In the 70s and 80s, almost no armed conflict was complete without the use by the opposing sides of all-wheel drive jeeps, pickup trucks and trucks as a platform for installing weapons. This was especially typical for conflicts where one of the parties was irregular formations.
So various groups during the civil war in Lebanon, to increase the mobility of rapid-fire anti-aircraft guns, quite often mounted them on the chassis of cars.
The unpretentious and reliable Unimog with a 23-mm twin ZU-23 or 14, a 5-mm quadruple unit ZPU-4 was especially popular. At the same time, shooting at ground targets was carried out much more often than at air targets.
Another place where armed vehicles were actively used was South Africa. So, in a number of conflicts known under the general name "War in the Bush", the armed forces of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa actively used armed off-road vehicles, first against armed national liberation formations, and later against regular Angolan-Cuban troops.
The widespread Unimog was also popular, on which various machine guns were mounted, from MAG rifle caliber to large-caliber M2.
Among the special forces who participated in the raids, Land Rover all-terrain vehicles of various modifications and Bedford trucks were also appreciated. Quite often, vehicles were booked locally.
Twin mounts of Browning M1919 machine guns were mounted as the main armament on vehicles participating in raids. However, jeeps and army trucks were very vulnerable to detonations on anti-tank mines and homemade landmines, which were actively used by partisans.
Land Rover blown up by a mine
From 1972 to 1980, about 2,400 vehicles of various types were destroyed in this region with the help of mines. The explosions killed 632 people and injured over 4,400. Initially, they tried to deal with the mine threat by strengthening the bottom of production vehicles, but it quickly became clear that altering and reinforcing the bottom of a standard vehicle was a road to a dead end.
Very soon, the designers and the military came to the need to create machines of special construction that are maximally resistant to the damaging factors of explosive devices. In order to reduce production costs and simplify design, these machines used components and assemblies of standard army vehicles.
A common feature of the Rhodesian and South African "mine action" vehicles have become: high ground clearance and a reinforced V-shaped bottom designed to effectively dissipate the energy of the explosion and resist shrapnel.
The first combat vehicle that can be considered a full-fledged representative of the MRAP class (Mine resistant and ambush protected - "Machine resistant to mines and protected from ambush attacks") was a model called Hyena ("Hyena"). Developed in South Africa, the car was based on the chassis of one of the Land Rover jeeps.
Armored car "Hyena"
The driver and the troopers were housed in the same volume, since the hull was not divided into several sections. The Hyena's armored hull had no roof. Instead, a fabric awning was stretched on a metal frame or a light metal roof was installed. For self-defense, the shooters had to stand up to their full height and fire from their personal weapons through the gap between the awning and the hull. Getting in and out of the car was carried out through a door in the stern sheet.
This very characteristic looking car, which really bore a certain resemblance to the predator of the same name, was built in the amount of 230 units. Production continued until 1974.
Later in South Africa, on the basis of various chassis, several types of combat vehicles were created that fall under the definition of MRAP. All of them, with more or less success, were used for patrolling, escorting convoys and raids in the bush. Some of them were even used as railroad armored tires.
Armored rubber Kudu
A characteristic feature of all South African armored cars was a specific appearance, because of which they resembled a kind of creation of handicraftsmen, and not professional engineers and mechanics, even if the limited capabilities of the industry under sanctions. But, despite the unsightly appearance, the creation and massive use of these armored vehicles made it possible to reduce the loss of personnel during explosions by about three times.
Armored car Crocodile
Only in the second half of the seventies in South Africa were able to create an armored car with an "exterior" that really resembles a similar technique from the world's leading manufacturers. This project was named Crocodile ("Crocodile"). Subsequently, the rich experience gained in the creation and operation in combat conditions of vehicles of the MRAP type allowed South Africa to become one of the leading manufacturers of such equipment.
In the post-war period in the Soviet Union, whose tank armies, accompanied by motorized infantry on infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, were preparing in the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons to be thrown up to the Channel, the options for armament and armor protection of trucks were not seriously considered. But everything changed after the introduction of a "limited contingent" into Afghanistan, when our transport convoys faced the same problems as the Americans in Vietnam.
During the "international campaign" of the Soviet army, our troops lost 11369 transport vehicles. How many drivers and attendants died in this case, now no one can say for sure. One can only assume that we are talking about thousands of lives. The losses would have been even more significant if our fighters did not show ingenuity and did not begin to protect the cabins with armor plates from damaged armored vehicles. They also hung bulletproof vests on the doors. Domestic industry also contributed to the preservation of personnel.
Were developed "Urals" and "KamAZ" with a partially armored cabin, the weight of the armor was about 200 kilograms. External armor protection and armored blinds on the windshield were installed on the truck cab. Armored screens were mounted on the inner surfaces of panels and doors. Armor protection of cars protects against bullets of caliber 7, 62 mm.
It was in Afghanistan that units of the Soviet Army first began to use trucks with ZU-23 anti-aircraft guns. Paired 23 mm "ZUshki" were mounted in the back of trucks: Ural-375, Ural-4320, ZIL-131, MAZ-503, KamAZ-5320 and KamAZ-4310.
The ZU-23 with a rate of fire of 800-1000 rds / min and a range of up to 2.5 km was capable of literally plowing the slopes of mountains, where spooks set up ambushes. Sometimes an automatic mortar "Vasilek" was mounted in the back. The sides of the cars were hung with bulletproof vests, sandbags were placed on the bottom of the body for protection in the event of a mine explosion.
There were also more exotic options, for example "Ural" with an "armored vehicle" installed in the back with a turret from the BRDM-2 with a block of NURSs.
In the back of vehicles of lower payload: ZIL-130 GAZ-66, 12.7 mm DShK machine guns and 14.5 mm twin ZPU-2 and automatic grenade launchers AGS-17 were mounted.
The first to install various weapons on trucks began in the 159th ODBR, due to the lack of a separate road construction brigade of armored personnel carriers, security units in the staffing table, difficulties in coordinating the allocation of motorized rifle units to guard vehicle convoys.
Later, for this purpose, the regular anti-aircraft artillery units were repurposed as part of all regiments and brigades for which there were no enemy air targets. The mobility of an anti-aircraft gun mounted on a truck, coupled with the ability to fire at high elevation angles, has proven to be an effective means of repelling attacks on convoys in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan.
After the collapse of the USSR, numerous conflicts broke out on the territories of the "independent republics". Not all parties involved in these conflicts were provided with armored vehicles from the seemingly inexhaustible warehouses and parks of the Soviet Army. In some places I had to improvise, creating all sorts of "battleships" and "carts" often on the chassis of civil trucks and buses.
An improvised armored car based on the KrAZ-256B dump truck, built during the Transnistrian conflict in 1992
Soon, the Russian Army also had to remember the Afghan experience. The practice of using armed trucks practically unchanged came to Chechnya, where such vehicles were and are being used by units of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Vehicles used as fire support vehicles are equipped with large-caliber machine guns or ZU-23 anti-aircraft guns.
To protect the driver and the landing force, body armor, sandbags, logs, shell boxes, armored parts removed from damaged or worn out equipment were used.
During the Second Chechen War, factory-made armored trucks began to enter the troops. Most of these "armored vehicles" of various modifications were made on the basis of the "Ural". But, unfortunately, not all of them were able to provide an acceptable level of security, especially when detonated by mines and land mines.
In this regard, in a number of automotive design bureaus under the Typhoon program, the development of domestic machines similar to MRAP began.
One of these "explosion-proof" models is the Ural-63095 Typhoon all-wheel drive three-axle multifunctional vehicle.
Another similar vehicle was the KamAZ-63968 Typhoon.
The American military who invaded Afghanistan and Iraq soon began to suffer significant losses in attacks on their transport convoys. It turned out that the trucks and army off-road vehicles available to the Americans are easy prey for numerous insurgents and terrorists who have settled on the roofs of narrow streets of Iraqi cities and in the greenery along the highways. Attaching an armored personnel carrier or an infantry fighting vehicle to each car is not possible - it is too expensive even for such a generously funded military department like the Pentagon. American soldiers involuntarily had to remember the Vietnamese experience and tinker with gantrucks.
A large number of a wide variety of options for armored and armed trucks appeared. A significant part of them were converted at the factory using specially designed serial protection elements. Most often, gantrucks were created on the basis of the M923 and M939 trucks, which were armed with automatic grenade launchers, single machine guns and large-caliber machine guns.
For a standard army 5-ton truck M939, an armored capsule "Hunter box" was designed, which was an armored "box" installed in the body, with loopholes for firing 2-4 single 7, 62-mm or large-caliber 12, 7 -mm machine guns.
The Hammer-based Gantruck was designated M1114. With a total weight of about 5 tons, this vehicle had "in a circle" armor protection against 7.62 mm rifle bullets.
During the operation in Iraq, the Up-Armor kit was created. This innovation, which has had several types and iterations, included armored doors with bulletproof glass, side and rear armor panels, and ballistic windscreens that provide increased protection against small arms fire and simple improvised explosive devices in the side projection.
M1114
The set of removable armament for the M1114 in the open-top turret includes everything from light machine guns to large-caliber 12, 7-mm machine gun mounts and automatic 40-mm grenade launchers.
The armored "Hammer" turned out to be very heavy (the weight of the armor reached 1000 kg), which made it difficult to operate, contributed to accelerated wear of the suspension, reduced speed, controllability, and reliability. At the same time, the armor did not protect against cumulative grenades and explosions under the bottom of the car.
In a combat situation, there were cases when servicemen could not urgently leave the damaged M1114 due to the excessive weight of the armored doors. A crew member operating a rooftop weapon is extremely vulnerable.
The heaviest gantruck used by the US armed forces in Iraq was the "battleship" based on the 4-axle ten-ton M985 truck. This machine became a real "gunboat", in the armored box installed on the cargo platform, up to 6 machine guns and automatic grenade launchers were mounted.
The creation and use of such "monsters", of course, increased the security of the transport convoy, but these machines, in fact, were "ballast", incapable of transporting a payload. As a result, the American military command made a bet on the massive supply of factory elements for armoring truck cabs to the troops with the installation of an M2NV machine-gun turret there.
Officially, after 2005, all American cargo gantrucks in the war zone were replaced by specialized MRAP vehicles. As a result, the military contingents of the US allies who were present in Iraq and Afghanistan followed the same path.
The "color revolutions" inspired by the United States in the Middle East plunged the region into chaos and instability. A series of armed conflicts provoked a surge of interest in gantrucks. But they were used, as a rule, not to protect transport communications, but as a means of fire support.
Various off-road pickups are popular as the base chassis for installing weapons.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine has also become a place of massive use of armed and artisanal armored civilian vehicles.
The Ukrainian military, as a rule, used factory-made standard armored vehicles, at the same time, various punitive "volunteer battalions" of Ukrainian nationalists, deprived of such an opportunity, armed and molded armor on everything that was possible.
However, the militias of the DPR and LPR are not lagging behind them in this matter. An illustrative example is the installation of a faulty BMD-2 into the body of an armored KamAZ.
Depending on their size and weapons, gantrucks in this conflict are used for fire support, patrolling, reconnaissance, sabotage raids, ammunition delivery and wounded removal.
Summing up, we can say that in the near future the gantrak as a combat unit will not go anywhere from the battlefield, given the increasing transformation of wars from large-scale clashes with the use of all types of troops into local conflicts. A similar ersatz armored car can be built in any enterprise where there is welding and metalworking equipment. In addition, unlike the crew of armored vehicles, which requires training, there are no special requirements for the qualifications of the crew of the gantruck: any person fit for military service can join it. In addition, the repair of the car can be carried out in a civilian auto repair shop, which greatly simplifies and reduces the cost of the task of supplying spare parts and fuels and lubricants. Compared to armored vehicles, gantrucks are cheaper to operate and consume less fuel. The flip side is the greater vulnerability to enemy fire, compared to armored vehicles, and the low protection of the crew when exploded by mines and land mines.
Another post on this topic:
Gantraki. Part 1
