MBDA to Equip French-made Greek Warships with ASTER, Exocet Missiles

European MBDA will arm Greek Defence and Intervention frigates (FDI HN) frigates with ASTER 30 B1 and Exocet MM40 Block 3C missiles if the contract is signed.

Nikólaos Panayotópoulos, the Greek Minister of Defence, Pierre Eric Pommellet, CEO of Naval Group, and Eric Béranger, CEO of MBDA, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on September 28 to open negotiations to provide the Hellenic Navy (HN) with three FDI HN frigates and their equipment as well as an optional additional frigate.

The frigates will be built in the Naval Group shipyard in Lorient, where the second in the series for the French Navy has just entered production.

The FDI HN is a compendium of the best technologies of Naval Group, Thales and MBDA, which will notably supply the ASTER 30 B1 and Exocet MM40 Block 3C missiles. It will be fully interoperable with European and NATO fleets.

Greece will become the second customer of this multi-mission frigate, bringing the number of units produced from five for the French Navy to eight in total, plus one as an option.

Earlier, local media reported that Greece was also buying Gowind corvettes.