Are there any vehicles for non-combat purpose used with the British Forces manufactured by foreign companies?

Question

In the German Bundeswehr there are vehicles provided by a government-held company to use them for "civilian" transport for the Forces. Silver, white or black painted and partly of French origin.

Bamford1000 · Accepted Answer

The British Forces have not made such information regarding civilian transport open to the general public since the 1970's and the M62 IRA bombing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/4/newsid_4148000/4148933.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bradford/content/articles/2006/11/29/m62_bombing_feature.shtml

British Forces tend to used hired vehicles from an array of companies for their civilian trannsport needs.

Setra Bus Der Bundeswehr -

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Setra_Bus_der_Bundeswehr_100_7842.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Setra_Bus_der_Bundeswehr_100_7841.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Setra_Bus_der_Bundeswehr_100_7843.jpg

@AgProv - if you read the question properly he was asking about civilian non-combat transport for the Armed Forces, not Swedish All Terrain Vehicles or Vehicles used in the Falklands where hardly any one lives.

In terms of transportation of UK Forces by civilian companies within the UK and Europe, such information has not been made public since the dire days of the 1970's republican terrorist atttacks such as the M62 Bombing.

AgProv · Answer

There's always been an informal "Buy British!" policy, so as to keep the defence budget in the UK supporting British jobs and factories. The only exception to this has been if another country genuinely has something far and away better than we could build - for instance, the Royal Marines train in North Norway for arctic and mountain warfare. since the 1970's, suitable all-weather all-terrain vehicles have been sourced from Sweden, a country that knows far more about snowy winters than Britain ever will. 

And I don't know where one respondent gets the idea from that it's an operational secret - hobby magazines like Military Modelling and the Airfix Magazine had all the specs for the Swedish vehicles right from day one.  It was also no secret that these Swedish all-terrain vehicles went to the Falklands in 1982 as ground conditions there proved to be absolutely dire - conventinal lorries would have broken down. 

How far we can carry on with a "buy British if it's the best for the job" policy, as we have no automobile industry left - just foreign-owned asembly plants -  is in doubt. Thatcher's wilful destruction of British industry in the 1980's, and her mad insistence on buying American helicopters because she thought it would keep the Yanks sweet - this caused one of her ministers to resign in protest and killed the British helicopter industry.

The current bunch of clueless twats are as bad - they seriously want to close the British tank industry as they see less and less need for main battle tanks for the Army. Our current Challenger II is probably the best in the world - but it looks likely tobe the last british tank. When it goes, its successor will have to be bought in from America or (humiliatingly) Germany or Italy, because there won't be a British tank industry left. And we invented the damn things! 

Oh, and both the RAF and Royal Navy have flown American-built F-4 Phantoms.

And just wait for the real humiliation - the first Royal Navy ships to be built in foreign shipyards because the politicians killed our shipbuilding industry.

Makes you proud to be British, doesn't it...

Are there any vehicles for non-combat purpose used with the British Forces manufactured by foreign companies?

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