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BG Archive — HET Heavy Equipment Trailer [ 1 ] – Broshuis Trailer |
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Note: The Tropco
was an interim system leased from the Netherlands. This page is intended to provide background for the CF Doll HET.
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HET – the Dutch Army Tropco Heavy Equipment Trailer or 'met een kleine hulp van
vrienden'
The Canadian Forces' HLVW tractors (left) and their 'low-boy' trailers are both regarded as heavy-duty
but the combo was not up to transporting the new Leopard 2A6M tanks in Afghanistan. Fortunately, one of the few methods of
transporting Leopard 2A6s was already available in RC South – the Tropcos used to haul
Dutch PzH-2000 SP howitzers in Uruzgan province were made available to the CF.
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Tank transport and similar, heavy-weight jobs are the purview of the National Support Element in
southern Afghanistan. NSE personnel took charge of Tropcos leased from the Dutch Army in time to transport
the newly-arrived Leopard 2A6M CANs at Kandahar. Sixteen CF members of the Transportation
Platoon from Edmonton Garrison trained for 4 weeks on the Tropcos at Eindhoven (the home
of Tropco prime contractor, DAF Trucks, which also manufactures Tropco's XF95 tractor truck). Like the new Doll trailer, there's more to the Tropco
than meets the eye.
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Big Wheels Rollin' – Contending with a Brittle House
Tropco is a contraction of trekkeropleggercombinatie or tractor/semi-trailer combination. The
trailers are built by Bruihuis BV of Kampen which was contract to make 39 "heavy-duty 7-axle semi low loaders
suitable for the transport of " Leopard 2s. These trailers have steering (radio-controlled steering) on
the 4 rear-most axles and castoring on the front axles for tight cornering (the two middle axles are fixed ). Two
truck-mounted winches [2] assist in the loading and unloading of disabled vehicles that cannot move under their own
power.
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Broshuis 7-axle Heavy-Duty Tropco Transport Trailer
Semi-trailer
dimensions:
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Platform length 10.5 m, platform width:
2.76 m (widening to 3.18 m for Leopard
2A6M CANs), platform height: 0.9 m |
| Capability: |
maximum payload: 65 tonnes+ [3] |
| Weight: |
trailer unloaded: 14 tonnes |
| Tractor.: |
DAF XF95 (tank tractor is YTZ95.530 ) |
| Combo: |
total length: 20 m+, total weight:
102 t |
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[1] As an acronym, HET for Heavy Equipment Trailer is unique to the CF. In US Army parlance, the HET is a Heavy
Equipment Transport.
[2] For the tank transporter, each main winch has 53m of cable and a pull of 24.5 t. A single auxiliary winch
has 110m of cable and pulls 1 t.
[3] Landmacht have two related Tropco systems using two slightly different models of DAF tractor
– the YTZ95.530 for towing tanks (on 7-axle Broshuis trailers) and the YTZ95.480 for towing lighter
equipment (4-axle Broshuis trailers) with a maximum payload of 41 tonnes.
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