Swedish defense procurement agency FMV has selected Germany's Krauss-Maffei Wegmann for the renovation of 88 Leopard 2 battle tanks and eight tank recovery vehicles.

The renovation will take place over an eight-year period and include replacing legacy tactical command and control systems with new battle management systems.

BAE Systems late last month announced that FMV had contracted it to renovate 262 Combat Vehicle 90, or CV90, armored vehicles. The renovation of the CV90s is to be conducted by BAE Systems' Swedish subsidiary Swedish HB Development. FMV's own workshops would conduct the renovation of half the number of vehicles with kits to be provided.

"We will partly replace the components that have reached their technical lifetime or are obsolete, that is, those components that it is no longer possible to procure on the market. And secondly, we will replace the old comman-and-control system in the tanks," said Peter Elmlund, head of Procurement and Logistics for ground equipment at FMV.

Other components to be replaced in the CV90s include batteries and parts of their electrical system. The M39 machine gun fitted to the CV90s will also be replaced.