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| Border patrol gets APC |
| 2005-10-09 |
| Yuma County sheriff's deputies will patrol the Arizona-Mexico border in a surplus British military armored personnel carrier. The $18,000, nine-ton, six-wheeled vehicle is needed because of increased attacks on deputies and U.S. Border Patrol agents by drug and migrant smugglers, sheriff's and patrol officials said. The agencies frequently work together. The Border Patrol's Yuma sector also has a new armored car, this one a 4 1/2-ton vehicle picked up from the Baltimore police. It's set to go into service in a few months. Law officers in the border region are increasingly subject to rock throwing and gunfire and being rammed by fleeing vehicles. In the first six months of 2005, 167 assaults, 104 rock-throwing incidents and six cases of officers targeted by gunfire have been documented by the agencies in the Yuma region, sheriff's Maj. Leon Wilmot said. In August, a rock thrown by an illegal immigrant forced a Border Patrol helicopter to land west of Yuma. The rock hit the rotor blade of the chopper, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. No one was hurt. Wilmot said he hopes the armored personnel carrier deters the violence. "Hopefully, when they see this, they'll know they just can't run into this and get away," Wilmot said. Border Patrol spokesman Michael Gramley said federal officers already use "war wagon" pickups with detention compartments in the back and metal grates on the windows to protect agents from rock throwers. But the new military vehicles will be the first capable of withstanding gunfire. How about some vehicles capable of producing gunfire? Nothing major, just an M-60 or equivalent. |
| Posted by:Jackal |
| #5 I've heard two reports of armed Mexican government helicopters crossing over onto ranchers' land, moving drugs. One was from the founder of the Minutemen and the other from the rancher involved during an interview weeks apart. They need a lot more than personnel carriers down there...like armed Predators. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2005-10-09 18:03 |
| #4 A lot of that terrain is hideous. For example, Hell's Trail in SW Arizona. Smokes, even a Humvee wouldn't last six months out there, without being rattled to bits. The typical 4WD is good for one trip only on 50/50 odds. Driving the trail is an extreme sport. The biggest serious threat is a rifle, and there's not a bit you can do for it except stay bottled up. Having maneuvered a lot in that desert, your #1 priority on foot is access to water, then to hug a trail or road. You don't have the time to starve to death before you succeed in the crossing or fail. That is why they have and are using vehicles, why ramming is the #2 threat. I recommend the CS for two reasons. Most of the year, at night, you have an inversion layer, so the gas hugs the ground and makes an effective barrier. At dawn it lapses straight up and gets out of your way. The dry stuff is for the walkers who will have to retreat on their own. You can't travel any distance when blind from CS. Lastly, putting up signs in Spanish warning of hazards is a very good idea. People just don't grasp that they either have 50 miles of desert in front of them, or that they will need 10 gallons each of water to have any chance of crossing it on foot. Simple signs for simple people. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-09 14:05 |
| #3 I wouldn't go with stripped-down, at least not wrt survivability; if there's an escalation it'd be nice to have a margin of safety built in now, instead of having to put up with the howls and finger-pointing later. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-10-09 11:31 |
| #2 In that kind of uneven desert terrain, your biggest concern is that you have a Humvee-wide wheel base. Other than that, light shielding, and "ramrod" defenses again being rammed, it can be pretty stripped down. Other stuff that might be included would be a tear gas smudge pot, to create a blanket or strip of tear gas against a large crowd, or even a dry tear gas powder dispenser, so that even footfalls raising dust make an area difficult to pass. It being the desert, that CS could last for months, and a bandanna over the face just won't cut it. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-09 11:21 |
| #1 One of these might be useful. Of course it may be a bit before Textron's New Orleans plant is back on line. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-10-09 00:42 |