It is one thing to purchase replacement fenders etc for a SMP vehicle that is in use all over the world like the M35 (MLVW) but when were the last country in the world to manufacture a vehicle, then you better be buying a lifetime supply of body parts unless you are OK with spending a fortune hacing a contractor make the dies and forms to manufacture them new every 3 or 5 years.
While in some cases the DND will make it's buys based on useage, in others it will be a lifetime buy.
As to not replacing major body panels, there is a big difference between owning one or two, and trying to maintain an aging fleet of vehicles that were driven to their physical limits every time they would go to the field. There were around 60 Iltis in Shilo alone. Multiply that by 2 fenders per truck, and you could have a body man doing nothing but fenders for a year. Patch and play was the norm for the Iltis, as it was for the older M38A1 fleet.
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