Defensenet: the withdrawal of the BMP-1 from the islands and replacing them with the M1117 is a criminal mistake

The military-political leadership of Greece made a criminal mistake by removing the BMP-1 from the Aegean islands and replacing them with American M1117 reconnaissance vehicles.

The withdrawal of the BMP-1 has already created serious problems for the defense of the islands in terms of anti-amphibious operations, the authors of the Greek edition say. DefenseNetclose to the Ministry of Defense of the country.

“Firstly, the narrative that the BMP-1 will replace the German Μarder is not true, since the Marders will go to Evros, and reconnaissance M1777s are sent to the islands, which are not equipped for anti-aircraft operations and are not ΤΟΜΠ, since they do not have the ability to carry infantry battle group, while their armament, at best, is an automatic grenade launcher for 4 km. That is, these combat vehicles are intended for reconnaissance, not for antiamphibious use.

It is worth noting here that Germany would never allow Marders to be placed on the islands, as it considers the Greek islands to be “demilitarized”. In addition, the 30mm cannon on board the Marders is clearly inferior to the 73mm cannon on the BMP-1.

The Poles train with the BWP-1 TOMA (Polish version of the BMP-1) in both river crossing exercises and anti-amphibious operations.

Therefore, the gap in the islands is not filled, and the M1117 armored car cannot be compared with a tracked vehicle with a 73 mm cannon and its 7.62 caliber counterpart firing guided missiles with a lethal range of 4.5 km.

The second point (strategic) is that we gave the Turks a reason to talk about militarization. The Turkish News Agency is releasing drone photos (Turkey claims they are satellite footage), falsely claiming, of course, that “the islands in the eastern Aegean have been demilitarized” (the very islands it threatens to take over and occupy).

Note that if for the Dodecanese there was theoretically the Paris Agreement of 1947 on the “lack of heavy weapons and a regular army” (which is neutralized by the UN article on the “right to self-defense”), then there is no agreement on the islands of the Eastern Aegean, since the corresponding article of the Lausanne Treaty was replaced later agreements.

Thirdly, if we don’t shoot down the Turkish UAVs that fly over the islands and take high-resolution photos all the time, and no one shoots them down, we have a serious problem. If they had been armed, there would have been a massacre and no one would have seen them. They would sink ships, destroy vehicles and the harbor, and even make landfall, setting up camps to disembark without issue. The ease with which Turkish drones fly over Greek territory and do whatever they want is typical. Why aren’t they knocked down?“, – sums up the author of the publication …

Recall that the main motive for replacing the Soviet BMP1 with the German Marder was their transfer to Ukraine. Greek military repeatedly indicated that this exchange is unsuccessful and worsens the national security of Greece. As it turned out, this decision was also an occasion for Turkey accuse Greece of militarizing the islandsfurther worsening the situation in relations between the countries.

Source link