Back roomers might be interested to hear about one of the best-selling vehicles in Iraq at the moment called the Fieldmission.[1]
The Fieldmission starts life as a Toyota LandCruiser, supplied by the Toyota factory to the state-of-the-art workshop in Poland where it is armoured. The interior is completely stripped out to fit the precision cut steel plate, polycarbonate coated, multi-layer glass and other special components. These items obviously increase the weight of the vehicle considerably. The amount of weight increase depends on the level of armouring.
There is no international standard for ballistic levels that is accepted by all NATO states but the most popular armouring level requested in Iraq is B6 which will defeat Kalashnikov, M16 and Nato rifles fired in close formation at 90 degrees to the surface. The floor is designed to withstand 2 standard German army hand grenades per square metre detonated simultaneously. This is equivalent to almost 20 handgrenades going off together under the car. The two fuel tanks are also armoured, as well as the twin batteries. Interestingly the remainder of the engine including the radiator is not armoured on a B6 vehicle.
A base model B6 Fieldmission weighs in at 3,520 kg empty so the suspension, brakes, tyres, rims and various body items are beefed up. For instance, a door is, on average during the life cycle of the vehicle, opened and closed 50,000 times. Obviously the standard hinges are not up to the job when the door is so much heavier and they are replaced with an in-house CAD design. All modifications are TüV approved plus the whole vehicle comes with a one-year Toyota supported warranty on all components. It is as close to a factory armoured Toyota as you can get. (Toyota are prohibited from making armoured vehicles themselves due to post-WW2 restrictions on armament factories in Japan.)
The tyres are standard heavy duty items but inside and fastened to the rim is a special run-flat system which allows more that 10 miles driving at 30 mph with no air in the tyre.
Toyota LandCruisers are a common sight on the roads out here in the Middle East and by keeping the exterior appearance of the vehicle mostly unchanged the car can blend into normal traffic when other re-bodied 4x4s cannot. The reason that the armouring company chose the LandCruiser is due to the fact that no other good 4x4 is as cheap to armour. The standard vehicle is well engineered and major units such as axles and chassis can be mostly left untouched.
And the price? The base model with 4.2 litre diesel engine and vinyl seats comes in at Euro 100,000 rising to Euro 150,000 for the Executive V8 auto with leather and a few more security options. The armouring company has sold 60 Fieldmissions to Iraq in the last 3 months out of around an estimated 200 total sales. Compare the price with a factory armoured Mercedes Benz G-500 of similar specification which costs Euro 70,000 to Euro 100,000 more.
What ever you do, don't lock your keys inside!
Other issues to worry about? Petrol at 70 to 77 octane, leaded only of course, although 95 octane unleaded is now being imported in large quantities from Kuwait by the Americans. Ambient temperatures of 50 to 60 degrees C in high summer and high humidity in the south. The air-conditioning has to be on full-blast all the time as you do not want to be driving around with the windows open (if fact, windows that open are a costly option!).
One European embassy has had their two new G-500s costing Euro 250,000 each break down after a couple of months in Baghdad. The catalysts had collapsed internally, due to the poor fuel quality, blocking the exhaust. The remedy was to cut the cats off and replace them with a plain piece of pipe. That cats were fitted to these cars shows IMO a significant lack of knowledge of the end-user conditions by Daimler-Chrysler.
Many other soft-skined vehicles originally supplied from Kuwait immediately following the end of the war have broken down or had major problems due to the type and poor quality of the fuel. Kuwait is a Gulf Cooperation Country (GCC) where unleaded use is now compulsory and all new cars are fitted with catalysts and unleaded spec engines.
Another European embassy has blown up the engine of their new (unarmoured) EEC-spec Isuzu Trooper V6 after driving it at full throttle for hours on end, on mid-70s octane fuel, evading an old BMW 735i full of Iraqis waving guns out of the window on the main road back to Jordan (they escaped). The Isuzu V6 engine has anti-knock sensors but cannot cope with petrol you would be hard pushed to set light to with a match.
These Fieldmission bullit-proof cars are saving lives every day.
[1] this post has been run past the moderators.
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Sounds ideal for the UK school run then.
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Wonder why they don't use Land Rover,oh sorry thats a silly question.
I guess when your life depends on it,you had better choose Toyota.
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I wonder how many hummers have gone missing in the last few months?
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Can't think the US Army would even notice,Hummers being sold on the Iraqi used car black market.
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T Lucas, actually there are plenty of armoured LRs in Iraq. Sky News and the BBC use them for example. They are generally hated. Crummy air-conditioning and always breaking down. A friend of mine is a cameraman with the BBC and has just finished a 3-month tour in Iraq. Awful stories of 10-hour drives with no a/c in 50 degree heat, breaking down on the edge of a skirmish etc.
US special forces were using plenty of standard white Defenders during the conflict. Odd choice I thought at the time. Remember the attack on the John Simpson convoy?
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. That cats were fitted to these cars shows IMO a significant lack of knowledge of the end-user conditions by Daimler-Chrysler.
Methinks, the embassies never looked at end user conditions. D-C would have prescribed diesels
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Ajit, good point but (and there is always a but), this particular embassy's G-500s are registered at their mission in Jordan to facilitate easy passage at the Jordan-Iraq border. And guess what? Diesel passenger vehicles including 4x4s cannot be registered in Jordan. [1]
Why not register them in Iraq? Well, that particular Iraqi gov't department is not running yet. No Iraqi vehicle registrations have been made since the war. If you are just using your vehicle in Iraq (without wanting to cross borders with it) there is little problem as no-one is checking registration documents. So you can just put any old false plate on it or no plate at all.
But if you need to cross borders or use the car in other countries then it needs to be properly registered.
Gallingly, the US embassy in Amman does have a few diesel armoured vehicles on Jordanian diplomatic plates [2] but the yanks seem to be able to get their way all over the place these days.
[1] I have my private G-350 turbo diesel parked up in Europe.
[2] you can tell they are diesel due to the engine noise and black smoke plus I sold them ;-)
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