The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) has completed the demilitarisation, dismantling and disposal of 722 M-113 Armoured Personnel Carriers from the Italian Army. The project has generated over 3 million euros of net revenue to Italy and contributed to saving 41,000 tones of CO2. The vehicles were demilitarised following the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. This required irreversible deformation or cutting of critical components to avoid their reuse. The activities included professional identification, removal and treatment of hazmat, applying best practices related to environmental protection and health and safety standards, with the goal of maximising revenue from scrap materials. Such support is also available to other NATO nations and partners.
Further to the disposal, the recovered ferrous and non-ferrous metals, which constituted 90% of the vehicles, were recycled without losing quality, contributing to the circular economy and climate protection. In addition, the sale of over eight million kilos of recovered scrap material on the global scrap metal market has generated a net revenue of 3 million euros to Italy. Through the Demilitarization, Dismantling and Disposal (D3) Support Partnership, the Agency can contribute to NATO Nations’ effort in reducing the military carbon footprint by saving primary resources, energy, and CO2 and decreasing the raw materials and fossil fuels dependency. NSPA provides tailored D3 expertise, strategic planning and execution through a global contractor framework readily available for all NSPA customers.
In 2013, as a part of NSPA’s ongoing effort to complement its life-cycle management support portfolio, NSPA established the Demilitarization, Dismantling and Disposal Support Partnership (D3 SP) as a NATO Smart Defence Initiative Project. Since then, NSPA offers access to qualified industry and resale markets, as well as multiple sales channels for an optimized re-utilization wherever possible. The D3 SP is open to support requirements from member and non-member nations. The goal is to reduce D3 costs through maximum generation of revenues from material resale and scrap value recovery. Purely customer funded, the D3 SP provides consolidated services after the retiring of defence equipment of all domains (air, land, sea) and for peculiar waste treatment. Revenues generated are returned to the direct benefit of the tasking Nations.
The M113 is a fully tracked armored personnel carrier (APC) that was developed and produced by the FMC Corporation. The M113 was sent to United States Army Europe to replace the mechanized infantry’s M59 APCs from 1961. The M113 was first used in combat in April 1962 after the United States provided the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) with heavy weaponry such as the M113, under the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) program. Eventually, the M113 was the most widely used armored vehicle of the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War and was used to break through heavy thickets in the midst of the jungle to attack and overrun enemy positions. It was largely known as an “APC” or an “ACAV” (armored cavalry assault vehicle) by the allied forces.
