Devil Dogs Get A New Ride

Heard on All Hands Radio News that the Marines got themselves a new ride.

The new Assault Breacher Vehicle (ABV) should make Marines safer when dealing with potential IED and minefield areas. From the Marine Corps Times:

Combat engineers use line charges to blast a path through minefields, but they don’t always work.

If a line charge fails to detonate, someone has to walk into the minefield, place an explosive manually, light the fuse and run like hell.

Engineers call it the Medal of Honor run, but the Corps intends to make it a thing of the past by training and equipping engineers with a new Assault Breacher Vehicle designed to keep them safe in the midst of a minefield.

Shiny Lance Corporal talks about the ABV here.

After the demise of the Army's Grizzly project early in the decade, the Marine Corps started working on their own breacher vehicle. They took existing M1A1 Abrams chassis, removed the turret, and bolted on the plow blades, line charge launchers, and other breaching hardware. This configuration is apparently proving very effective against explosives, and provides the crew substantial protection from RPG and other anti-armor attacks.

More info here and here.

And now for some really cool video, courtesy of StrategyPage.



It's fast, functional, and gets the job done. It looks like something out of Warhammer 40K. It saves Marine lives. I'm not seeing anything not to love.

Lokidude.

(I know it's an old article, but the radio only brought it to my attention this week, as they've now seen combat action in the sandbox.)