Thanks for the article Jonathan.
via Defense-aerospace.com
Military vehicles have been withdrawn from the frontline after they failed safety checks.Too bad.
Armoured Viking all-terrain vehicles were used in Afghanistan but have already been replaced by Warthogs.
The MOD wanted to give the Vikings to Royal Marines for frontline use but those plans were scrapped when damaged from carrying too much weight was discovered.
-ends-
When the discussion first started about the Marine Personnel Carrier, I suggested that the Marine Corps should consider this vehicle...especially since I could not find any rationale for it being wheeled. With the British experience of this type of vehicle failing safety checks and not being able to stand up to IEDs, it would appear that the perfect all terrain vehicle is headed to the scrap heap.
Actually Sol, what I have seen is that they're only being retired temporarily until funds are made available for a full reset, possibly to include new hulls.
ReplyDeleteThe Viking 2 resolves a lot of the issues of Viking, designed with the lessons learned from these original Vikings in Afghan. The safety check failures have only stemmed from the weight overload and excessive use in theatre.
Isn't the Warthog very similar to the Viking but a bit larger? It's not really clear to me how many of each the RM operates, maybe someone else can elaborate?
ReplyDeleteSol i wonder if we can get a bargain basement price for those like we did their harriers :)
ReplyDeleteLane, the Warthog is similar, but with more built in armour, and designed to handle more weight from the outset. It isn't clear how many of each are currently operated simply because Afghan trashed the fleet, and its not clear how many have made it through, hence why I mentioned that new hulls might be included in the reset. But I think ballpark figure, around 100 Warthogs were ordered, and 100-200 Vikings have been ordered but not sure how many are now in use.
ReplyDeleteJoe, like I said, they're just on hold until funds are made available, so hands off our kit!
Nothing much to add that the others haven't covered, but its not so much a bad vehicle, as one that was simply abused.
ReplyDeleteThey are designed to transport a section in fighting order, and that's it.
Before they went to Afghanistan, they had bar armor added and that almost certainly put them over their weight limit.
Then they made it to Afghanistan, and the soldiers their up armored them with whatever they could scrounge, putting them further over their weight limits.
The Marines then went on patrol, and so on top of the Viking, went rockets, and water, and a dozen extra boxes of bullets.
They were overloaded, and so broke.
Realistically, I think the Viking is a very good vehicle, but its weaknesses mean it needs something else, either a bigger brother, like the warthog, to handle fire support and logistics, or the vehicles need to be fire team, not section, transports, freeing up 500kg of weight per vehicle.