The Doctor's Office: Baby, You Can Drive My Car

Well, this week I decided I would show you a little more of what we do at work. This focuses mainly on the cooler end of the job: the vehicles. You all saw earlier in the blog that I got to drive a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, but I also get to play with other vehicles to. Hence, this will be my "Tribute to the Vehicles of the U.S. Army."

We use a lot of different vehicles, especially when at war. There are the more common warfighter vehicles, but what a lot of people don't understand is that there's a very large logistical footprint needed to support the fighting force. That's what we do, basically.

Just about everything we use is armored. Take this bulldozer, for example. It usually has an open canopy, but it has been up-armored to help protect it against small arms fire. Most of the time, when a new base is being built, they don't get access to concrete blast walls like we have, so until those come, they have to build large, earthen berms. That's where Mr. Dozer helps out.

We also up armor other civilian-style vehicles, like semi trucks. As I'm sure you all know, the military is spread very thin here, so we use many contractors, like third country nationals. They are called "whites," and they drive mainly Mercedes and Saab Scania trucks, all up-armored. It's funny to see, since the only thing that they preserve when they put on the armor is the badge on the front of the truck. There's a gaudy brown truck going down the road, and what catches your eye is the shiny Mercedes logo.

Aside from the civilian style vehicles, we have many vehicles that were designed exclusively for use in the Armed Forces. Perhaps the most familiar is the M998 High Mobility, Multi-purpose, Wheeled Vehicle, more affectionately known as the Hummvee. This old workhorse has been in service for about twenty or so years now, and has gone through many lives. The most recent incarnation is the M1114 Up-Armored Humvee. It is retrofitted with "frag 5" blast resistance kits, which I believe are a type of reactive armor. It increases the overall weight of the vehicle by about 3 or 4,000 pounds, and makes each door weigh about four hundred pounds. The addition of all the armor and ballistic glass in the turret makes it really top-heavy, resulting in the infamous "roll-over." We had all those simulations in Kuwait, and I have been in an M1114 for less than a mile in the country of Iraq. Good training.

Now, the Humvee can serve several roles. Most of the time, it is a "gun truck," or more simply, convoy security. Other times "gun truck" can mean a vehicle on a combat patrol. Either way, they are still the same vehichle with a really big gun on top (usually a M2 .50 cal machine gun).
When it is serving as a convoy support vehicle, it is usually escorting "whites," or it is escorting "blues," which are us and all of our allies (Britain). I already told you about the civilian trucks, so let me enlighten you on a few of the systems we use for moving cargo.

The first is the M915. This is just a simple bobtail semi tractor that is used to haul flatbed trailers. Not too special, but necessary nonetheless.
An upgrade to that is the M1070 HETS. This is the Heavy Equipment Transport System used in today's military to haul the real big stuff.

This guy is a monster. It has a maximum payload of 140,000 pounds on its trailer, which is supported by load leveling, side to side independent suspension on forty tires. It even automatically steers. This has room for up to six people, and when not in use as a seat, the benches in the rear of the cab will transform into bunks for the driver and assistant. Pretty cool, huh?

Our next exhibit is the PLS, or Palletized Loading System is another cool cat. This is a variation of the HEMTT system. That stands for Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. The PLS is the M983 version, fitted with a Material Handling Crane, which you can see in the picture.

This crane, with the ten foot boom, is capable of loading 14, 620 pounds. What makes it super cool, though, is that it loads the cargo on a flatrack, which is a platform that has a loop extending from the front, perpendicular to the surface, which allows the cargo to be raised off of the ground and placed on the truck while maintaining a constant parallel with the ground. I'll try to get some pictures of it in action. It is strong enough to lift a fully up-armored M1114 onto its back.

As all of you know, I'm sure, IED's are a big problem over here. They've been used in one form or another for years by groups like the NRA, Hezbollah, Hamas and most prolifically, the Tamil Tigers. Oddly enough, it has taken this conflict for us to develop doctrine for roadside bombs and suicide bombers. We're fighting back, though. We've taken technology and vehicles that South Africa has been using for a very long time and put them to our use. These vehicles, of which I will show you two, are primarily for the engineers and explosive ordinance disposal teams. Thew go out and sweep routes, as aptly named "route clearance teams."
The first is the RG-31, affectionately called the Cougar. This is a mine resistant, lightly armored vehicle.

It is often used in place of the Humvee in route clearance and EOD teams, since it's much better at taking the blow. If you look closely, you can kind of see the v-shaped hull hidden beneath all of the external storage compartments and fenders. It's also much stronger because it has no side doors. There is one door in the back. There's rumor that all the Hummvees will be replaced with these in the years to come.
This guy has a big brother, too. It's the RG-33, or the Buffalo.

The Buffalo is a much larger 6x6 model, also with the v-shaped hull, and the rocket resistant caging on the outside. This is the big boy of ordinance disposal devices. It has very, very seldom ever been defeated by an IED. Note the boom on the passenger side. It's got a big slotted scoop on the end and there's a camera on the top. EOD teams can pick up, manipulate and examine ordinance from the safety of the vehicle. The vehicle's resistance and boom have earned it the nickname "the Claw" by insurgents. Apparently, there are places in Baghdad where the graffiti says, "kill the claw," obviously written by foiled bomb-makers.

i'm in the buffalo

Well, I saved the best for last. When I think of Army, I think of these:

this is my favorite

This is a M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank. This, like the carrier for the Navy, is the grandaddy of land warfare force projection. I won't go into all of the wicked details about it here, but you can check out more info about vehicles at www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/index.html and see for yourself. Needless to say, it is split up into two compartments: the turret and the driver's seat. You drive it in a recumbent position, and the compartment itself is tiny.

leg room is not prime

See what I mean? Three people sit in the turret to man the guns. This thing has a 7.62mm machine gun mounted coaxially with the main gun, which in itself is a 120mm smoothbore cannon. The loader also has a 7.62mm machine gun on a skate mount, and the commander has a .50 cal M2 machine gun. Everything is super high tech computerized.

view from the top

This is a pic from on top of the turret looking down. The seat that is most visible is the commander's, and the gunner sits below and in front of him. The sliver of seat that can be seen at the bottom is where the loader sits. Both the loader and commander have hatches, so they both can sit up and man the weapons when there is no need to be "buttoned up." The commander can also aim and fire the main gun independently of the gunner, and when all hatches are closed, has 360 degree vision due to the various sighting instruments and periscopes. Here's your virtual tour: