Germany to receive Airbus civil helicopter and convert for combat – Corporation Insider

BERLIN, March 18 (Reuters) – Germany’s Defence Ministry desires to receive 82 Airbus (AIR.PA) H-145M civilian helicopters and convert some of them into combat helicopters to replace its Tiger combat fleet, Corporation Insider reported, citing military internal documents.

Germany final year shifted its defence policy promptly just after Russia invaded Ukraine, committing 1 hundred billion euros ($107 billion) to modernize the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces.

Berlin, which has been reluctant to receive into an upgrade of Airbus’s Tiger attack helicopter due to operational complications, desires to receive the 82 aircraft for 3.05 billion euros ($3.3 billion) and arm 24 of them with anti-tank missiles, the German news outlet stated.

The Defence Ministry was not promptly obtainable for comment.

The H-145M helicopters are authorized for military use but are not created as combat aircraft and the Bundeswehr has difficulties about the machine’s combat suitability and crew protection, which the ministry has ignored so far, the report added.

The Bundeswehr sees the planned procurement “a purely political choice that ignores operational desires,” Corporation Insider stated, citing a letter from the German Armed Forces Technical Service for Aircraft and Aeronautical Gear (WTD 61) to the Ministry of Defence.

($1 = .9376 euros)

Reporting by Riham Alkousaa Editing by David Holmes

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