The drawbacks of the Jackal

Fears over the dangers of the Jackal all-terrain vehicle have been raised after the latest two soldiers were named by the Ministry of Defence last night.

Corporal Graeme Stiff, 24, and Corporal Dean John, 25, of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, were killed in a blast in a Jackal in the Garmsir district of southern Helmand.
(The Telegrah)

Defence of the Realm sounded the alarm over the Jackal's design problems from early on:

The third and least satisfactory of them all is the Coyote TSV (Light) which is to be a 6x6 derivative of the Jackal designed by Supacat Ltd. We are told that it will also have a cargo capacity in excess of 1.5 tons and a four-man crew.

The MoD does not offer a photograph of this, but it may well be similar to the Supacat "Extenda" seen in Paris earlier this year (pictured). There are no indications, as yet, as to whether this will be armoured in the same way as the Jackal but, if it is not, soldiers would be better protected going to war on bicycles.

No doubt there is precious little joy in being right on something like this.

Two more paragraphs of note from the Telegraph story:

"The Jackal ignores all five of the basic principles of mine or blast protection and then seeks to overcome the basic design flaws with bolt-on armour, added as an afterthought. It cannot and will not work," said Dr Richard North, editor of the Defence of the Realm blog.

And ...

Defence analysts are urging the MoD to join the $3 billion American all-terrain mine protected vehicle programme called M-ATV that has been short-listed to three trucks.

It does seem that the Brits need something durable to use on patrols relegated to using Afghanistan's roads. The Jackal apparently handled rough terrain very well, but simply proved a poor fit for patrol duty on those booby-trapped roads.