Driving tanks with the Army

Hull and high water

We’re actually in Hull to see the new armoured vehicles that are being deployed to Afghanistan, specifically the Ridgeback, Mastiff II and something known as the Jackal. ‘Parts of Hull are quite like Afghanistan,’ we are assured by one of the commanding officers. After the taxi ride to the Defence School of Transport we can confirm this is true.

The point of the day is to show off the new kit, and despite most of it looking like a shopping trolley crossed with a dustbin truck crossed with one of them cool trucks the stone-circle-hippies used to drive to Glastonbury, the kit is indeed rather impressive.

Below is a list of impressive stats surrounding the machines that we found particularly striking. We drove through the water rather quickly. It was quite fun. And we wish good fortune to all who use them in our peace efforts abroad.

Ridgeback:
This 19-tonne behemoth has got air-con inside. No stereo, but air-con. And even if it has all its tyres shot out then it can still travel for 70km (we can’t remember how it does this, but they wouldn’t lie, would they?).
It costs £1.2m to build, has six cameras placed around the vehicle for 360-degree vision in battle and glides through water like a swan through zero-gravity.

Mastiff II:
This is a wider version of its predecessor. It has bar armour all round it like a giant supermarket basket. It’s there primarily to combat RPGs – their fins get caught in the armour you see, and they don’t explode on impact with the main chassis/shell. Ten soldiers can fit in here. There is a also card table with an ashtray built in the middle. And on deployment they are to be painted with lovelies from the British isles with their bits hanging out.*

Jackal:
This is right nimble unit even though it weighs, like, loads. It doesn’t have a cabin, which worried us. No cabin means it has much better all-round vision for communications and combat. We couldn’t help thinking it was probably bad for stray bullets though. Still, they must have thought of that too, right? These looked the most fun to drive for sure. The cedits said it was too.

www.armyjobs.mod.uk

(*The last two sentences in this paragraph are not based on fact. At all.)

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