Sudden questions regarding LAV III and roll-overs

[George Wallace]

Well Tom, I have photos of a Lynx with its guns sheared off due to a Roll over.  I have photos of a Leopard on its roof in Hoenfels.  I witnessed the Leo in front of me roll in the middle of the night on Ex.  Vehicles roll.  The AVGP and LAV family do roll.  There are many factors other than Driver error.  We are not sending inexperienced Drivers on Tour. Accidents, however, will happen.  How many deaths were recorded on every Reforger/Fall Ex in Germany due to vehicle accidents?  What vehicle known to man has not rolled?  Back in Reply #8 on: November 25, 2005, 12:33:12  I substituted other vehicles and organizations for the LAV and it looks like an everyday/common event to me.  Accidents happen.  Some can be avoided.  Some can't.

 

[career_radio-checker]

Here's a prime example of the media's ignorance towards the military.
Follow this link:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051127/woodfield_comeshome_051127/20051128?hub=Canada
watch the video that is 7 min 41 secs.
In it, the journalist calls a Polaris aircraft a "C-130 Hercules"
and she says Sgt. Short and Cpl Beerenfenger (spelling?) were killed by RPGs

*Shakes Head*

 

[Jarnhamar]

I have photos of a Leopard on its roof in Hoenfels.  I witnessed the Leo in front of me roll in the middle of the night on Ex.  Vehicles roll.  The AVGP and LAV family do roll.

Exactly.

I think it's easy to forget what kind of conditions our drivers are faced with.  These vehicles are not cruising down the 401 and poof, flip over. Their driving on shitty "roads" and through the countryside where the other drivers don't give a shit if their on the wrong side of the road or not. The media does not do a very good job at showing the terrain over there OR driving conditions, simply that a lav flipped over.

Very biased reporting.

watch the video that is 7 min 41 secs.
In it, the journalist calls a Polaris aircraft a "C-130 Hercules"
and she says Sgt. Short and Cpl Beerenfenger (spelling?) were killed by RPGs

Considering just how many times the media has screwed up simple stuff like peoples names in their stories, vehicle identification and in the above case how someone died, I'm not big on putting a lot of faith into the media's reports and findings.

I'm with KevinB, theres way too many people chiming in about the LAV3 who have never drove the damn thing before. Comes right back to guys posting on here citing why they hate the C7 (or whatever) and never even picked the thing up before.

 

[paracowboy]

paracowboy to vehicle etc accidents.  

har

 

[paracowboy]

Wow, did anyone in the vehicle survive? I hope he checked his ROE card before using that kind of force.....

Hopefully, this will prompt more training in third-world-driving, which will be a good thing.

de har

 

[paracowboy]

He forgot while Maroon Berets and Airborne Shirts are well known to be bullet proof -- they are not always Taxi proof...

har.

Congratulations. You've both made The List.

 

[medicineman]

    All in all, I think the whole thing comes down to this - feces occurs.  Given the number of hours these vehicles have been driven and the various dumps they've been driven in/through, I'd say the what, 6 major accidents that have happened is pretty damn good.  I've both ridden in the back of the LAV III's with 2 RCR and crew commanded a Bison Amb for a couple of years.  I thought the LAV's were the cat's backside.  The Bison too is great.  One little thing though - if ground is unstable underneath them and it gives away, DUH, it'll roll, it's basic physics.  I've had to quickly rehearse the emergency decapitation avoidance drill a couple of times in the Bison when some crap ground threatened to give way underneath me.  The vehicles have a fairly high centre of gravity, long narrow wheel bases are a little top heavy (LAV, Coyotes, Cougars, etc) and are therefore a little unstable.  Doesn't mean we should panic about it, just drive around the situation.  I notice they aren't freaking out about all the MLVW rollovers that have happened over the years (they suffer the same thing), Leopards, M113's and variants.  The one thing I remember a big stink about was in the early 80's when a young reservist rolled a Jeep with a 106mm trailer on it and was killed - that had alot of backlash in the press for awhile.  Mind you, I've seen lots of Jeeps roll over - '54 patterns, CJ and YJ's as well.  Alot of it came back to people just not driving them the way they were meant to be driven.
    Yeah, I know, sum up - in the end this will likely come out as a combination of some really rapid reflexes, rapid overcompensation and dumb luck (that's what I hope anyways).  As long as it goes into everyone's lessons learned basket, hopefully we won't be having a repeat of this.

MM

 

[KevinB]

har.

Congratulations. You've both made The List.

Geez - it took you long to find that 

 

[Armymedic]

Congratulations. You've both made The List.

I take it this would not be similiar in any way to Schindler's list, would it?

 

[geo]

The LAV is a decent set of wheels
the rest is, as the afghans put it "in-sha-allah" if god wills it.....
Feces happens

Chimo!

 

[armyvern]

I take it this would not be similiar in any way to Schindler's list, would it?

I'm interested to see who else had managed to make The List. Egads...

 

[Brad Sallows]

We need to distinguish between "subject matter experts" and "subject theory experts".  I can read the maintenance specs on the C-7, every version of "Shoot to Live" ever published, and pore over the blueprints of the template for a standard 600 metre qualification range until my eyeballs fall out, but no amount of reading is going to ensure I can pass a PWT or, more importantly, teach someone else to do so.  For that, I must practice shooting the weapon.  Mastery of literature and statistics doesn't render one's opinion on practical skills "expert".

 

[tomahawk6]

These vehicles while agile for their size cannot evade an accident with a civilian vehicle without great risk to the vehicle and crew
of rollover. Is it worth killing everyone in the vehicle to avoid a civilian bent on crashing into an armored vehicle ? I think not. Pvt Woodfield was in an exposed position and had no chance once the vehicle rolled. In the US Army we teach name tag defilade when riding in an open hatch, but in a rollover I still dont think the soldier has much chance. If I am the commander I can live with one of my vehicles mashing a civilian vehicle if it means my soldier's safety. What if the civilian vehicle had been a IVED ? The LAV wasnt going to dodge him anyway and by taking evasive action the LAV becomes more vulnerable.

 

[Britney Spears]

When driving in NA our instinctive reaction to an oncoming car would be to swerve to avoid it. Not to play Monday Morning QB too much, but that's what I meant when I said more third world driver training* could have prevented this incident, or at least saved the life of the driver. Not that I value the life of the Afghan driver any less, but it would have been the right thing to do, like you say, what if it WAS a suicide bomber?




*That wasn't actually another joke about paracowboy, although it rather unwittingly came out as such. Sometimes even I cannot control  my sense of humour.

 

[KevinB]

T6  -- I tend to sit on the rear of the LAV when doing rear security/air sentry I figure I'd have a better chance getting tossed aside.
The Armour guys always complain we Infanteers ride to high or dont get in the vehcile properly -- but if your trying to ride so you can see the sides and back of your vehicle you don't have much choice.

 

[paracowboy]

That wasn't actually another joke about paracowboy, although it rather unwittingly came out as such. Sometimes even I cannot control   my sense of humour.

keep it up, fun-boy, you've just moved up two spaces on The List.

Problem with trying to over-come that ingrained programming to swerve from oncoming traffic is that I think we'd have to actually have drivers run over moving vehicles coming at them. The expense would be prohibitive.

 

[KevinB]

As I mentioned elsewhere I had a very logical method to solve those issues -- but higher found my ideas criminal 

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Quote,
Problem with trying to over-come that ingrained programming to swerve from oncoming traffic is that I think we'd have to actually have drivers run over moving vehicles coming at them. The expense would be prohibitive.

Not just that but I don't know if it could be done,....I know its better to hit that deer then hit the ditch, however......

 

[paracowboy]

Not just that but I don't know if it could be done,....I know its better to hit that deer then hit the ditch, however......

I think it could very well be done, but it would involve a lot of "Training as we fight", in other words actually running over vehicles coming at you. We can train troops to charge into rooms full of people trying to kill them through simulated combat. I'm sure we could arrange something similar for this, but the expense would be prohibitive. Can you imagine trying get the funds needed to buy a few hundred used vehicles to crush under the wheels of a Driver Crse?

 

[TCBF]

"The Armour guys always complain we Infanteers ride to high or dont get in the vehcile properly -- but if your trying to ride so you can see the sides and back of your vehicle you don't have much choice."

We do, but there is a time and place for everything.  Normally, about the top 60% of my eyeballs are over the hatch ring - no more.  BUT: when I am backing up, things are different.  When I am driving through a tiny Afghani ville making sure we don't run over children, things are different.  When I am CC ing the 'Yote down the ramp of a C-17 onto the tarmac, I am up pretty high - as the poster shows.

I am as high up as I have to be for as long as I have to be - and that's it.

"Can you imagine trying get the funds needed to buy a few hundred used vehicles to crush under the wheels of a Driver Crse?"

- Two words - "Mill Woods"

Tom