Army veterans to go on market

The Army is unsure who will want its ageing fleet of armoured personnel carriers when they go on sale next year.

The Army has 77 M113 tracked armoured personnel carriers.

They are Vietnam-war vintage and the first was delivered in 1969.

But only 24 are still operational and the entire fleet will be withdrawn by the end of the year.

They have been replaced by 105 Canadian-built LAV III light armoured vehicles.

Assistant chief of general staff (logistics) Colonel Peter Cunningham said yesterday three M113s would be kept for display, probably at the Army Museum in Waiouru, but the other 74 would be put on the market early next year.

He said the 35-year-old veterans had given exceptionally good service but were now not worth a lot.


They would be sold with spares but probably not with their .50 calibre or 7.62mm machine guns.

Colonel Cunningham said there were a lot of the same model on the international market, and they would probably be bought to be upgraded. The Army would get the best return possible for the vehicles.

The Australian Army will spend $500 million upgrading 350 M113s, similar to the New Zealand machines, to give them another 15 years of life.

The M113s are the backbone of many Western armies and several other countries, including Germany, Canada and Denmark are upgrading their fleets.

The Army opted for the eight-wheeled LAV IIIs instead of upgrading or replacing the M113 tracked vehicles. It did not have enough M113s to upgrade and provide protected mobility for two infantry battalions.

With the M113s and 26 Scorpion light tanks which were retired in 1998, the Army had a similar number of combat vehicles as the LAV III fleet.

Colonel Cunningham said the M113s were now "very, very difficult to support" and for that reason they would probably be bought as hulls for upgrading.

The Army has said the M113s were unreliable and struggled to meet operational requirements because they did not have enough speed, capacity, firepower or protection.

Several years ago in Bosnia, the New Zealand M113s could not keep up with the aid convoys they were meant to be protecting.

The old vehicles also had reliability problems. When a peacekeeping force was sent to East Timor eight of the 22 M113s became unserviceable.


- NZPA