Lithuania's M577s upgraded
Germany's Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft (FFG) has upgraded 22 M577 armoured personnel carriers for the Lithuanian armed forces, the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence announced on 28 November.
The upgraded M577s will be used for command and control of Lithuania's PzH2000 howitzers. The 22 upgraded vehicles are planned to be transferred to the General Romualdas Giedraitis Artillery Battalion based in Rukla in 2019.
The total value of the upgrade contract amounts to €1.5 million ($1.71 million). Lithuanian enterprise UAB Autokurtas was contracted to complete part of the work with maintenance technology supplied by FFG. A new command and control system will be integrated in future.
The Lithuanian armed forces procured more than 180 M577 armoured personnel carriers for command, indirect fire support, medical evacuation and training purposes from the German armed forces, along with 21 PzH2000 howitzers and 10 BPZ2 armoured recovery vehicles in 2015-2016.
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