Transforming Army trucking

New big boys for Afstan:

Canada's military truckers have dubbed their spanking new armoured trucks Transformers after the massive robots in the hugely popular film who can take on other shapes.

Some have gone farther, calling their $1-million supertrucks Optimus Prime after the most powerful Transformer of them all.

So taken are these usually unsentimental soldiers with their 503 horsepower twin-turbo-diesel Mercedes-Benz trucks, which first began running food, parts and ammo to combat troops three weeks ago, that they gushed about them.

"It is the first time that I have fallen in love with a truck," said Master Cpl. Lawliss Barnes, a 34-year-old 15-year army veteran from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., who drives the baddest armoured Heavy Support Vehicle System (AHSVS) [video here] of them all, the imposing 35-ton plus wrecker. "My passion is for recovery. With this tow truck, I can pull anything we have here except a tank."

The first of the top-of-the-line Mercedes trucks were rushed directly to Afghanistan from Germany in February to fulfil an urgent need identified early last year to provide better protection for truckers who spend their days running a gauntlet of roads infested with improvised explosive devices and always at risk of Taliban ambushes...

Mercedes, which hopes to sell the truck to many western armies, worked with Canadian engineers on the military modifications, sent field representatives to Alberta to train drivers and mechanics and has posted technicians to the Kandahar Airfield to assist their new customers...

The AHSVS has state-of-the-art computerized screens in the cab to check oil, tires and much else. This saves drivers potentially dangerous outside inspections of the truck and its gauges. Each of the armoured doors weighs hundreds of kilograms and is so heavy it can only be opened and closed electrically.

The new truck has begun to replace the Heavy Logistics Vehicle Wheeled (HLVW), which has had a hodgepodge of armour stuck inside and outside the cab to make it roadworthy in Afghanistan.

Canada depends more heavily than other NATO forces on ground convoys to keep forward deployed combat troops supplied because it has no helicopters capable of operating in Afghanistan.

"I don't feel we're restricted by a lack of helicopters, but they would be another tool in the box," Horlock said. "We take advantage of them when we can."..

Master Cpl. Doug Dutchession, 38, of Portage La Prairie, Man., felt that the vehicle might help draw attention to the largely unsung drivers who, as Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier has said, have among the most dangerous jobs in the battle group.

"Not to take anything away from the infantry, but we're kind of the Cinderella part of the service. We don't get a lot of attention," Dutchession said while taking a visitor on a test drive near the airfield. "I like to think the infantry are at the pointed end over here and that we keep them pointy."

Dutchession, who is based at CFB Borden near Toronto, marvels at how Mercedes designers thought of little things such as nooks inside the cab to secure weapons and first aid kits so that nothing hits drivers if the vehicle strikes an IED, as well as such touches as a cooler and thick window curtains to keep the searing Afghan heat from overwhelming the air conditioning...

Babbling posted about the acquisition in May 2007.