The embryo of the Córdoba Armed Logistics Base will be launched in January at the El Higuerón wheel park

If in 1937, when what was then called the South Zone Automobile Inspectorate and later the Motorsport Headquarters -the seed of this Higuerón center-, was already a precursor in the Army with a school of apprentice mechanics, today he directs the new logistical and technological approach of the Spanish Land Force for the thousands of mechanized references it has.

In this case, more than fourteen thousand (light, heavy, weapons and transport vehicles, etc.), of which the Córdoba fleet headed by Colonel Francisco Javier Vílchez is a notorious “technical leader”. Especially in Iveco vehicle families (from tractors to cranes or logistics support), the BMR 600, Hannibal, RG 31Maxxpro; the tests of new models such as the Landtrek (which will replace the Anibal) or the ‘Dragón’ VCR 8×8 battle tank that the Tess Defense consortium late delivers to Defensa.

For formal purposes, from January 1, 2026, the PCMVR2 will become the so-called “constitutional core” of the Army Technology and Logistics Center (CTLET). There is a difference in nuance and military nomenclature: the “General Francisco Javier Varela” base (already known by the acronym BLET) is the enclosure, the physical container. The CTLET, the content.

Currently, in the facilities of the San Fernando barracks – with a similar distribution but in a reduced format to that which will be deployed in Rinconada – work 315 people, including 110 military and 205 civilians. In this last group are already incorporated the 137 who competed for Cordoba in the tests of 180 places convened and carried out by Defense at the beginning of this year for all of Spain. And curiously, according to official data, among these 137, around a hundred are from Córdoba and have undergone professional training.

It must be remembered that the Junta of Andalusia A few weeks ago he presented a catalog of 31 FP specialties at different levels that can be followed in the province and which are directly linked to the work catalog of the future logistics complex. Furthermore, in the coming months, the ministry will have to find 330 additional positions for the Logistics Base.

The new model

He Colonel Vilchez He was appointed precisely a year and a half ago to his position to carry out the transition to the Logistics Base from the amalgam of maintenance centers (up to twelve) that exist throughout Spain and which will be integrated into the Córdoba facilities next to the A-4 highway. The deadlines are therefore clear in his mind: in a year and a half, the workforce of El Higuerón will double to 750 people, so that between 2028 and 2029 there will be 1,100, or even more. And all will be trained in the facilities completed in 1991. In fact, Defense has just launched a call for tenders for 6.1 million euros for a warehouse and a new changing room for the wheel park, with the aim of improving the capacities currently available to this barracks.

And what will happen when BLET is at full capacity? Everything indicates that it will be erected as a transit base for all troops arriving with vehicles both for delivery and for collection at the Rinconada Complex. Or they operate ad hoc with the facilities and this will multiply almost exponentially given the size of the new logistics facility.

“This cannot stop even if there is a move, we must continue to repair the equipment and send it to operations,” the command of El Higuerón Park explains to ABC. “Our purpose is to increase the operability of Land Force and with the greatest number of effective equipment”, adds Colonel Francisco Javier Vílchez.

The PCMVR 2 is a reference at the national level in the structure of the Army. Although it has a twin in Torrejón de Ardoz, the spearhead is undoubtedly this complex located on the outskirts of Córdoba, which can work per year with almost 40 companies and more than 150 tender files in addition to dozens and dozens of units to repair or validate.

Investigation

The work system is as simple as it is effective, as ABC was able to verify. Today, an RG 31, an armored personnel carrier and protected vehicle resistant to mines and ambushes, could arrive from Mali and be damaged due to its deployment on a mission. It is completely disassembled down to the last piece, and reassembled in a almost a goldsmith’s job for six or seven months until it becomes a brand new vehicle as if it had just left the factory.

And throughout this process, as those responsible for this center explain, it goes from assembling a new engine to bodywork and painting, upholstery or the smallest detail which is then certified by the engineers and passes to the ITV.

Or the other major channel of work, which revolves around the new cars, trucks or vehicles that the army buys and which arrive from the factories to be tested in Cordoba. This is the case of 8×8 VCR (Tess Defense itself currently occupies a building in the park), some units of which are currently visible in the Higuerón workshops. Or the Landtrek, created by Peugeot, militarized by Iturri and validated in the Córdoba wheel park.

But the lever that positions it as a trigger and advancement of BLET is located in the technological part, and this is where PCMVR2 currently has several innovation projects that will be implemented with others in the future Rinconada site. One of them comes from the hand of Sicnovathe Jaén firm specializing in 3D printing. Currently, it produces individual parts that are either not sold by suppliers as such, or can even be served “in situ” anywhere in the world through printing containers that travel with the operations and come to be managed from a room in Higuerón. A system that the North American army has already copied, for example.

The park is working on predictive maintenance which will be essential in BLET thanks to the Silpre system developed by Indra, Navantia and the University of Cordoba (UCO). The control unit of each vehicle and Artificial Intelligence configure a Big Data manual that detects possible breakdowns or the need to implement spare parts in advance, speeding up work and ensuring economic efficiency.

Another of the established lines of innovation is Jaltest system (from the Cojali company), diagnostic equipment where the data of each of the models and manufacturers arrived is recorded. The virtue of this working model is that “translates” the different codes into the same technical language that each family of vehicles. Or the configuration of electrified transport for which there are already working prototypes in the Aníbal truck or the Iveco TT truck, both also in cooperation with the UCO. “We are even already working with hydrogen and seeing what types of vehicles it could be used in,” says Lieutenant Colonel Ignacio Cepeda, head of the center’s engineering unit.