Rock Crawling in Afghanistan

[clark123456]

I'm watching a NatGeo show where they are embedded with the U.S. military and the freaking terrain looks awesome for rock crawling.  Yeah, yeah....the bullets and Taliban, plus the distance all suck, but what an awesome wasteland for offroading.

- Torg

[SemperFiArms]

I thought that as well I flew over a lot of the areas when I was there. I said several times I would love to be able to explore a lot of those areas if it wasn't for all the f**ked up politics.

While asscrapistan is a real $h!t hole it really did have a lot of rugged beauty to the landscape.

[Raisinhead]

Two of my close buddies were there together, one drove tanks another drove humvees. I've heard some crazy stories and have seen some wild videos, but never asked if they've done any rock crawling. One of them has been trying to figure out a way to join us on a wheeling trip.

[clark123456]

Two of my close buddies were there together, one drove tanks another drove humvees. I've heard some crazy stories and have seen some wild videos, but never asked if they've done any rock crawling. One of them has been trying to figure out a way to join us on a wheeling trip.

Moab...like Scott does with his buddies (all served)...especially on Memorial Day weekend.

- Torg

[Scott F.]

I never made it to Afganistan, but the pics and videos from friends show some crazy looking terrain.  I bet there are some places there that would rival KOH courses.

I can say that wheeling experience is a definite benefit though. I wish my first Bradley driver didn't grow up in the city... //:hlp//

In Iraq I can remember several multi day missions in the western part of Anbar where we had to climb out of one and over/cross into another wadi (essential dry river beds).  It was tough to get a HMMWV that was 3 times the weight it was originally designed to be over the rocky terrain.  Good news was you didn't have to worry about rocker protection, the armor plate worked pretty well for that.  At one point we got into to the habit of carrying 2 spares per vehicle bc we were slicing sidewalls that much. Most tires were the old Goodyear MTs, or the MTR, but at the end we started getting BFG Baja T/As which seemed to be tougher.  Some units that had funding for non standard supply were getting Interco TSL/SX in the 38 X 12.50 X 16.50 size bc they ran small and were roughly the size of the 37s that the HMMWVs came with.

[Raisinhead]

Scott, did you have wheeling experience before you went?

[Scott F.]

Yes and I think basic off-road vehicle skills are important for any wheeled or tracked vehicle operations. That or being raised on a farm operating tractors as a kid, in my experience those guys make great vehicle and equipment drivers.

I was happy to hear Skip talking about a Nat Guard unit coming to Gulches to do some driver training before a deployment. Good training!