Marrel joins the Danish Army alongside Fassi and Scania in the name of flexibility

Its name is DALO and the acronym stands for “Defense Acquisition and Logistics Organisation”.

What we are talking about here are more than 100 new military vehicles that will be supplied to the Danish Army starting from mid-2021. It is an important project in which Marrel, alongside Fassi and Scania, is taking the lead in the supply of the entire outfit. Marrel will supply its Ampliroll AL16000DM, Fassi its F115A.0.24 crane and Scania its 8X8 truck.

Before the end of 2020 all three together will deliver the prototype for the internal tests carried out by the maintenance services and the Danish soldiers, and subsequently will supply the 100 vehicles on a gradual basis by mid-2021.

Marrel’s AL16500DM LHS equipment enables the loading and unloading of Stanag 2413 loading platforms – supplied by the Danish army – and the handling of ISO 20’ standard containers by using the Amplitainer CHU (container handling unit).

The Danish Army requested to have a high degree of equipment flexibility with assembly combinations based on four elements: a Scania truck equipped with a AL16500DM hooklift and the Amplitainer ISO container handling system; a Sepson winch installed on the right side; an F115A.0.24 Fassi crane mounted together with a removable unit for ISO container handling; 2 storage boxes in the back of the cabin, to insert a set of GFE options supplied by DALO.

To meet these demands, with Fassi, Scania and Sepson, Marrel created a concept of modular assembly that mainly allows the removal of the H frame from the CHU unit for ISO containers with its storage support, in order to replace it with the F115A Fassi crane in less than 4 hours, an operation that will be carried out by the Danish army in its own maintenance workshops.

Scania 8×8 trucks will be assembled in Sweden and later sent to France, to Andrézieux-Bouthéon, for complete assembly and the installation of the hooklift by Marrel.

 

 

Jérôme Semay, Marrel CEO

 

When did Marrel’s experience of the military sector begin?

Marrel can look back on a long history in the military sector starting from the 80s with the supply of more than 2000 logistics vehicles to the French army. They were vehicles equipped with hooklifts to handle flat shelving units.

In the 90s, we introduced more and more sophisticated versions equipped with container handling units for loading ISO 20’ containers.

For the last 40 years Marrel has been involved in both European and Extra-European programmes, in collaboration with several truck producers.

In 2010, when modernising its fleet, the French army chose Marrel again for its CHU Ampliroll hooklifts mounted on Iveco 8×8 trucks. More than 850 vehicles were produced and delivered for that project.

 

What were the requests of the Danish army?

To equip the frames of the 8×8 trucks, the Danish army was looking for a modular solution composed of a hooklift able to exchange a container handling unit with a crane by itself.

The hooklift together with the CHU were supposed to lift 16.5 t and the requested crane had to be one with a 10 t/m capacity.

Usually in such military programmes, the Danish army has many demands to meet concerning the performances of the hooklift and the crane, as well as for the design of the bodywork with different boxes and a support for the DALO equipment.

 

What was the added value of the Fassi, Marrel and Scania partnership?

Being a group that offers both products (cranes and hooklifts), has allowed us to present ourselves as Scania qualified partners for this programme.

The organisation of the project has allowed Marrel to develop the necessary modular bodywork and to create the truck prototype in partnership with Scania and Fassi.

This close connection between Scania, Fassi and Marrel has also helped the project team to adapt the design and the performance of the forklift in a flexible way.

 

Thanks to what has been done for the DALO project, are there new possibilities for the future of Marrel? Are there new market segments?

The DALO programme is a new opportunity for Marrel to show its expertise in military applications. The need for flexible vehicles for logistics matters is felt all over the world and to be able to offer cranes and hooklifts on the market strengthens both Fassi and Marrel.