Work is underway to repair 6,000 army support vehicles withdrawn from service for security reasons, a defense minister told MPs.
Luke Pollard said the suspension of the British Army’s entire fleet of support trucks for repairs, as first reported by The Times, was an example of “the system working properly”.
“A problem was identified, a rectification was ordered and that is being carried out,” he told the House of Commons defense committee.
He assured MPs that “we have kept forces at some level of readiness”, after Labour’s Derek Twigg raised concerns about what would happen if the truck fleet was needed in an emergency.
Known as the “workhorse” of the British Army, the MAN Logistics Support Vehicle is used to deliver food, fuel and other supplies to troops.
The fleet was withdrawn from service following a recent exercise called Titan Storm in Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, when faults were discovered in some vehicles’ driveshaft, which delivers power to the wheels.
According to BFBS Forces News, the 6,000 vehicles, some of which have been in service for almost 20 years, are being fitted with spare parts after some were damaged due to improper installation.
Pollard told MPs: “It is quite common, across all our military platforms, for safety advisories to be issued and rectification work to be carried out.”
He added: “With the platforms we have, the age of some of them and the usage of them, updates are required on a regular basis.”
Pollard was also questioned by MPs about a separate incident in exercise Titan Storm, which led to the suspension of the army’s Ajax armored fighting vehicles.
About 30 soldiers training to use the Ajax vehicles became ill due to the noise and vibrations, and some of them emerged from the vehicles vomiting.
Pollard told the committee that “none of them required hospitalization” and “many of them have returned to their normal duties.”
But he added: “I have always been clear that the safety of our people is our top priority, which is why we have paused operations.”
It comes weeks after Pollard claimed the much-delayed £6.3bn Ajax program had “put its problems behind us” and was ready to be deployed with squadrons on operations.
Pollard said he had made this statement after receiving written confirmation from the chief of staff and the national director of armaments saying that Ajax was “demonstrably safe to operate”.
He said the Army had launched an investigation into what happened to the Ajax vehicles during Exercise Titan Storm, which he said would be reported on “very soon.”
The Defense Accident Investigation Branch also launched an investigation which would take longer to report, Pollard told MPs.
And he said he had launched a separate review of assurances officials had given him about the safety of the vehicles.
Asked if he had been misled about his operational readiness, he said: “Until I see the conclusions of the preliminary report about what happened, I don’t want to pass judgment on the process that led to this.”
