UK Defence Forum

II.4)
Short description of nature and scope of works or nature and quantity or value of supplies or services:
The Ministry of Defence has outlined a requirement for a replacement Heavy Equipment Transporter (HET) service from June 2024 to 2030. This service will form an integral part of the MDL25 logistics programme and in due course MDL25 will provide the next generation of land materiel lift, bulk liquids and equipment transport deployable capability.

The HET fleet is primarily used in the transportation of heavy (tracked and wheeled) military vehicles between military locations both in the UK and overseas. The HET Fleet is also used to provide heavy lift capability while on deployed Exercises and Operations.
The Authority is exploring the acquisition, support and through-life service options.

As part of the ongoing options analysis, the Authority is seeking further information from industry in support of developing its acquisition strategy. Specifically, the authority seeks information from industry for the following reasons:

(i) establish industry's perspective on the development and incorporation of technology in the heavy equipment transportation market;

(ii) inform service provision options;

(iii) understanding costings for different types of equipment provision;

(iv) appraise production and/or delivery timescales to the Authority’s deadlines; and

(v) explore the potential for future integration of new technologies as they become available

The Authority is presenting an open invitation to industry to participate in a Request For Information (RFI) exercise in relation to the outlined MDL25 requirement. The RFI consists of a survey to assist the Authority in the understanding of industry capabilities with reference to current and planned technological developments. The information is required as inputs to concept studies that are taking place to inform the Materiel Distribution Land 2025 (MDL25) Programme. These studies will ultimately support the development of the HET requirements and inform the strategy that will be implemented to acquire the solution.
This exercise is a request for information only and engagement will not at any point be used to directly or indirectly enter a contract agreement for delivering MDL25.

Funny you mentioned the HET transporters, saw three of them today in convoy with a Warrior on each one. Made me wonder how many would be needed to move Armour in a wartime situation.

bobp wrote:Funny you mentioned the HET transporters, saw three of them today in convoy with a Warrior on each one. Made me wonder how many would be needed to move Armour in a wartime situation.

Which turret, old or new?

Ron5 wrote:Which turret, old or new?

To be honest I would say old, it was raining heavily at the time, so did not get clear look. I was more interested in the Transporters. Quite often I have seen Army vehicles on civilian transports, but hardly ever seen three HET's together like that.

Thought I would post this here. The British Army is moving a substantial amount of armour from Germany and the UK to Poland for a NATO exercise that has more importance due to events in Ukraine. A large percentage of eh Army's fleet of HETs is obviously involved moving vehicles for Germany and collecting vehicles arriving by sea in Poland and transporting them to their final destination.

Continuing from the above: isn't the HET contract up for renewal this year?

What comes out (of that process) will be a good indicator for the 'strategic intent'. The fake news has been that we will keep more of our tanks in Sennelager... where they have been all along

I still think we need to run a short notice brigade deployment from the UK to Western Poland to test our ability to do so and highlight any issues. No "Blame Game" just spot problems so they can be fixed moving forward.

ArmChairCivvy wrote: ↑24 May 2022, 13:26 The fake news has been that we will keep more of our tanks in Sennelager... where they have been all along

Their are three Battle Groups worth of equipment based in Europe, one in Estonia the balance at two bases in Germany. This includes artillery(AS90) and I assume the balance of the equipment for a full Armoured Infantry Brigade.

The contract renewal for HET provision will send interesting msgs; as outlined above getting all the 'stuff' already on the Continent to where it will be needed, timely, likely to be the main driver. Role of sea transport (esp. how far to the East) and rail likely to get some emphasis, too, rather than a straight-fwrd doubling of the vehicle fleet (and the crews that go with them).

I believe ther is a chance that we will swap out the current Armoured Infantry Brigade's worth of equipment in Germany with that for the planned Deep Strike BCT. This means the Battalion Battle Group in the Baltics' will need to be reinforced by units from the UK. That will entail getting the kit from Barracks to the UK Port, then from the Continental Port to its destination. Now that is going to require a lot of HETs at all stages of the above including getting the units in Germany forward. I think we have around 100 HETS available in total, which isn't enough to even move the Deep Fires BCT in Germany in one go. The Heavy BCTs will hopefully have mainly wheeled platforms with the Challenger 3s and Ajax variants from the Recce Regiment the only ones requiring the use of a HET.

Without over analysing things we need to find out how many HETs we actually need to move the remainder of a Heavy BCT to join up with the force in the Baltic. Ideally this should be a short notice exercise to test not only the combat units but the transport, logistics and engineering units that are the enablers of such a large scale movement. IF this cannot be done, then the whole BCT idea sort of falls flat on its face and we may have to look at forming a mini BOAR comprising both the Deep Fires BCT complimented by a Heavy BCT, both in Germany.

Various British Army MAN Logistics Support Vehicles and Land Rover Utility Vehicles travelling together, several in a handful of convoys.

Jackstar wrote: ↑25 Oct 2023, 09:52 Various British Army MAN Logistics Support Vehicles and Land Rover Utility Vehicles travelling together, several in a handful of convoys.

But no HET? Odd post.