Greece receives 70 armed reconnaissance helicopters OH-58D KIOWA

[The SC]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1129283653450772480

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1129036370733928450

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1129324392574537728

 

[Philip the Arab]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1129283653450772480

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1129036370733928450

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1129324392574537728

70? Damn that's a huge number.

 

[khail007]

Look at the top - seems like a head with two eyes. Are Greece to implement some reconnaissance project/contracts for other countries OR simply USA is milking them as usual.

 

[ARMalik]

Interesting that a bankrupt country like greece can afford all this.

 

[Mr.NiceGuy]

Do they have enough man power to operate all those toys?

 

[Dante80]

Interesting that a bankrupt country like greece can afford all this.

The cost of the project is rather timid, sitting at $49M total for the 70 helicopters, 10 years of spare parts, training and support (that is less than 1/10th of their theoretical operational value). 10 of the helicopters will be used for training purposes, with the other 60 deployed operationally - although all are fully operational, since they were hand selected from a rather large pool of existing Kiowas taken out of service. The original plan was to have 36 operational, 24 for training and 10 for spare parts. But this changed in 2018, after a Greek committee selected the hulls from the US reserves.

The helicopters were acquired without Hydras or Hellfires, and are going to share use the existing armament stock that our 28 Apaches have (1,327 Hellfires and 16,000 Hydras).