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November 26, 2000

The first prototype of the Greek Kentaurus Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicle has entered trials. The Greeks will need about 500 AIFVs to support their new tanks, but since Elbo has developed the Kentaurus to meet the Greek national requirements, it is likely that there will not be an international competition for this requirement. Features include:

@ one-man turret armed with a 30mm cannon and 7.62mm machinegun

@ computerized Toxotis fire control system

@ 420 horsepower MTU diesel engine.

The Greek Army has just received the last of 650 Leonidas full-tracked armored personnel carriers. The last 57 had a new automatic transmission in place of the earlier manual version, and Elbo hopes to convince the Greek Army to replace the older transmissions with the automatic version as the vehicles are sent in for maintenance. The Greek Army is on the verge of announcing its selection for a new battle tank. The order is expected to include 246 tanks, 24 recovery vehicles, 12 bridge launchers, and 4 driver training tanks. The final contenders are the US (General Dynamics) M1A2, German (Krauss-Maffei Wegmann) Leopard-2A5, British (Vickers Defence) Challenger 2E, French (GIAT) Leclerc, Russian (Omsk) T80U, and Ukrainian (Malyshev) T-84.--Stephen V Cole