Romania orders 150 Piranha V armored personnel carriers - M5 Dergi
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Romania orders 150 Piranha V armored personnel carriers

Abone Ol 

The Romanian Ministry of Defense has allocated funding to purchase 150 Swiss-designed Piranha V armored personnel carriers.

The Ministry of Defense has allocated €674 million for 2025 for the second stage of the order of Piranha V armored vehicles in a new version for the army – an armored personnel carrier.

The new armored personnel carriers will be produced at the Romanian-Swiss joint venture CN ROMARM SA, which is a subsidiary of Societatea Uzina Mecanică Bucureşti SA and is involved in the production and maintenance of Swiss armored personnel carriers.

The delivery of this number of vehicles is expected to take place between 2026 and 2028, bringing the military’s total number of Piranha Vs to 377. Procuring new armored vehicles strengthens the ground forces by improving their mechanization and increasing the number of armored personnel carriers.

It should be noted that earlier, the Romanian Ministry of Defense placed a large order for the purchase of 227 Piranha Vs in six versions: an infantry fighting vehicle, a 120-mm self-propelled mortar, a command vehicle, a CBRN vehicle, a recovery vehicle, and an ambulance vehicle.

Under the contract, Elbit Systems will also supply UT30 MK2 turrets with 30 mm guns, remote mounts for 12.7 mm RCWS machine guns, and 120 mm SPEAR computerized mortar systems for these vehicles. All of them will be integrated into the Piranha V armored personnel carrier platform.

The first contract for 227 armored vehicles is valued at €868 million. The first 36 vehicles were delivered in October 2020.

In addition to the fifth-generation vehicles, the Romanian army also uses 31 Piranha IIIC armored personnel carriers with amphibious capabilities, which were ordered in 2006, and their armor was reinforced with Israeli Plasan Sasa additional protection. In addition, in 2017, an additional 12 vehicles were ordered in specialized versions: command post, ambulance, CBRN reconnaissance, and self-propelled mortar.

Piranha V

The Piranha V armored personnel carrier is the fifth generation of the Piranha family of armored vehicles, which was developed by the Swiss company MOWAG in cooperation with the British General Dynamics UK from 1999 to 2007.

The armored personnel carrier was initially developed to participate in a British tender for a new armored vehicle for the army, but the competition was canceled in 2008. To avoid losses, the Swiss company demonstrated the armored personnel carrier at the Eurosatory defense exhibition in 2010.

In addition to the Swiss army, Denmark, Spain, Romania, and Monaco have also shown interest in the armored personnel carrier. So far, MOWAG and its localized production facilities have produced about 200 armored personnel carriers, and the total order book is for more than 1,500 armored personnel carriers and vehicles based on it.

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