Hi David, hi all !
Hey, that’s exactly around what I am looking for !!!
I desperately need infos about the Buffalo anti Ied Truck used by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. I plan to scratchbuild a 1/35 buffalo !!! I’ll let you know about the development of my kit…
I must get some more infos about it, especially about the rear “tub” it sports… A scaled plan would be a welcome sight !!!
Can anyone help ??? SOS !!! Please…
Thanks and regards,
Richard
The catch with the US Army’s Buffalo is that it is not based off the South African Buffel. (Which I presume translates as Buffalo). It seems to be much more closely related to the MEDDS variant of the Casspir APC.
NTM
It is interesting that the US Army never seems to read what other countries have experienced until something forces their hand.
1 - IED and vehicle protection. We learned in Vietnam that a couple of “bad guys” with an unexploded 500LB bomb could take out a tank. Funny we seemed to be learning that all over again.
Also - the South Africans have been dealing with this type of threat - it took the wholesale failure of our support vehicles to see if the Buffalo might work - it was only designed to survive this environment.
2 - RPG’s et all. In 1973, and later 1980 the Israelis learned a painfull lesson that hollw charged weapons could decimate APV’s. Scores of burned out M113’s later they seemed to have found a way to a least get the crews out alive. Their Azarit and Puma show how hard it is to provide effective protection in an Urban environment, even for MBT’s How the US thought that unarmored Hummers and low armored Strykers would od OK was …Also, sending in our version of the M113 would have been suicidal. At least Hummers can “get out of Dodge” in a hurry.
3 - In 1943 the US Army began assembling units to re-establish a civil government in Germany. These units went to specific areas and had complete plans to restore water, power, food, medical attention, civil government and a de-nazified police and courts. Hundred of specialists, many doing their same professions went in and put Germany back together. We faced a similar task in Iraq - having deposed of a dictatoship and destroyed the civillian infrastructure, it had to have that rebuilt and a none political civil government installed. Yet we are trying to rebuild a country with “war forces.” There appears to be no real planning as to the rebuilding of Iraq. (Read Armegedon by Leon Uris for a fictionalize version of Germany post-war)
No one can fault the US military for trying its best. It has been our command structure that has refused to take the necessary steps to insure Iraq could be rebuilt.
saransk
Please take your political rants some place else. Especially since most of it is wrong, as you were in the KFOR/SFOR/IFOR thread.