British Army receives first 20 of 500 Rheinmetall HX trucks as part of $356 million order

The British Field Army has taken delivery the first 20 of 500 Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicle (RMMV) HX trucks which were ordered under a £282 million (US$356 million) contract signed just 12 months ago.

Rheinmetall said on 16 December that it had successfully delivered all 500 HX Logistic Vehicles to the UK Ministry of Defence vehicle depot in Ashchurch in the west of England,

The award of the contract was announced in February and is for HX Palletised Load System (HX PLS) 8x8 trucks, with the deal signed after what the company described as being placed “under rapid acquisition within seven months from initial discussions”.

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The first trucks were received by troops one year after the contract signature at 7 Regiment Royal Logistic Corps based in Dalton Barracks. The Corps will now start training on the vehicles.

Another 40 vehicles will be utilised for training prior to April 2025, with all 500 provided to the Field Army by September 2025.

The vehicle is widely used or ordered across 21 countries. There are more than 20,000 HX trucks in service in a range of NATO and NATO-allied countries including Australia and New Zealand and European customers such as Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

The HX PLS truck can load and unload up to 16.5t of equipment without the need for the operator to leave the cabin. The HX is designed to provide a quicker, easier and safer method for getting stores around the battlefield and offers improved interoperability with other NATO nations.

Col Andy Elliott of HQ Field Army said: “Fielding of these vehicles [will] begin to close the gap in the logistic lift capacity required to deliver and sustain war fighting at scale.

“Delivering capability at pace challenges procurement processes and policies and lessons from this project can be applied to streamline future acquisitions, vital as the Army seeks to double lethality by 2027.”

Just last month it was announced the Rheinmetall would supply Canada with 85 8x8 HX heavy recovery vehicles under a C$325 million (US$231 million) five-year deal which will see the first vehicle delivered in 2027.

The vehicles will be supplied to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as part of the Enhanced Recovery Capability (ERC) programme and will include an additional service agreement worth C$28.9 million.

Related Equipment in Defence Insight

HX Series