Greece Placing F-16 Orders, Weapons Requests
Lockheed Martin Corp. in Fort Worth, TX recently received a $931.3 million firm-fixed-price and time and materials contract modification. This action provides for 20 operational single place F-16C Block 50 aircraft and 10 operational two place F-16D Block 52 aircraft under the Peace Xenia IV (Greece) program. This contract is additive to a February 2006 contract for $99.7 million.
DID has been covering Greece’s $3.1 billion F-16 buy since July 2005, when that country canceled a $6 billion order for 60 Eurofighters in favor of a 2-phase buy that would begin with more F-16s. See DID’s article covering Greece’s F-16 purchase, including updates; below, we’ve also included the DSCA December 8, 2006 announcement of Greece’s $104 million precision weapons request for its F-16s…
On December 08, 2006, the US DSCA (Defense Security Cooperation Agency) notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Greece of F-16C/D munitions, as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $104 million. Items requested include:
- 40 AGM-154-C Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW). The JSOW-C precision glide bomb incorporates an imaging infrared seeker for high precision, and adds a Broach multi-stage warhead that has both hard target penetration and blast-fragmentation capability. The JSOW glide-bomb is also popular with Greece’s rival Turkey;
- 100 GBU-31 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) GPS/INS guidance Kits;
- 200 CBU-103 Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD) with FZU-39 Proximity Mechanisms – these are similar to JDAM, but are cluster bombs. The CBU-103 variant is a 1,000 pound bomb with anti-personnel munitions inside.
- 100 Enhanced Paveway II with BLU-109. The BLU-109/B is an improved 2,000-pound-class bomb designed as a penetrator for hardened targets like bunkers. Enhanced Paveway kits add GPS as well as laser guidance to bombs.
- 136 Enhanced Paveway II with MK-84 Warheads. Mk-84 warheads are conventional 2,000 pound bombs.
Also included are JSOW training missiles, BRU-57/A Smart Rack Launchers, containers, system integration and testing, sensors, missile modifications, fuzes, software development/integration, test sets and support equipment, spare and repair parts, publications and technical data, maintenance, personnel training and training equipment, U.S. Government and contractor representatives, contractor engineering and technical support services, and other related elements of logistics support.
The principal contractors will be:
- Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in Arlington, Virginia (JDAM)
- Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Orlando, Florida (JSOW, WCMD)
- Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona (Enhanced Paveway)
See full DSCA release [PDF].