A technical, known as a non-standard tactical vehicle (NSTV) in United States military parlance, is a light improvised fighting vehicle, typically an open-backed civilian pickup truck or four-wheel drive vehicle modified to mount SALWs and heavy weaponry, such as a machine gun, automatic grenade launcher, anti-aircraft autocannon, rotary cannon, anti-tank weapon, anti-tank gun, ATGM, mortar, multiple rocket launcher, recoilless rifle, or other support weapon (somewhat like a light military gun truck or potentially even a self-propelled gun), etc.
The neologism technical describing such a vehicle is believed to have originated in Somalia during the Somali Civil War in the early 1990s. [1] [2] Barred from bringing in private security, non-governmental organizations hired local gunmen to protect their personnel, using money defined as "technical assistance grants". Eventually the term broadened to include any vehicle carrying armed men. [3] However, an alternative account is given by Michael Maren, who says the term was first used in Somalia in the 1980s, after engineers from Soviet arms manufacturer Tekniko mounted weapons on vehicles for the Somali National Movement during the Somaliland War of Independence. [1] Technicals have also been referred to as battlewagons and gunwagons. [4]
Among irregular militaries, often centered on the perceived strength and charisma of male warlords, the prestige of technicals is strong. According to one article, "The Technical is the most significant symbol of power in southern Somalia. It is a small truck with large tripod machine guns mounted on the back. A warlord's power is measured by how many of these vehicles he has." [5] Technicals are not commonly used by well-funded militaries that are able to procure purpose-built combat vehicles, because the soft-skinned civilian vehicles that technicals are based on do not offer much armor protection to crew and passengers.
Technicals fill the niche of traditional light cavalry. Their major asset is speed and mobility, as well as their ability to strike from unexpected directions with automatic fire and light troop deployment. Further, the reliability of vehicles such as the Toyota Hilux is useful for forces that lack the repair-related infrastructure of a conventional military on land. However, in direct engagements they are no match for heavier vehicles, such as tanks or other armored fighting vehicles, and they are mostly helpless against any air support from a proper military. [ citation needed ]
In Russia and Ukraine, technicals are often referred to as tachanka , a reference to horse drawn machine gun platforms from the First World War and Russian Civil War.
Light improvised fighting vehicles date back to the first use of automobiles, and to the horse-drawn tachankas mounting machine guns in eastern Europe and Russia. At the Bombardment of Papeete during World War I, the French armed several Ford trucks with 37 mm guns to bolster their defense of the city. [6] During the Spanish Civil War, field guns were fixed to trucks to act as improvised self-propelled guns, while improvised armored cars were constructed by attaching steel plates to trucks. [7]
During World War II, various British and Commonwealth units, including the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), the No. 1 Demolition Squadron or 'PPA' (Popski's Private Army), and the Special Air Service (SAS) were noted for their exploits in the deserts of Egypt, Libya and Chad using unarmored motor vehicles, often fitted with machine guns. Examples of LRDG vehicles include the Chevrolet WB 30 cwt Patrol Truck [8] and the Willys MB Jeep. [9]
The SAS' use of heavily armed Land Rovers continued post war with their use of Series 1 Land Rovers and later Series 11A 1968 Land Rovers in the Dhofar Rebellion. The SAS painted their Land Rovers pink as it was found to provide excellent camouflage in the desert and they were nicknamed 'Pink Panthers' or Pinkies. The SAS also used a more modern Land Rover Desert Patrol Vehicle (DPV) during the Gulf War. [10]
Tactics for employing technicals were pioneered by the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Polisario Front, fighting for independence against Mauritania (1975–79) and Morocco (1975–present) from headquarters in Tindouf, Algeria. Algeria provided arms and Land Rovers to Sahrawi guerrillas, who successfully used them in long-range desert raids against the less agile conventional armies of their opponents, recalling Sahrawi tribal raids (ghazis) of the pre-colonial period. Polisario later gained access to heavier equipment, but four-wheel drive vehicles remain a staple of their arsenal.[ citation needed ]
The Moroccan army quickly changed their strategy and created mounted units using technicals [11] to challenge Polisario speed and hit and run strategies in the large desert, where the Moroccan units proved their efficiency.
In 1987, Chadian troops equipped with technicals drove the heavily mechanized Libyan army from the Aozou Strip. The vehicles were instrumental in the victory at the Battle of Fada, and were driven over 150 km (93 mi) into Libya to raid military bases. It was discovered that these light vehicles could ride through anti-tank minefields without detonating the mines when driven at speeds over 100 km/h. The vehicles had become so famous that, in 1984, Time dubbed early stages of the conflict the "Great Toyota War". [12]
The Toyota War was unusual in that the force equipped with improvised vehicles prevailed over the force equipped with purpose-built fighting vehicles. MILAN anti-tank guided missiles provided by France were key to the Chadian success, while the Libyan forces were poorly deployed and organized.
Throughout the conflict in Northern Ireland (1960s-1998), the Provisional IRA fitted vehicles, especially vans and trucks, with automatic weapons, heavy machine guns, [13] and also improvised mortars. [14] [15] Sometimes the vehicles were armored with welded plates and sandbags. [16] [17] The IRA employed tractors and trailers to transport and fire improvised mortars, and heavy equipment to tear down fences and barbed wire and break into fortified security bases. [18] [17] [19] Improvised flamethrowers were usually modified manure spreaders pulled to their targets by tractor. [20] [21]
Technicals played an important role in the 1990s Somali Civil War and the War in Somalia (2006–2009). Even prior to the collapse of the Somali Democratic Republic, camouflaged Toyota pickup trucks with mounted M2 Browning machine guns appeared in Somali military parades during the 1980s. After the fall of the Siad Barre regime and the collapse of the Somali National Army (SNA), it was rare for any Somali force to field armored fighting vehicles. However, technicals were very common.
Somali faction leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid used 30 technicals along with a force of 600 militia to capture Baidoa in September 1995. [22] It was reported that after his death in 1996, his body was carried to his funeral on a Toyota pickup. [23]
Proving their susceptibility to heavy weapons and their value as a military prize, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was able to capture 30 "battlewagons" during the defeat of warlord Abdi Qeybdid's militia at the Second Battle of Mogadishu in 2006. [24] That September, an impressive array of 130 technicals was used to take Kismayo from the forces of the Juba Valley Alliance. [25]
On November 13, 2006, then President of Puntland, General Adde Musa, personally led fifty technicals to Galkacyo to confront the Islamists. They were used a month later against the army of the Islamic Courts Union at the Battle of Bandiradley alongside Abdi Qeybdiid's reconstituted militia. [26]
However, forced into conventional battles in the War in Somalia (2006–2009), the unarmored technicals of the ICU proved no match for the T-55 tanks, Mil Mi-24 helicopter gunships and fighter-bombers employed by Ethiopia.[ citation needed ]
In the War in Afghanistan, U.S. special operations forces units such as the Green Berets were known to use technicals for patrol both because of the rugged terrain and the nature of their clandestine operations. [27] [ citation needed ] The Taliban also use technicals in the bulk of their mobile fighting force. [28] [29]
Technicals were used by Iraqi military forces in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. [30] The Iraqi Republican Guard and Fedayeen emulated tactics of the Somali National Alliance with limited success, [31] [32] but were outmatched by Coalition armor and aviation. [33] [34] In the aftermath of the invasion technicals saw use by Iraqi insurgents for transporting personnel and quick raids against the Iraqi police forces. The insurgent use of technicals increased after the Iraq Spring Fighting of 2004.[ citation needed ]
Many military utility vehicles have been modified to serve as gun trucks to protect Coalition convoys. The Humvee allows for weapon mounts by design, so it is not considered a technical.
The Coalition also supplied technicals to the Iraqi police. [35] Private military contractors also use technicals and the United States military used modified Toyota Hiluxes, Land Cruisers, and other trucks as well. [36]
Janjaweed militias use technicals on their raids against civilian villages in Darfur, Sudan, [37] as do the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel troops in defense of their areas of operations. [38] Light vehicles such as technicals are often thought to be more mobile than armored vehicles, but on one occasion an African peace-keeper driving a Grizzly AVGP whose guns had jammed, succeeded in catching up with, ramming and rolling over a fleeing Sudanese technical. [39]
Introduced by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrilla groups, technicals were extensively employed by all factions involved in the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 and 1990, including the Christian Lebanese Front and the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) irregular militias, the Lebanese Army and the Internal Security Forces (ISF). Opposition forces have reportedly used technicals in the fighting for the Chouf District during the May 2008 clashes in Lebanon. [40]
During the First Libyan Civil War, both regime loyalist forces as well as the anti-Gaddafi forces used technicals extensively. The type of warfare that had been carried out in the conflict—wherein highly mobile groups of soldiers and rebels continued to move to and from on the desert terrain, retreating at a time and then suddenly attacking to regain control of small towns and villages in the Eastern rebel held parts of Libya—had led to the technical becoming a vehicle of choice for both sides.
Technicals had also been widely used by the rebels whilst setting up checkpoints. It also formed a vast percentage of the rebel inventory which was limited to light weapons, light body armor and very few tanks. Some medium flatbed trucks carried the Soviet-made ZPU and ZU-23-2 towed anti-aircraft twin or quad barreled guns, as well as recoilless rifles and S-5 rocket helicopter rocket launcher pods. [41] Some rebels have improvised with captured heavy weaponry, like BMP-1 turrets [42] and helicopter rocket pods, as well as lower-tech methods such as using doorbells to ignite rocket-launched ammunition. [43] Rebel technicals have also frequently employed BM-21 Grad rockets. Rocket tubes were salvaged from damaged regime Ural-375D trucks and mounted on the backs of pickups, with the technicals able to fire anywhere from one to six rockets. [44] [45] [46]
This article needs to be updated.(October 2015) |
In the Syrian Civil War, technicals are extensively used as improvised fighting vehicles, especially by opposition forces such as Jaysh al-Thuwar, who largely lack conventional fighting vehicles. Syrian government forces also use technicals, but on a smaller scale. The kind of weapons mounted on technicals varies widely, including machine guns, recoilless rifles, anti-aircraft autocannons (commonly ZPU and ZU-23-2) and even BMP-1 turrets. The Military of ISIL extensively used technicals in Iraq and Syria.
Peshmerga forces have used technicals to surround and attack ISIS targets. [47]
During the 2014 war in Donbas, both sides were using home-made military vehicles. [48] OSCE monitors recorded 15 Russian armored utility vehicles (UAZ-23632-148 Esaul) in a training area near non-government-controlled Oleksandrivska in April 2021. [49] [50]
In the Yemeni Civil War, Houthis and Hadi-aligned militias use technicals.
Technicals were seen being used by Spetsnaz in Gomel, Belarus on February 24, 2022. [51] Ukrainian forces reportedly used rocket launchers recovered from downed helicopters, mounted on technicals. [52]
Technicals consist of weapons mounted on a civilian vehicle, such as a four-wheel drive pickup truck. Many pickups have been used as technicals including Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi Triton, but the most favoured are the Toyota Hilux and Toyota Land Cruiser. They are typically fitted with heavy machine guns (especially the DShK and M2 Browning), anti-aircraft artillery (usually the ZPU or ZU-23-2), recoilless rifles (usually the SPG-9 or M40 recoilless rifle), anti-tank missiles launchers, multiple rocket launchers such as the Type 63 or the M-63 Plamen and in rare occasions rocket pods salvaged from downed attack helicopters like the S-5 rocket.
Due to being soft-skinned vehicles, optional add-on hardware include ballistic glass, turret gun shields and improvised vehicle armor such as made of welded steel plates as defense against small arms fire to increase survival chances.
An armoured fighting vehicle or armored fighting vehicle (AFV) is an armed combat vehicle protected by armour, generally combining operational mobility with offensive and defensive capabilities. AFVs can be wheeled or tracked. Examples of AFVs are tanks, armoured cars, assault guns, self-propelled artilleries, infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), and armoured personnel carriers (APC).
A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) is a shoulder-fired rocket weapon that launches rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. Most RPGs can be carried by an individual soldier, and are frequently used as anti-tank weapons. These warheads are affixed to a rocket motor which propels the RPG towards the target and they are stabilized in flight with fins. Some types of RPG are reloadable with new rocket-propelled grenades, while others are single-use. RPGs are generally loaded from the front.
The Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) was a reconnaissance and raiding unit of the British Army during the Second World War.
A recoilless rifle (rifled), recoilless launcher (smoothbore), or simply recoilless gun, sometimes abbreviated to "RR" or "RCL" is a type of lightweight artillery system or man-portable launcher that is designed to eject some form of countermass such as propellant gas from the rear of the weapon at the moment of firing, creating forward thrust that counteracts most of the weapon's recoil. This allows for the elimination of much of the heavy and bulky recoil-counteracting equipment of a conventional cannon as well as a thinner-walled barrel, and thus the launch of a relatively large projectile from a platform that would not be capable of handling the weight or recoil of a conventional gun of the same size. Technically, only devices that use spin-stabilized projectiles fired from a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles, while smoothbore variants are recoilless guns. This distinction is often lost, and both are often called recoilless rifles.
Missile d'Infanterie Léger Antichar or MILAN is a Franco-West German anti-tank guided missile system. Design of the MILAN began in 1962; it was ready for trials in 1971, and accepted for service in 1972. It is a wire-guided semi-automatic command to line of sight (SACLOS) missile, which means the sight of the launch unit must be aimed at a target to guide the missile. The MILAN can be equipped with a MIRA or MILIS thermal sight to give it night-firing ability.
A weapons platform is generally any structure, vehicle or mechanism on which a weapon can be installed for optimal stability and performance. The mounted weapons, the platform and all other associated supporting equipments together form the weapon system.
The ZU-23-2, also known as ZU-23, is a Soviet towed 23×152mm anti-aircraft twin-barreled autocannon. ZU stands for Zenitnaya Ustanovka – anti-aircraft mount. The GRAU index is 2A13.
A gun truck is an armored vehicle with one or more crew-served weapons, typically based on a commercial vehicle. Gun trucks often have improvised vehicle armor, such as scrap metal, concrete, gravel, or sandbags, which is added to a heavy truck.
The M40 recoilless rifle is a portable, crew-served 105 mm recoilless rifle made in the United States. Intended primarily as an anti-tank weapon, it could also be employed in an antipersonnel role with the use of an antipersonnel-tracer flechette round. The bore was commonly described as being 106 mm caliber but is in fact 105 mm; the 106 mm designation was intended to prevent confusion with incompatible 105 mm ammunition from the failed M27. The air-cooled, breech-loaded, single-shot rifle fired fixed ammunition and was used primarily from a wheeled ground mount. It was designed for direct firing only, and sighting equipment for this purpose was furnished with each weapon, including an affixed spotting rifle.
The ZPU is a family of towed anti-aircraft guns based on the Soviet 14.5×114mm KPV heavy machine gun. It entered service with the Soviet Union in 1949 and is used by over 50 countries worldwide.
The SPG-9 Kopyo is a tripod-mounted man-portable, 73 millimetre calibre recoilless gun developed by the Soviet Union. It fires fin-stabilised, rocket-assisted high explosive (HE) and high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) shaped charge projectiles similar to those fired by the 73 mm 2A28 Grom low pressure gun of the BMP-1 armored vehicle. It was accepted into service in 1962, replacing the B-10 recoilless rifle.
The Independent Nasserite Movement – INM (Arabic: حركة الناصريين المستقلين-المرابطون, romanized: Harakat al-Nasiriyin al-Mustaqillin) or simply Al-Murabitoun (المرابطون lit. The Steadfast), also termed variously Independent Nasserite Organization (INO) or Movement of Independent Nasserists (MIN), is a Nasserist political party in Lebanon.
The Battle of Fada took place in northern Chad in 1987, and was a turning point of the Chadian–Libyan conflict.
The Toyota War, also known as the Great Toyota War, which took place in 1987 in Northern Chad and on the Chad–Libya border, was the last phase of the Chadian–Libyan War. It takes its name from the Toyota pickup trucks, primarily the Toyota Hilux and the Toyota Land Cruiser, used to provide mobility for the Chadian troops as they fought against the Libyans, and as technicals. The 1987 war resulted in a heavy defeat for Libya, which, according to American sources, lost one tenth of its army, with 7,500 men killed and US$1.5 billion worth of military equipment destroyed or captured. Chadian forces only suffered 1,000 deaths.
An improvised fighting vehicle is an ad hoc combat vehicle resulting from modified or upgraded civilian or military non-combat vehicle, often constructed and employed by civilian insurgents, terrorists, rebels, guerrillas, partisans, drug cartels, criminal organizations or other forms of non-state militias and irregular armies. Such modifications usually consist of grafting improvised armour plating and fixed crew-served weapons such as heavy machine guns or antiaircraft autocannons mounted onto the back of a utility vehicle or pickup truck.
Improvised vehicle armour is a form of vehicle armour consisting of protective materials added to a vehicle such as a car, truck, or tank in an irregular and extemporized fashion using available materials. Typically, improvised armour is added in the field and it was not originally part of the design, an official up-armour kit, nor centrally planned and distributed. Improvised armour is used to protect occupants from small arms, crew-served weapons, artillery fire, and mines. Improvised additions have included metal plate, scrap metal, sandbags, concrete, wood, and, since at least the 2000s, Kevlar. These materials vary widely in their ballistic protection.
The National Liberation Army, officially the National Liberation Armed Forces of the Free Libyan Republic, formerly known as the Free Libyan Army, was a Libyan military organisation affiliated with the National Transitional Council, which was constituted during the First Libyan Civil War by defected military members and civilian volunteers, in order to engage in battle against both remaining members of the Libyan Armed Forces and paramilitia loyal to the rule of Muammar Gaddafi. Its self proclaimed chief commander was General Khalifa Haftar, although the National Transitional Council preferred to appoint Major General Abdul Fatah Younes Al-Obeidi as its commander-in-chief. It had prepared for some time in portions of Eastern Libya controlled by the anti-Gaddafi forces for eventual full-on combat in Western Libya against pro-Gaddafi militants, training many men before beginning to go on the offensive. They have battled for control of Benghazi, Misrata, Brega, Ajdabiya, Zawiya and Ra's Lanuf as well as several towns in the Nafusa Mountains. They finally began the Battle for Tripoli in August 2011 when they attacked from the west of the city, as well as fomenting an internal uprising on 20 August.
The Auto-Saharan Companies were Italian military units specialised in long range patrols of the Sahara Desert. Companies were formed around expert soldiers, riding AB 41 armored cars and FIAT and Lancia light trucks customized to operate in the desert. The units operated from the late 1930s to the Italian surrender in 1943.
From November 2015 to 2019, the United States and allies carried out a large series of both airstrikes and drone strikes to intervene in Libya in its revived conflict in support of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord against the ISIL presence in the region. By 2019, the ISIL branch had been largely driven from holding Libyan territory, and US strikes ceased.
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