when you used to see military artics they were always low spec british trucks.
atleast when i was in they were.
the first real artic i drove was a leyland mastiff. then they upgraded to the seddon 401 and 411. then things really went pear shaped and they got ford cargos. then in my last few years things started to look up a bit and seddon strato,s were the chosen truck. to be honest they were / are good honest motors.
but now that im a civvy the airforce atleast has seen some sense, globetrotters and lightbars on a military truck. all driven by young 20 year old kids. ■■■■ them lucky zb,s
OH Dear Dave
My old Sqn no 2 MT, 401’s were alright in the day but a bit noisy, Pegasus cab Strato (Daf) not too bad, Strato (Euro Tech) nice little motor, the six legger Stratto LM (Daf) as you can see was used for tankers (were my babys) but any heavy deployements required they pulled anything, The king low loader was rubbish when first got, we put a Fodden TTF on and it bent in the middle and grounded when extended, a lot of beefing up was required ( we did try and get rid to Aircraft recovery ) but they didnt want them either ha ha.
Now the Volvo and Bling, why they got them i dont know, ok for normal road work but i dont think they will survive the heavy stuff, the lights must have come out of Sqn funds because as an unnessesery extra can you really see the Airforce paying for them ? Those vehicles are only at 2MT Stafford because as you know they are the only ones who require them now, you also know that those young 20 year olds Girls and Boys do the 2 MT course on all vehicle types, trailers and loads and drive all over the world, for what they lack in experiance which they will gain as time goes by they make up for in knowledge. Good site that one isnt it!
I assume that the military bought any civilian trucks they could find, due to a shortage of custom-made military trucks.
Here in the states, most of our T/T units are pulled by military spec’ed freightliner daycabs, but back in the early 90’s when we invaded Kuwait, we found that the condition of rental trucks in Saudi Arabia was very poor (being mostly single-screw MB tractors), so the army bought any heavy-halage spec’ed tractors that were under 5 years in age, then shipped them over to Saudi Arabia. Some of them may still be over there.
I passed one of the double drive Stratos pulling a fuel tanker going hell for leather on Friday night.
Dunno what the driver was thinking, but instead of slowing down to negotiate a roundabout on the A565 at Mere Brow he just kept it flat and ignored the lanes - nearly wiping out three cars. I just about got round as he hit the roundabout and the cars went in every direction…
marky:
I passed one of the double drive Stratos pulling a fuel tanker going hell for leather on Friday night.
Dunno what the driver was thinking, but instead of slowing down to negotiate a roundabout on the A565 at Mere Brow he just kept it flat and ignored the lanes - nearly wiping out three cars. I just about got round as he hit the roundabout and the cars went in every direction…
thats friday night for you,most people drive like loons on friday night
Marky, if it aint got an Elephant crest on the side it aint 2MT, recent information says the Tankers went over to the Tactical supply wing at Stafford, the one you saw acting like a prat could also have been Army.
Alex, it became a custom for the RAF to buy the cheap trucks, they go to all the companies and make a deal, the trucks came in as basic , no comforts allowed ha ha, back in the 90’s they got a whole load of leyland Dafs 4 tonners, the tender was put out to Mann and all the others but they could get 2 Dafs for the price of 1 Mann, so Dafs it was , another example was the Ford Cargo, went like hot snot but hard to stop with a full load, they didnt last 5 mins before the rust came through:(
Unbelivable, all we had in our squadron (66 Tidworth) was Bleeding bedfords, must admit though we were one of the first to get the TM’s 70mph + during the Falklands ammo runs to Portsmouth and we thought they were the nuts at the time too
Yeah Simon they were pretty good off road although we had few go over on the Salisbury plain, the drivers got a bit complacent but other than that it was like driving a roller compared to the TK and TL
Used to drive the REME Foden recovery trucks and they were the bees knees, fitted Kettle , Fuller 8sp and if you were lucky the mighty 600hp Rolls engine
They could do 75 whilst pulling a 60ft recovery trailer carrying 2 tracked rapiers, not bad considering the truck weighed 27 tonnes unladen and god knows what the trailer weighed.
Linux-user:
Used to drive the REME Foden recovery trucks and they were the bees knees, fitted Kettle , Fuller 8sp and if you were lucky the mighty 600hp Rolls engine
They could do 75 whilst pulling a 60ft recovery trailer carrying 2 tracked rapiers, not bad considering the truck weighed 27 tonnes unladen and god knows what the trailer weighed.
they were top heavy over priced junk!!
’ mutters the ex reme vm ’ they were as good as the drops it was brought into to recover… did the job but had a lot of little niggly failings…making the entire package naff!!! just like the drops!!
