29 Jun 06. The UK’s Armed Forces will get an extra 2,000 trucks under a deal announced today (not at DVD)by Defence Procurement Minister, Lord Drayson.
The Defence Procurement Minister said the MoD was taking up an option to extend the £1.1bn contract it placed last year and would buy a further 2,077 vehicles in addition to the approx 5,000 earlier announced.
Worth in the region of £250m, the taking up of the option with MAN ERF UK Ltd is part of the MoD’s biggest truck deal in over quarter of a century and will see a fleet of new trucks and recovery vehicles replacing the existing vehicles.
Lord Drayson said: “By taking up this option our Armed Forces will take delivery of a further 2,000 modern, versatile and robust support vehicles which will carry out the vital task of supplying our front line troops. This is in addition to the 5,000 vehicles which we announced last year and which will start coming into service from next year.”
Helping support some 400 UK jobs the Support Vehicle programme includes a Contractor Logistic Support package which will lead to a long term partnering arrangement consistent with the DIS published last December. The vehicles are specially designed so they can be quickly fitted with ‘armour kits’ which will help protect drivers and crew from blast and small arms attack.
The vehicles will be capable of transporting large quantities of bulk equipment to our front-line troops wherever they are operating. Partly built in the UK the new fleet will consist of a mix of cargo and recovery vehicles. They will replace the MOD’s tri-service fleet of four, eight and 14 tonne cargo vehicles and recovery trucks.