Mack Truck‘s Defense division has delivered the first of its new military trucks, a medium duty vehicle designed to go anywhere and do a little bit of everything.
Dubbed the Medium Support Vehicle System Standard Military Pattern, or MSVS SMP, the first of these 8×8 trucks were delivered to the Canadian Department of National Defense earlier this month.
The trucks can be armored and outfitted to serve in multiple battlefield functions:
- Cargo hauling
- Material handling cranes
- Load handling systems (LHS)
- Mobile repair trucks (MRT)
Apart from these functions, the Mack Defense press release is light on any other details about the trucks other than the fact that they are part of a contract that will see Mack deliver more than 1,500 of them along with an initial five years of in-service support. The trucks will be deployed in Canada and throughout the world, the release says.
In a summary of the MSVS SMP project on the Canadian Armed Forces website, the country’s Department of National Defense says the trucks will replace its current fleet of Medium Logistics Vehicle Wheeled (MLVW) trucks that have been in service since the 1980s.
A notable new feature these Mack MSVS SMP trucks bring are mobile workspaces, or “kitted shelters” as the Canadian defense department calls them. These ISO container-based shelters “provide medical, dental, workshop, field kitchen (and) command post capabilities among others,” the webpage reads.
