Among the Irish Army's vehicles is the Mowag armoured personnel carrier. Ian Noctor reports from the winding narrow roads of Kosovo.
Four wheel-drive has suddenly become passé. The latest off-roader for those in the know is not four-wheel-drive, but eight-wheel-drive.
As off-road people carriers go, the Swiss-built Mowag must be the ultimate. Capable of crossing six-foot trenches with minimal effort and 11 people on board, this armoured personnel carrier (APC) makes the Humvee look like a kid's toy.
The Mowag is no toy. It's the APC of choice of the Irish Defence Forces and is currently in operation in two peace-keeping missions in Kosovo and Liberia.
What does it have that the Hummer doesn't? Well, for starters it 21-feet long and nearly eight wide. It weighs 18.5 tonnes, but can barrel along at speeds in excess of 60 mph powered by an 11-litre four-stroke V6 turbocharged Mercedes diesel engine. Road-holding is pretty good too. It uses the front four of its eight wheels to steer the vehicle.
Standard features on this €1.1 million piece of transport are quite impressive too. It's got power steering, an automatic gearbox with seven forward gears and reverse. The gearbox even has economy and normal settings to help fuel consumption - that's considerate, since it takes 70 gallons to fill its two diesel tanks. That amount of fuel will take you 375 miles before needing a refill, giving an average of just over five miles to the gallon. It won't be high on the list of cars parked outside your local Green Party meeting.
On the list of extras is ABS and a very clever feature called Central Tyre Inflation System (CTIS). This allows the tyres to be inflated or deflated at will from inside the vehicle. There are four settings; highway, cross country, sand, and emergency. The emergency function allows the vehicle to continue driving, even if every tyre has been punctured or blown out.
It has three separate air conditioning and heating systems as standard, one for each section of the car. Given the conditions in which the Mowag finds itself, the Arctic Heater system could come in useful. It allows the car to be cold started at temperatures down to -40° Celsius.
Each wheel has its own independent suspension. The turning circle is 51 feet, so caution is advised when doing a U-turn.
The Mowag can also drive at a side-angle of up to 60° without toppling over. It will also happily "climb" steps of up to two feet.
If the armour-plating doesn't give a feeling of enough security, the two machine guns should give you a National Rifle Association type ease of mind. The 12.7mm mounted heavy machine gun (HMG) is capably backed up by its little brother, a coaxial mounted 7.62 mm machine gun. There are also eight smoke dischargers if a spectacular entrance or exit is required.
In its Mowags, the Irish Defence Forces have also installed a piece of high-tech kit which allows them to track other vehicles and foot patrols. The information is communicated by a secure line between laptops and other communications devices. It's state-of-the-art and apparently the envy of the other military forces operating in Kosovo.
While the power steering, automatic gearbox and ABS may make it relatively easy to drive, this APC really needs two people to make the most of what it's got to offer. In a normal car a back seat driver is never welcome, but in the Mowag the "up top" passenger is the one with the best all-round view.
Directions for the driver on the amount of space between him and an obstacle come from "up top". They take the form of bellows of "two foot, forward-centre-clear" as the vehicle squeezes its not inconsiderable girth past whatever was in its way. If the crew wasn't so careful or polite, the Mowag could just as easily go over most obstacles as around them.
Inside accommodation is spacious if sparse. There are cloth seats for the nine passengers, who have head phones to listen in on the exchanges between driver and co-driver. Access for the passengers is by a rear door, also armour-plated, which is controlled from the driver's cabin, but also has a manual release for emergencies.
The second-hand market for Mowags isn't as good as for your normal family saloon. Most owners tend to hang on to their APCs for about 10 years or so, depending on the action they've seen. But, for the really keen off-roader with bottomless pockets seeking multimillion euro thrills, they don't come much more butch than the Mowag. Or you could join the Army and get paid to drive 18 tonnes of fun.