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Portugal plans small arms replacement project
Victor Barreira, Istanbul - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
02 August 2016
http://www.janes.com/article/62691/portugal-plans-small-arms-replacement-projectThe Portuguese Army is working on plans to begin a tender to replace the bulk of its infantry weapons, like the HK21 machine gun and G3 rifle. Source: Victor Barreira
The Portuguese Army is currently working on plans to entirely replace the bulk of its small arms, the Portuguese Ministry of National Defence (MoND) told IHS Jane's on 29 July.
The plans will see the acquisition of 10,225 weapons including: assault rifles, light machine guns, sub-machine guns, and pistols. These arms will equip at least three battalions or about 1,500 troops, the MoND said.
An amount of EUR80.8 million (USD90.2 million) has been allocated for the period of 2017-26 to fund the project as part of the Military Programming Law 2015-26, approved in May 2015. The project integrates with the army's Force Protection and Survivability Capability programme.
To set up the weapon acquisition project, the army is fleshing out its desired technical specifications for the types of weapons, it recently said to IHS Jane's . The project itself has two associated sub-projects consisting of the acquisition of soldier gear and procurement of light armament.
The new plans finally replace Portugal's subsequently cancelled issuing of a letter of intent in December 2004 to procure 31,000 assault rifles, 1,700 machine guns, and 6,800 pistons.
Portugal's Mechanized and Intervention Brigades and General Support Forces mostly field INDEP G3 assault rifles, HK21 and MG42-59 light machine guns, UZI sub-machine guns, and P38 pistols. The Rapid Reaction Brigade also utilises the G36KV/CV, SG-543, Galil AR/ARM and HK416A5 assault rifles; MG4 machine gun upgraded MP5 SD6 and UMP sub-machine guns; and P228 and USP pistols.
