The Ministry of Defense of Georgia has announced that units of the Georgian Defence Forces received modern M2А1 machine guns, MK19 grenade launchers and an additional batch of M249 light machine guns.
The Georgian military said in a statement that the Georgian Defence Forces have received American-made machine guns and grenade launchers under the program of upgrading equipment to NATO-standard arms.
The statement noted that at the Combat Training Centre of the Vaziani Training Area outside Tbilisi, instructors from the Georgian Defence Forces and their U.S. armed forces counterparts demonstrated capabilities of the new weapons, with the MoD saying the arms would increase interoperability of Georgian troops with their NATO partner forces.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) also said the new weapons increased fire capabilities and battlefield efficiency of infantry units, adding the process of re-equipment of forces with new arms was already underway. Major David Lambert from the group of instructors of the joint Georgian Defence Readiness Programme said the GDF now fielded “some of the most advanced weapons systems currently available in the world.”
Georgian Army received U.S.-made weapons including Javelin anti-tank missile systems over the past few years, while under Garibashvili the MoD has also signed deals for repairing, upgrading or replacing vehicle fleets for the armed forces with companies from various countries.
