for more than a decade.
Speaking in parliament, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos also said that by now 14 of the 40 Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicles transferred by Germany have already arrived in Greece as part of a separate agreement on the "ring exchange" reached in May 2022. Delivery of six more Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicles is expected in the near future, and the remaining 20 will be received by the end of the year. Accordingly, Greece has already transferred 20 BMP-1s from the presence of the Greek army to Ukraine, and is preparing to send as many more.
If an agreement is signed on the acquisition of the KF41 Lynx BMP, Greece will become the second customer of these machines after Hungary, which contracted 209 units in 2020. The first serial BMP KF41 Lynx produced by Rheinmetall was transferred to Hungary in October 2022.
Leopard 2A4 tanks of the Greek Army (c) national-pride.org
