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From: ssc-vax!wanttaja@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Ronald J Wanttaja)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Dune Buggies
Message-ID: <27087@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: 2 Sep 89 07:29:23 GMT
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From: ssc-vax!wanttaja@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Ronald J Wanttaja)

A good friend of mine was in the 9th Inf. Div. at Ft. Lewis... commonly
known as the "Toys R Us Brigade."  Their job was to test screwball, er,
unconventional hardware and tactics such as this.  His first assignment was
with a company of off-the-shelf Dodge pickup trucks armed with TOW
launchers and auto-40mm grenade launchers.  After that, he commanded a
small unit of thhe Dune Buggies, armed similarly.

Their main job was antitank... and the buggies did fairly well, from a
blunt theoretical point of view.  On exercises, they lost three VWs for
every tank killed... a good cost ratio, but rather hard on crews.  It was
definitely fun to roar about in them, but no one really wanted to take them
into combat.

If I remember right, reliability was poor.  This was especially true of the
Dodge trucks... they may be all right for civilian use, but civilians don't
play "Rat Patrol" for weeks on end.  The trucks and the VWs were
eventually replaced by Humvees.

Ron Wanttaja
(ssc-vax!wanttaja)