Any vehicle that doesn't have to have recovery's phone number taped to dash is a welcome change.
From a sig perspective - I'm sure there will be some issues with the CP pods but that will work itself out since
we've been wasting most of our valuable training time anyways jury rigging mods and gear because
half the convoy broke down en-route to the training area.
oh and if the things could actually maintain highway speed into the wind so we can actually traverse
the rather large distances we have to travel in this country --- that would be nice ---
As for offroad capabilities --- I've driven Hummers (in stuff that you wouldn't want to try in something else), Iltis, MLVW's, Toyota's, and have a Dodge 3500.
Haven't seen the performance of the G-Wagon yet ---- but it doesn't matter what you have if you have people behind the wheel who don't know how to drive offroad
- most of what I've seen is people who drive daily on pavement (maybe a few gravel roads / forestry roads once in awhile) climb into a military vehicle and either
a) think it's some type of dirt bike/quad purposely running em thru bogs - revving em up and generally playing till they get stuck (which sucks for them since we don't carry recovery straps, cumalongs/winches (which is kind of odd considering).
or
b) drive beyond THEIR capabilities - offroad driving is a different skillset -
We aren't privy to whether our higher ups were asked to comment on what capabilities we needed - but I hope they answered thinking about how we train/respond
- sub-arctic nation - deep snow in winter, muddy deeply rutted roads at other times - yes it needs to be usable in the field (or are we now relegated to practicing in parking lots??? local campgrounds??? :
)
- big country - need to be able to get to places in a somewhat timely manner.
- trucks sit outside in winter for extended periods
- need to carry/transport A LOT of gear/equipment
- able to ascend steep forestry roads without overheating like they did on Op Peregrine - even if you were using the lower gears to keep the tranny fluid circulating (as recommended by the Vehtechs)
- able to get repair parts for them - easily - so it can be fixed in a week - as opposed to a month.
- and while we only use them for 30-40 training days each year - trying to pool them or make them universally accessible to everyone - just wastes a reserve units training time by having to prep a vehicle all the time - our ex's/training has now ground down to prep truck/unprep truck (assuming someone hasn't 'borrowed/loaned' out the truck/gear you need) - not exactly a valuable use of our time...
I'd rather have vehicles that at least allows us to practice what we are supposed to; and allows us to get where we are needed - I'm okay with leaving the big boy trucks to the guys who are using them as tools - they need them.