On 24 January 2014, the Division of General Armaments (DGA) of the French Ministry of Defence placed an order for 250 logistic military trucks with the Iveco (CNH industrial Group) and Soframe (Lohr group) consortium. This batch forms part of the Porteurs Polyvalents Terrestres (PPT) programme, launched in 2010 to provide the French land forces with a fleet of modern logistic vehicles. Delivery of the batch will start in 2016. Included in the Loi de programmation militaire 2014-2019 (Act on Military Programming); this order demonstrated the French Army’s drive to modernise its logistic capabilities.
The PPT range includes two variants: a logistic vehicle (Porteur polyvalent logistique – PPLOG) and a recovery vehicle (Porteur polyvalent lourd de dépannage – PPLD). Both vehicles share the same chassis with four-axle eight-wheel drive (8×8), ensuring on and off road mobility in all climatic conditions (for example on snow covered mountain roads). The logistic vehicle will feature an independent hook-lift body for load-handling operations, with a payload up to 19 tonnes, whilst the recovery vehicle will be supplied with a crane for recovering military vehicles.
The PPT cabs offer a high level of crew comfort and are designed to accommodate a variety of modern military communication and command systems. All of the 200 vehicles ordered in 2010 (150 PPLOG and 50 PPLD) feature a protected cab with ballistic and mine blast protection. This further batch of 250 PPT will be configured as unprotected PPLOG. Protected and unprotected cabs can be interchanged and can be mounted on all chassis according to the assessed level of threat. The first PPT units were handed over to the customer in July 2013 and immediately saw service in Mali for the Serval operation. Users appreciated the vehicle’s payload, the high mobility provided through the use of all wheel drive, and the crew comfort in demanding conditions.