More than 200 multipurpose support trucks bought under a rapid procurement process have been handed over to the British Army, with hundreds more to follows in the coming months.
Sourced from Germany’s Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicle, the trucks have been designed to allow troops to transport essentials such as ammunition, food, water and support materiel to operational locations.
A total of 500 MAN trucks were bought under a £282m ($380.7m) contract which was awarded to Rheinmetall by Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), an arm of the country’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) with support from British Army Headquarters, in seven months.
Fielding began in 2024 with 217 vehicles now having been delivered and in use by soldiers from 7 Regiment Royal Logistic Corps, who are currently on deployment in Wales.
Major George Holdcroft, one of the Squadron Commanders in the regiment, said his troops had been “impressed” by the increased power and responsiveness of the trucks, according to a 16 June release from DE&S.
The MAN vehicles are part of the HX family of mobility trucks, integrating military off-the-shelf components, and have been fitted with external cameras to improve operator visibility.
On current plans the remaining vehicles will be delivered by this autumn, when all vehicles will be formally accepted by the British Army.
The HX family is operated by the UK, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
Rheinmetall becoming leading British Army supplier
According to GlobalData’s United Kingdom Armed Forces – Equipment Inventory 2025 report, the British Army received more than 6,600 MAN trucks between 2005-2006, designated as Logistics Support Vehicles (LSV).
In recent years, the scale of contracts provided to Rheinmetall by the UK MoD have pointed to the company becoming a partner of choice for the UK government, particularly in sourcing equipment for the British Army.
This includes a multi-billion-pound planned acquisition of 623 Boxer armoured vehicles and associated variants for the British Army, in addition to the £800m programme to upgrade the Challenger 2 main battle tanks to the Challenger 3 standard via the RBSL joint venture with BAE Systems.
The UK is also pursuing the development of the RCH 155 mobile artillery system in collaboration with Germany, which sees Rheinmetall heavily involved via the use of the Boxer vehicle as the base platform through the ARTEC consortium.
