The 70-ton Assault Breacher Vehicle, shown at Camp Pendleton, is designed to detonate buried explosives, clearing the way for other vehicles and troops. Each costs $3.75 million. (Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times / January 19, 2010)
Posted on 01/31/2010 1:46:30 PM PST by DogByte6RER
Marine assault vehicles key to Afghan strategy
As U.S. and Afghan troops prepare for an offensive in Helmand province, the Assault Breacher Vehicle - a cross between a tank and a bulldozer - is intended to conquer the terrain and roadside bombs.
By Tony Perry
January 31, 2010
Reporting from Camp Pendleton
Weighing 70 tons, traveling up to 45 mph and possessed of a smash-mouth name, the Assault Breacher Vehicle is the Marine Corps' latest answer to a perennial problem of offensive warfare: how to push through the barriers and booby traps of an enemy's outer defenses.
Over the decades, Marines have used various strategies to breach defenses, involving heavy vehicles or, in some cases, sending Marine engineers into minefields to set, by hand, line charges loaded with explosives.
"Breaching is always the hardest part of an assault," said Sgt. Carl Hewett, a breacher operator stationed here.
In the 1990s, the U.S. Army decided it could not afford to continue developing such a complicated, maintenance-heavy vehicle. But the Marine Corps persisted -- funding the development and testing from its own discretionary budget funds.
In December, the 42-foot-long assault breacher was used in combat for the first time, as Marines pushed into a Taliban stronghold called Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province. The brass were pleased with its performance.
Now, as the Marines plan a much larger and more complex assault in the same province, the vehicles, which cost $3.75 million each, are being touted as part of a strategy for routing Taliban fighters.
The top Marine general in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, has made it no secret that he plans a massive assault against the Taliban-held community of Marja, where hundreds, maybe thousands, of Taliban took refuge last summer when battalions of Marines swept into Helmand.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The 70-ton Assault Breacher Vehicle, shown at Camp Pendleton, is designed to detonate buried explosives, clearing the way for other vehicles and troops. Each costs $3.75 million. (Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times / January 19, 2010)
More on the Assault Breacher Vehicle at:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/abv.htm
More “news” from the USMC propaganda machine. Tanks with teeth and/or blades have been around since the battle of Normandy in 1944.
Needs a paint scheme to make it look like T-Rex. Pained scales, teeth on the bade, some means of belching smoke and flame, loud speakers that give a terrifying prehistoric animals roars shade of Jurassic Park.
Go GIT SOME!!
The first time one of these sets off a 500-1000 lb IED, this thing is going to be on the deadline report until all that stuff hanging off the front end is replaced. If that same IED is detonated directly under the vehicle, it will flip and the turret will end up elsewhere.
“Needs a paint scheme to make it look like T-Rex. Pained scales, teeth on the bade, some means of belching smoke and flame, loud speakers that give a terrifying prehistoric animals roars shade of Jurassic Park.”
Also needs to leak oil. Jarheads won’t drive nothing that don’t leak oil. Just kidding, just kidding,sorta... :)
“Needs a paint scheme to make it look like T-Rex. Pained scales, teeth on the bade, some means of belching smoke and flame, loud speakers that give a terrifying prehistoric animals roars shade of Jurassic Park.”
Also needs to leak oil. Jarheads won’t drive nothing that don’t leak oil. Just kidding, just kidding,sorta... :)
Here’s some technical data on the ABV. It’s built from an Abrams chassis, apparently. :
It would be interesting to see some engineering tests to see the effects of a typical IED detonating beneath this 70 ton tank...
“...Needs a paint scheme to make it look like T-Rex. Pained scales, teeth on the bade, some means of belching smoke and flame, loud speakers that give a terrifying prehistoric animals roars shade of Jurassic Park...”
No - paint it to look like a hairy-old razor-back, with tusks. The muzzies will like that.
Should have made the Army keep developing them - then “cum shaw” them.
Semper fi
The HOG from Hell?
Each costs $3.75 million
Money well spent.
I'm sorry but a shithole place like that isn't worth a pimple on a Marine's ass, let alone his life. And Marines will die in a ground assault. If we truly believe there are "...hundreds, maybe thousands, of Taliban..." there then send in the B-52s and carpet bomb the place flat. Don't worry about the civilian enablers that live there too, just flatten it.
A typical IED won’t do much damage, but 500-1000 pounds of explosive usually flips the vehicle upside down and the turret comes off during the flip. This has happened several times in Iraq with M-1 tanks and this is a M-1 modification. It a physics thing.
How much? I need to drive one of these mean suckers in the sissy streets of West Hollywood.
I want that to go to work in the morning.
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