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Leyland Dors crisis coincided with an uncompleted order for 3,000 military vehicles. Can the British Army do the unthinkable and turn abroad if its UK supplier fails to deliver?
The British Army may well march on its stomach, but without its fleet of 4tonners for front-line re-supply, it wouldn't get very far.
Since the Second World War the three-ton payload truck, later up-rated to four tons, has supported the teeth elements of the British armed forces on the battlefield. For about 50 years, the name Bedford was the generic for this category of vehicle until Leyland Daf won the last Ministry of Defence competitive trials for replacement vehicles in 1989.
After losing the British Army contract AWD Bedford went into receivership, although Marshall of Cambridge has now bought the rights to the product designs and have started limited series production.
Keeping an army on the move is a job no commercial fleet manager would envy As a rough rule of thumb a three-brigade division with a mixture of infantry battalions, armoured regiments and supporting artillery can expect to use around 1,000 tons of combat supplies per day. This is broken down into approximately 60% ammunition, 30% fuel and 10% rations. In the 1991 Gulf War, the logistic supply line from the port of Al Jubail to the start line far exceeded anything planned for in the European theatre and consequently fuel loads were even higher. During the four days of combat, first and second line units covered hundreds of kilometres over the desert instead of the tens of kilometres that would have been expected in a European battle.
Remarkably the distribution system coped, though the work toll on both drivers and vehicles was horrendous.
Operating conditions down the military supply chain can vary from motorway networks at the rear to churned-up fields at the battle front and the vehicles used must be capable of operating efficiently at each level. Heavy lorries with limited off-road capability, usually in 14 to 16tonne payload category bring bulk supplies forward from the rail head or. corps level stockpile depot to the divisional supply areas. Here ammunition, fuel and rations are redistributed down to brigade level by a fleet of eight-tonne trucks with medium mobility off-road capability. To move supplies to the teeth arm endusers, the nimbler light four-tonne trucks of the individual battalions and regiments swing into action.
Over the past three decades, the technological advances in warfare have led to unprecedented increases in rate of consumables such as artillery ammunition and fuel. The introduction of the state-of-theart Multiple Launch Rocket System in particular, first used in anger in the Gulf, would have taxed British Army logistics to the limit were it not for the timely introduction of the demountable rack offload & pickup system (DROPS).
Based on medium mobility 8x6 trucks, the DROPS mechanical handling system allows palletised 15 tonne loads on demountable flat racks to be delivered direct to the brigades and off-loaded by one soldier. While the supplies are being split up and loaded on to the smaller trucks for delivery to the end user, the DROPS vehicle and driver are on their way back to rear echelon to pick up another load for another unit.
The one company which has been to the fore over the past few years in both the 15-tonne DROPS and four-tonne truck fields is Leyland Daf, which currently devotes about 20% of its production to military vehicles.
In 1989 the Ministry of Defence placed orders of more than £.300m with the company for 6,872 trucks in the two categories plus spares packages. Approximately 2,500 of the 5,350 required four-tonners have been built, and the contract was not due for completion until the end of the 1994/5 fiscal year. The 1,000th DROPS vehicle was officially handed over last October, but the last of the 1,522 ordered was not due to roll down the line at Leyland until the end of the 1993/4 fiscal year.
If production ceases in the near future, the British Army will have a shortfall of something like 3,000 badly needed vehicles. At a time when manpower reductions should be offset by better equipment, this could well compromise the effectiveness of our soldiers in both defensive and humanitarian roles.
THE GULF There were 130 DROPS units being deployed in the Gulf by January 91 although the first examples were only being accepted for service in the autumn of 1990. By 5 January, before the air war had started, the DROPS fleet had re-supplied more than 10 million litres of water, 10,000 tonnes of ammunition, and 2,400 ISO containers.
Originally the type was intended to resupply only third-line units, but by the time the ground offensive started, they were up at the front line working alongside the MLRS batteries. When the big push forward started, all available DROPS units were switched to water carrying duties deep into Kuwait in support of the armoured brigades.
The humble Leyland Daf four-tonner, a military version of the Roadrunner with a sleeper cab and powered by the 108kW (145hp) 300 Series turbo-diesel engine, also saw extensive Gulf War service. In military colours, the Roadrunner has permanent fourwheel drive, special axles designed at the Glasgow plant, a five-speed allsynchro box and two-speed transfer box. Most in-service vehicles have removable drop sides and a canopy on a fixed platform, but shelter body and tipper options are also available.
At present, both DROPS and four-tonner Leyland Daf vehicles are serving with the British Army in United Nations colours in Bosnia and Croatia. If peace is agreed between the two, it is anticipated that the British could be peace-keeping and providing humanitarian relief for some years to come.
Will our troops be allowed to keep the army's best trucks for the job or will they be given clapped-out old pre-Gulf War veterans? This happened last year in Croatia when 16year-old ambulances were fielded to conserve the few modern Land Rover airfield ambulances held in war storage.
Fortunately Paddy Ashdown brought this sorry situation to the attention of the media and things changed slightly, but it is unlikely that the long overdue British Army field ambulance replacement contract will find funding much before 1995.
by Bob Morrison If Leyland Daf goes to the wall, who could supply the military with alternative vehicles? Although the Bedford design has been revived with Marshall, it could be years before it has the production facilities to meet orders of the size required by the Ministry of Defence.
Guaranteed whole-life back-up lasting a potential 15 years is not yet on the cards for this new enterprise and a countrywide dealer service network to reduce Army in-house servicing costs is not yet a possibility.
Volvo Trucks (GB), which proposed a military derivative of the FL6 with high British component content was the third tenderer for the last replacement contract. Known as the Highlander, only about 70 of these trucks have been built to date with only the Swedish Air Force operating the model.
The other alternatives are predominantly French, German, Italian or even Dutch!
Could a future British Government even contemplate buying trucks from Daf Holland? Under EC rules they would have to give Daf a fair crack of the whip and if its product came out top on performance and bottom on price it would be difficult not to award the contact. What would the British public's reaction be to that one? For a company which met and often exceeded every target and milestone set for it by the Ministry of Defence, it would be a great pity to see Leyland sink without trace like so many other British vehicle manufacturers over the past couple of decades. One thing is for sure, the Dutch Government will find some way of keeping the DAF badge on the front of its military trucks.
My contacts tell me that a Kuwaiti military delegation who were treated to an artillery demonstration on Salisbury Plain insisted on carrying on with a visit to Leyland even as the news of the company's problems broke, as they were so impressed by the vehicles. They are not the only overseas military delegations who have expressed interest in Leyland products recently.