Hellenic Air Force Orders Mica and Scalp EG Missiles

Released on Thursday, January 08, 2004

The Greek Ministry of Defense has signed a contract with MBDA for the purchase of Mica air-to-air missiles and 34 Scalp EG air to ground long range attack missiles to equip Greece owned Mirage 2000-5 combat aircraft fleet.

This order represents the second batch of Mica air-to-air missiles to be delivered to Greece following a previous order placed in 2002. The total number of Mica missiles ordered by Greece at this time now stands at 100 of both IR-guided and RF-guided variants.

The Mica RF air-to-air missile is the French counterpart to American AIM-120 AMRAAM medium range air-to-air missile.

The Scalp EG air-to-ground missiles, also known as Storm Shadow, will provide critical long range strike capability to the Hellenic Air Force against heavily defended targets.

To date, around 2,000 Storm Shadows/Scalp EGs have been ordered by the Air Forces of the United Kingdom, France, Greece, United Arab Emirates, and Italy.

Storm Shadow was deployed successfully for the first time during operation Iraqi Freedom (operation Telic) by the Royal Air Force in 2003.