Arquus in service

The VLRA came first: French marines paraded SS.11 missile VLRAs in Djibouti in 1971, and ACMAT sold most of its trucks abroad — 93 per cent by its own figure, to at least 48 countries. The VAB, from 1979, was exported to more than forty countries by 2019; the VBL replaced the Hotchkiss M201, and France took 1,380 of the 2,600 built.

French special forces used the VLRA for close to sixty years, from the Gulf in 1991 to a last deployment on Barkhane, before the 2016 contract for 202 PLFS trucks replaced it; the British SAS bought twenty in 1996 and used them in Afghanistan in 2001, and the Irish Army Ranger Wing runs three. The Bastion, on the VLRA chassis, has served since 2012 from the Sahel to Armenia and Ukraine.