(Another in the growing series of Trogg’s rants)
A minor report in the radio news a couple of days ago (22nd) was followed up on the
xtra and
NZ City web sites but nothing on the mainstream sites (that I could find).
The report is fairly vague but basically two soldiers were injured (one seriously) when their Armoured Personnel Carrier rolled when the terrain beneath it gave way.
Sure, they are soldiers and that is one of the risks they take in their job and in their training but what if the machinery they are given is not suitable and is risking the soldiers before they are even on the battlefield?
Reading between the lines the Armoured Personnel Carrier is probably the new LAV III version, which started to be
phased in from August last year.
This new APC is basically a $6,000,000 eight wheel drive truck (replacing the vintage but still dependable M113 tracked APC) with the latest toys and gadgets that money can buy. Unfortunately they are not the most reliable with
the first six delivered suffering from a range of problems, one even suffered a broken axle one month after delivery. Now is that good value for money when they have done between 277km and 2344km?
Unfortunately there were critics right from announcement of the contract to purchase 105 of them (plus spares etc totalling around $700,000,000).
Many have said they are too heavy (at twenty tonnes) to be useful anywhere other than formed roads therefore useless in areas where they might be deployed like East Timor, Australia’s Northern Territory or even Waiouru. The manufacturer states there have been no problems with previous models (like the USA’s Stryker version) being deployed in Ethiopia and Afghanistan.
Hello… where are the swamps and wet clay in those countries?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to buy something that wasn’t heavy with a high centre of gravity (and was prone to rolling over) for use in the areas where it might be deployed? Obviously not, and now we have two injured in day to day training.
Even the Americians are starting to question if it is money well spent.
How many more personnel of our small Army have to be injured or even paralysed before the powers that be start realising they stuffed up in this purchase and try to find a way out of buying all 105 of them only to be parked up?
:shrug: