Tunisia seeks OH-58 equipment
The US State Department has approved a possible foreign military sale to Tunisia of equipment for the Bell OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced on 3 May.
The package, valued at an estimated $100.8 million, has been requested to equip the 24 OH-58D Kiowa Warrior airframes the country has been approved to receive via the Excess Defense Articles programme under a separate notification.
Included in the request are 25 Embedded GPS/inertial navigation systems, 24 AN/AAR-57 Common Missile Warning Systems, ten AGM-114R Hellfire missiles and 82 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) rounds.
The request also includes for each helicopter one SHP Rolls-Royce 250-C30R/3 engine, AN/ARC-164 UHF radio, AN/ARC-186 VHF radio, PC-DTS-V data recorder, two AN/ARC-201D radios, AN/APX-118 IFF transponder, AN/APR-39A(V)1/4 radar signal detecting set and AN/AVR-2B laser warning receiver; M134 DH mini-gun, M3P aircraft gun system and two M260 rocket launchers.
Other items in the request include 50 AN/AVS-6 night vision goggles, 500,000 rounds for the M3P gun system, 2.3 million 7.62mm rounds for the M134DH mini-gun, A965M1 decoy chaff cartridges, and M212 and M211 advance infrared countermeasures munition flares; along with test/support equipment, technical support, repair and return, training and other services.
Tunisia plans to deploy the helicopters in an armed reconnaissance role to support ground troops, and improve the country's border security and anti-terrorist combat operations capabilities.
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