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Post by Frenchie on Aug 13, 2009 17:54:34 GMT 1
MOD reporter Sharon Kean gets behind the wheel of a Springer, the all-terrain light utility truck that is heading for Helmand. As I put on the night vision goggles which will help me to see in the darkness that cloaks the Defence School of Transport at Leconfield, I immediately lose my spatial awareness. It's a good thing I'm just the passenger for a night test drive of Springer, the latest Army vehicle. My driver is Colour Sergeant Martin Edwards, a Royal Marine in charge of training soldiers to use the vehicle: "You get used to it pretty quickly," he says. "And you have to. These are the sort of conditions the lads out there have to operate in, except it's darker in Afghanistan." I am covered by Gore-Tex and strapped into the passenger seat with a four-point harness. A murky fluorescent green blur becomes a tree-line as I tweak the goggles' focus. My vision is improving, but my sense of distance is strange and I have just a 50-degree field of vision. I hope they don't let it outside the gates!More >>Attachments:
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Post by cammy on Aug 14, 2009 12:55:53 GMT 1
What an absolutely amazing piece of technoligy... The D**k Heads on my estate race around in something like that every friday night.... I bet our troops will realy feel safe in one of these NO MOT NEEDED
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bigstevie
Kingsman
Honorary Member
Posts: 197
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Post by bigstevie on Aug 14, 2009 14:48:37 GMT 1
"Springer's main purpose is to carry casualties and cargo between relatively safe helipads and base facilities." £7 million to do a job that a Snatch with the armour stripped off could've done? OK let me see if I've got this right - the infantry battalions are over-worked, under-manned, on operations, but because of an influx of vehicle types with no similarities and of complex designs, they now require more training and "200 drivers per battalion" at a time when the sword is about to fall on anything that doesn't go 'bang' and kills someone. And they bring out this combat go-cart....a converted ex-Royal Mail delivery van. Someone out there, probably related to someone in defence procurement, is laughing their d**ks off at this gift of money for sod-all.
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