Army expects little interest in old vehicles

The army's ageing and virtually immobile armoured personnel carriers are officially on the international military market but they are hardly likely to excite prospective buyers.

The 69 Vietnam War vintage M113s are being replaced by the LAV IIIs but the army said today it was not expecting potential buyers to beat a path to its door.

The first of the tracked vehicles was delivered in 1969 and the last was withdrawn last year after 35 years when only 24 were still operating as it became harder and harder to keep them going.

The M113s were the A1 variant but with plenty of later variants on the market there was an outside chance they could be bought for the hulls to be stripped and upgraded to a modern version of the stalwart army troop carrier.

The army will keep eight for static displays but they would not be kept operational, the army's assistant chief of general staff (logistics) Colonel Peter Cunningham said.

He said no one wanted such old gear and although they could be upgraded into later versions there were plenty of later models on the market.

The army would prefer not to sell them individually and scrapping the old vehicles was a possibility.

The army has asked for registrations of interest by July 1.

The army was also storing 200 .50 calibre machine guns which were fitted to the APCs but they were old and tired technology and would be destroyed, said Col Cunningham.

- NZPA