The UK Ministry of Defence has acknowledged that British military vehicles have broken down nearly 13,000 times over the past decade — including one incident in Morocco that required a recovery team to travel from Britain, the Daily Star reported.
The breakdowns have cost the ministry more than £8 million in recovery fees paid to the Automobile Association (AA), which was called out to deal with vehicles that had crashed or stopped working.
One such case involved an AA crew being sent to Morocco to retrieve a vehicle that failed during a military exercise in North Africa.
The issue is not isolated. During the ongoing “Cerberus 2024” exercise in Germany, multiple vehicles have stopped working due to poor maintenance, the report said.
Many of the breakdowns involve aging equipment, including 50-year-old Spartan and Scimitar light tanks, vintage Land Rovers, and limousines used to transport senior officers.
Figures show that soldiers were involved in 3,800 vehicle incidents in a single year, while annual recovery costs rose from £687,000 in 2015 to more than £1.1 million by 2025.
The British Army has a long history of using Morocco for training, particularly desert warfare drills in cooperation with the Royal Moroccan Army. The partnership dates back to 1989 with the first “Exercise Jebel Sahara,” aimed at building joint operational skills and strengthening military ties.
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