US troops 'vulnerable to back pain'

[General Zod]

What about rickshaw like cargo vehicles ? They can go anyplace bicycles can go at about roughly similar speeds. Beats pulling a cart by hand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickshaw

Wouldn't that take a fair bit of space to transport though? Given the size I don't imagine it would be a very popular idea with the brass.

[Sea Skimmer]

What about rickshaw like cargo vehicles ? They can go anyplace bicycles can go at about roughly similar speeds. Beats pulling a cart by hand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickshaw

Do you really think infantrymen only go places you can roll a heavily loaded bicycle along? Mud, mountains and stairs tend to get in the way of that, and meanwhile a cart is just more total weight to move and hard to conceal.

For situations when a small wheeled vehicle will work but a hummve is too big, the military already has some diesel powered golf carts. We’ve also had some small scale use of pack animals in Afghanistan, which have considerable more mountain climbing ability then anything wheeled. This is why DARPA has been funding work into small walking machines to haul gear. Then you get the mobility of a pack mule with the on-off switch of the golf kart.

[Simon_Jester]

I honestly cannot see a robo-mule being a more cost effective choice than a real mule. Maybe that's just me.

[Mr Bean]

I honestly cannot see a robo-mule being a more cost effective choice than a real mule. Maybe that's just me.

Real mules shit, make noise, need food and water and have a mind of their own. Robo Mules need maintence and energy be it electrical, gas or whatever. And they don't have brains. They can't get scared and scatter from incoming artillery rounds. Nor is it that expensive to armor a robo-mule to stop shell splinters while a real mule would be dead. Also Robo mule is NBC capable by default. Cost affective with the US military budget is a little bit of an odd concept.

But speaking of small carts, why just bring back Willy's jeeps? They can be run into the ground. They are cheap as hell to mass produce. Even if you have to start up new assembly lines the body can be brought back pretty much as is with weight savings to make it even easier to haul the jeep out of the mud. With any kind of decent maintenance the old ones ran forever. And when your talking raw steel you can get three jeeps out of one Humvee.

[Sea Skimmer]

But speaking of small carts, why just bring back Willy's jeeps? They can be run into the ground. They are cheap as hell to mass produce. Even if you have to start up new assembly lines the body can be brought back pretty much as is with weight savings to make it even easier to haul the jeep out of the mud. With any kind of decent maintenance the old ones ran forever. And when your talking raw steel you can get three jeeps out of one Humvee.

The M-Gator golf karts are about the same size as a jeep, but can haul more then there own weight in cargo. It’s around a 1,200lb cart that can haul 1,400lb IIRC. The old jeep was only supposed to haul 500lb, though of course it could be absurdly overloaded The downside is M-Gator can’t go more then about 20mph, but this is not very relevant when you are traversing through rock fields in Afghanistan. Since it has three axles and huge tires it also has lower ground pressure then a jeep when loaded. The variant in use was designed specifically for the military, and John Deere is also offering a smaller 4x4 (not sure we actually bought it though), and working on developing an autonomous robot version of the M-Gator besides that.

[Mr Bean]

The M-Gator looks mighty interesting. Were I a rich land owning person with money to spend I could easily see buying one for use on the "farm".

[The Yosemite Bear]

We have several three axle civilian models over here in yosemite, one of which plows the bike/foot paths here in the park

[Questor]

We have several three axle civilian models over here in yosemite, one of which plows the bike/foot paths here in the park

We have a 4x4 version at work as well. The grounds guys use it for moving all of their stuff around. Its been the only cart we could use for the past week or so. We can't use electric ones in the rain.

[Simon_Jester]

Real mules shit, make noise, need food and water and have a mind of their own. Robo Mules need maintence and energy be it electrical, gas or whatever. And they don't have brains. They can't get scared and scatter from incoming artillery rounds. Nor is it that expensive to armor a robo-mule to stop shell splinters while a real mule would be dead. Also Robo mule is NBC capable by default. Cost affective with the US military budget is a little bit of an odd concept.

True, but pursuant to something I said on another thread... that is arguably a bug of the US military, not a feature. We spend so much money on this stuff that when we actually try to use it, we start falling prey to arithmetic on the Frontier:

A scrimmage in a Border Station—
A canter down some dark defile—
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
...
With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troop-ships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The "captives of our bow and spear"
Are cheap—alas! as we are dear.

At some point, it gets ridiculous, and the war effort becomes unsustainable in light of what we actually get from the war effort. At which point we have the most advanced military on Earth... but can't afford to use it without shooting our own economy (or at least our government discretionary spending budget) in the foot.