France offers more VAB HOT Mephisto armored vehicles to Lebanon.

On Saturday, May 10, the Lebanese army received a third batch of VAB HOT Mephisto armored vehicles from France at the port of Beirut, the National News Agency (NNA) reported.

VAB HOT Mephistos delivered on 10 May 2019, at the port of Beirut (Picture source: Lebanese army)

According to NNA, the Lebanese army received the VABs along with containers of spare parts for the vehicles. Over a month ago, French Ambassador to Lebanon Bruno Foucher announced that France had opened a financing account of 400 million euros (449.4 million U.S. dollars) aimed at securing maritime and HOT Mephisto land defense equipment for Lebanon.

The VAB HOT Mephisto is a wheeled armored personnel carrier VAB fitted with a HOT anti-tank missile launcher turret. It uses the same chassis as the Arquus VAB 4x4. The missile launcher system mounted on the top of the vehicle was integrated by the French Company Euromissile. The latest upgraded version of the vehicle is armed with the HOT 3 missile.

Euromissile was a European consortium set up in the 1970s by DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG of Germany and Aérospatiale of France to produce the Euromissile HOT anti-tank missile. Later on Aérospatiale-Matra, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG (DASA) (as well as Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA)) merged on 10 July 2000 and formed European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company NV (EADS) today known as Airbus. All activities regarding missiles in the former companies are now part of MBDA.