The US State Department has approved the sale of heavy trucks worth an estimated USD445 million, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced on 1 July.
A HEMTT loads a flatrack on a PLS trailer. Kuwait has requested PLS trailers and flatracks but no HEMTT variants with the associated load-handling system. (Virginia National Guard)
The DSCA said the approval covered a total of 517 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks (HEMTTs) and Heavy Equipment Transporters (HETs), both of which are made by Oshkosh, but provided a breakdown that only added up to 369. This included 188 M985A4 HEMTT Guided Missile Transporters, 100 HEMTT M978A4 fuel tankers, 31 HEMTT M984A4 recovery variants, and 50 M1070A1 HETs.
It also listed 50 Fontaine 635NL trailers for the HETs, 49 Oshkosh M1076A0 Palletised Load System (PLS) trailers, and an unspecified number of Etnyre M1077 flatrack dismountable beds for the PLS trailers.
“Kuwait will use these heavy vehicles to transport and support heavy equipment, including their legacy M1A2 tanks and their new M1A2K main battle tank slated for delivery in 2021,” the DSCA said.
The US Department of Defense (DoD) announced in July 2020 that the contract to deliver 217 M1A2K tanks to Kuwait had been modified to “adjust the delivery schedule”, putting its estimated completion date back to 30 June 2022. No deliveries have been reported yet.
Kuwait already has an unknown number of HEMTTs: the DoD announced in March 2018 that it had awarded a USD15.4 million contract to Oshkosh to deliver an unspecified number of Guided Missile Transporter, recovery, tractor, and artillery rocket resupply variants to it and Qatar.
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