A new “Made in Greece” military vehicle is ready for biochemical warfare. Newsauto visited the company’s facilities in Thessaloniki to check out its capabilities.

Greece is not exactly famous for its heavy industry, and more specifically for its car manufacturing. However, that appears to be slowly changing. Despite the endless red tape, and many absurd obstacles entrepreneurs face such as counter-incentives to get involved in such a sector, some are trying their best to bring forward Greek ingenuity and efficiency in this highly competitive sector.

At present, Replicar Hellas, based in Katerini, manufactures vehicles, while we expect on November 1 Spyros Panopoulos will unveil the supercar CHAOS. In addition, the German e.Go revealed that iplans to build a factory for the production of electric cars.

Besides the production of consumer vehicles, there are companies specialising in military vehicles and equipment. EODH is one of them and recently presented its own prototype called Hoplite. Based just outside Thessaloniki, for the last 3-4 years it has invested in a new 10-ton vehicle which we had the opportunity to see up close and examine its design and capabilities.

The owner of the company Giannis Mitsis and the project manager, Thanasis Grammatiko both explained that the development and implementation of the Hoplite have been done with company funds.

The goal as they said was to produce it completely in Greece by Greek hands. It should be noted that EODH already cooperates with very large companies abroad while it is the one that shields military vehicles such as the Leopard, Boxer etc.

It is a multi-role vehicle that can change character in minutes. This happens as the “capsule” comes out and is replaced by another. In short, a personnel carrier can be changed to a fire assault truck or vice versa! In addition, it has the ability to be repaired on the battlefield (the capsule is raised hydraulically), a very important element for such vehicles.

It is equipped with a 6.7-litre, 300 hp engine, and torque that reaches 1,100 Nm. The transmission is a six-speed automatic. In terms of performance… 0-80km / h is achieved in 20.4 seconds while the top speed reaches 120km / h. An important element is its autonomy that exceeds 700 kilometres with the capacity of the tank being 300 litres.

Its design is such that it can operate in temperatures from -23 ° C to +49 ° C. This basic version is 5-door. However, it can be produced in other versions, with two, three, or four doors. The cabin can accommodate 8 fully-equipped passengers.

From there it is equipped with various weapons systems, sensors, etc., which depends on the equipment that the customer will choose.

As the company’s site explains “EODH SA Engineering Office Deisenroth Hellas is a leading producer and supplier of protection systems for light, medium and heavy vehicles and any kind of other platforms. The backbone of EODH is a complete range of passive and active cutting-edge protection technologies. These technologies allow the designing of comprehensive and future-oriented survivability solutions for all kinds of land, air, and sea platforms. These solutions are covering all current and upcoming threats in conventional and asymmetric warfare.
In its over ten-year-proven track record EODH with its own new production facilities has become an important global partner to the defense market with activities in Greece, Europe, and Middle East Countries, providing innovative solutions for specific needs. EODH is a partner in the LEO 2 A6 Production and a major player in the manufacturing and integration of its protection solutions.”