Army Materiel Command (Denmark)

Army Materiel Command ( _da. Hærens Materielkommando), short "HMAK", was the Royal Danish Army's institution in all matters of material. That included supply, maintenance and production. Anything from tanks to the sunglasses of troops or which kind of chocolate is in the field rations. It was a Level. II command authority, directly under the Defence Command. Before the merger with the air force and navy materiel commands into the new unified Defense Materiel Command, FMT.

HMAK was until its end, the oldest institution of the military of Denmark and could trace its history back to 1602. It was run like a modern company, with depots and workshops located all over the country. It employed roughly 1100 people, with 700 of them located in Hjørring. The central authority was located in Hjørring, it has now been taken over by the Defense Materiel Command, as its headquarter.

History

In 1596 it was thought that it would be a good idea to get an overview over all the war-material in the Kings inventory. So in 1597 the counting and collection in armouries began, primarily to locations in or around Copenhagen and the Kings castle.In 1598 the construction of the main armoury was begun, called "Tøjhuskomplekset" (today this is known as "Tøjhusmuseet"). Tøjhuskomplekset was to be the main armoury for storage, maintenance and production of the Kings war-material, for both the Army and Navy.

Hans Kost was its first chief and he got his commission on August 18 1602. This day is therefore counted as the origin of HMAK, which celebrated its 400 anniversary in August 2002. Tøjhuskomplekset was fully finished in 1604.

From 1615 the Artillery-corps handled the administration of the armies material needs. From 1675 the engineers-corps also took some part in this. This worked all the way to 1762, after which a lot of smaller more specified branches took administration of their respective areas.

In 1909 "Army Technical Corps" ( _da. Hærens Tekniske Korps), short "HTK" was formed to take organizational command of some of all those administration areas. Still numerous departments, companies, regiments and corps to handle material came and went doing the next 60 years, some under HTK some independent.

HMAK was formed November 1 1968, by combining "Army Technical Corps", "Engineer Technical Service", "Army Signal Service", "The Weapon Armoury", as well as some smaller areas of other troops, into one organization. The organization was a central authority with three "assembling areas" (Parkområder), named "Nordjyske Parkområde", "Sydjyske Parkområde" and "Sjællandske Parkområde".

November 1 1971 the central authority relocated to Hjørring. In 1983 "Nordjyske Parkområde" and "Sydjyske Parkområde" were combined into "Jyske Parkområde".

In January 1991 a new re-organization saw the light of day. HMAK was organized into "Army Supply Service" (Hærens Forsyningstjeneste), "Army Technical Service" (Hærens Tekniske Tjeneste), "Jutland assembling area" (Jyske Parkområde), "Zealand assembling area" (Sjællandske Parkområde) and "Munition Arsenal" (Ammunitionsarsenalet).

In 1997 "Jutland assembling area" and "Zealand assembling area" was combined into "Army assembling area" (Hærens Parkområde).

Subordinated Level. III authorities

* Army Assembling Area (Hærens Parkområde - HPO)
* Army Head Workshop (Hærens Hovedværksted - HHV)
* Munition Arsenal (Ammunitionsarsenalet - AMA)

ources

* [http://forsvaret.dk/HMAK/Om+HMAK/Historie/ HMAK history] "Closed down"
* [http://forsvaret.dk/FMT/ new command authority] "active"