The V8-powered Courtaulds Composite Armor
Vehicle, known by the manufacturer as the CAV 100 and by UK Ministry of Defense
as the Truck Utility Medium with Vehicle Protection Kit, though more usually
referred to as Snatch Land Rover, has to be one of the most maligned armored
vehicles of all time. Close to 40 British military personnel were killed while
traveling in it while on combat operations in Iraq and then Afghanistan during
the middle years of the first decade of the 21st Century. What is
often forgotten is that for every soldier who sadly lost their life after a
Snatch was struck by a deadly Improvised Explosive Device, in most cases
several more troops were protected from death by its revolutionary lightweight
armor shell which offered considerably more protection than a conventional
steel armored body of the same weight.
The
same EPV as overleaf after being demobbed, from a high vantage point
To many observers the military Land Rover
featured this month probably looks like a Snatch, and indeed it is a CAV 100
variant, but ordered by the UK MoD at the very end of the 20th
Century it is actually a 300Tdi-powered version procured specifically for the
Royal Air Force for airfield protection duties. Recognizable by the two large
armored windows in each rear body side, fitted both to allow the rear occupants
to better observe their surrounding while on routine perimeter patrols and to
give considerably better visibility when operating around live runways, this
version is officially designated the TUM Enhanced Protected Vehicle (EPV CAV
100) on its data plate.
EPV
has a Warn self-recovery winch
When writing about the armoring of Land
Rovers, or for that matter when commenting on other sensitive areas such as
communications or electric countermeasures, I have to tread extremely cautiously
as I am only too aware of those old mantras: “The walls have ears" and
"Loose lips sink ships". Just one throwaway line or careless
statement might empower the enemy, leading to needless harm or even loss a
life, so I try to err on the side of caution until a vehicle is demobbed or
superseded by an upgraded version.
I first became aware of the EPV shortly
after its introduction, when I spotted one in the background at a media
facility for the RAF Regiment at their headquarters on the Honington airbase in
Norfolk. The large side windows were enough to alert me that this was not a
conventional Snatch as, having travelled extensively across Bosnia and then
back into Croatia in British Army TUM VPK Land Rovers in 1996 and also
patrolled the streets vehicles, I knew full well that side glazing was not
standard on the original 1992/3 vehicle fleet.
Armored
rear compartment glazing
Being a curious sort, I naturally stuck my
nose through the back doors and took a good look around and the first thing I
noticed other than the bright airiness was that the interior was slightly
different in configuration from the composite armor vehicles I had travelled in
many times. Unfortunately my viewing was cut short as an RAF regiment NCO
rushed up, squeezed in front of me, speedily closed the doors and then locked
them. Stating something along the lines of "Sorry sir, media aren't
allowed inside the vehicles" before ushering me back in front of a row of
trestle tables on which less interesting kit and weaponry was displayed.
Subsequently I was to glean that the
Enhanced Protected Vehicle fleet had been procured specifically for the RAF
Regt Field Squadrons, the Air Force's infantry formations tasked primarily with
airfield defense duties, to give their crews a degree of protection from small
arms fire and shrapnel. Unlike the original Petrol-powered Snatch land Rovers
ordered for service in Northern Ireland. The RAF versions based on a
slightly-modified Defender 110 chassis were fitted with the 300Tdi engine to
make them more compatible with the 1997 Wolf TUM/TUL fleet and to allow them
use to the same fuel as the rest of the mainstream UK MoD vehicle inventory
which ran on diesel. There being little point in deploying vehicles which
needed a second logistics chain to keep them mobile.
Air-con
fan fitted in the right side locker
As for the "Enhanced" part of the
nomenclature, a close look at the internals of the lower rear compartment
reveals additional strengthening in the area behind the seated occupants'
calves, plus minor detail differences about the lower hull and the seating can
be spotted, which suggest an upgrade to enhance underside blast protection.
Now, before the Snatch-deriders start demanding to know why these minor
modifications were not retrofitted to the original batch, it should be pointed
out that these would not have countered the IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
and EFP (Explosively Formed Projectile) threats which UK Forces would encounter
in Iraq and then Afghanistan in the middle of the last decade. The
modifications designed for and subsequently incorporated on the Snatch Vixen
fleet in Afghanistan offered considerably greater protection than the
relatively minor enhancements to the older RAF vehicles.
Other than the armored side windows, which
are similar to the cab windows and offer comparable bullet and ballistic
protection, externally the EPV looks little different to the original Ulster
specification vehicle, though it lacks the protective mesh panels over the
glazing, the rising windscreen protection grille, and the spare wheel mount on
the distinctive bull bar. One major visual difference is that the EPV has a
bumper-mounted Warn winch for self-recovery; a necessity if patrolling rough
airfield perimeter tracks in operational theatres with a near-four ton gross
weight utility vehicle.
The
side windows gave much better all-round vision and allowed rear compartment
troops to observe
The original Snatch/CAV 100, of which just
under 1000 were procured to replace the Series IIIs used in Northern Ireland
with the rudimentary fiberglass Vehicle Protection Kit, was right-hand drive,
but every EPV that I have seen close up or in photographs has been a
left-hooker. As the RAF vehicle was not procured for home airfield defense the
decision to put the steering wheel on the left makes perfect sense. Also,
lessons learned in the Balkans, where a small number of Ulster-specification
vehicles had been deployed, showed that onboard climate control was a must for
warner climes, so an air-con pack was fitted.
A problem regularly encountered in the
Balkans, and one I experience myself when crossing the Inter-Entity Boundary
Line in a Snatch a couple of weeks after the Dayton Accord was signed, was that
as windows could not be opened there was no way of passing papers at a
roadblock without opening the door. This was rectified on the EPV by the
provision of a sliding postbox in the driver's door.
Although the EPV was almost certainly
procured for the protection of Pristina Airport in Kosovo - a major entry
logistics hub for British troops participating in the KFOR peacekeeping
mission, under British command from June to October 1999-but it would be in
Afghanistan where it earned its spurs. The lead image in this feature was taken
by my good friend Carl Schulze early in the Operation FINGAL mission, when the
RAF Regiment were securing the perimeter zone around Kabul Airport. From 2003
the RAF also deployed the EPV to Basrah International Airport in Iraq.
