U.S. Army orders more M917A3 heavy trucks

Mack Defense announced that the U.S. Army placed an order for 115 additional Heavy Dump Trucks, known as HDTs, under the M917A3 program supporting the National Guard, a purchase that brings the combined value of this and a related truck order from last month past $84 million.

An HDT is exactly what it sounds like, a large dump truck built to haul gravel, sand, dirt, and construction debris, but the M917A3 is a heavily modified version of Mack’s commercially available Granite model, reinforced specifically to survive the demands of military use rather than a civilian construction site. The Army fits these trucks with heavier-duty rear axles, all-wheel drive for off-road mobility, raised suspension for clearing rough terrain, and modern safety systems including anti-lock brakes, giving engineering units a vehicle that can move earth and building materials across an active construction zone or a disaster-stricken area without the mechanical failures a stock commercial truck might suffer under that kind of strain.

HDTs haul the material needed to build and repair airfields, roadways, landing strips, supply depots, and motor pools, and the same trucks that support a forward operating base overseas also deploy domestically whenever severe weather forces the National Guard into disaster relief operations, moving debris and construction material into flooded or storm-damaged communities faster than a civilian contractor fleet typically could mobilize.

This latest 115-truck order stacks on top of a separate 91-truck purchase the Army made last month, funded through $47 million secured in the 2026 National Defense Appropriations Act, the annual legislation that sets military spending levels and specific program funding for the year. Combined, those two orders bring the total to 208 trucks worth more than $84 million, all falling under a five-year contract the Army awarded Mack Defense in June 2025 covering up to 450 trucks with a total potential value of $221.8 million if the Army exercises the full order over the life of the agreement.

Derik Beck, senior director of sales and marketing for Mack Defense, framed the new order as confirmation of a partnership that has held steady across multiple contract cycles.

“We are deeply appreciative of the U.S. Army and Army National Guard’s continued trust in Mack Defense and the M917A3 Heavy Dump Truck program,” Beck said. “This latest order reinforces the critical value and importance of our long-standing partnership with the U.S. Army. These rugged, mission-ready Granite-based HDTs directly support the warfighter by enabling essential construction, infrastructure maintenance and disaster relief operations worldwide. We are truly thankful for this vote of confidence and remain fully committed to delivering the highest-performing heavy dump trucks that our soldiers and guardsmen rely upon.”

The relationship between Mack Defense and the Army predates this latest five-year agreement by nearly a decade. The Army first awarded Mack Defense a contract for the M917A3 program in 2018, a firm-fixed-price deal worth up to $296 million covering as many as 683 trucks over seven years, and by the time that original contract wound down, the Army and National Guard had ordered 549 HDTs under its terms, split across multiple individual purchase orders funded through various Army, Reserve, and National Guard budget lines rather than delivered as a single bulk purchase. That steady, incremental ordering pattern has continued under the new 2025 contract, with the Army placing orders in batches tied to specific funding sources as money becomes available through the annual appropriations process rather than committing to the full 450-truck ceiling all at once.

Every M917A3 built under this program comes off a dedicated production line at the Mack Experience Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a facility Mack Defense stood up in 2021 after investing $6.5 million specifically to create HDT manufacturing capacity separate from Mack’s main commercial truck operations nearby in Macungie. That dedicated line draws on the same production workforce and manufacturing capabilities Mack uses to build its civilian Granite trucks, letting Mack Defense leverage proven commercial vehicle engineering while still meeting the specific military modifications and quality standards the Army requires, an approach that has become increasingly common across defense manufacturing as the Pentagon looks for ways to field reliable equipment faster and cheaper than fully custom military designs typically allow.