Master Box announces two versions of the Buggy Mongoose which is currently fighting in Ukraine.
This is partial text from the full article (usually with photos) at https://armorama.com/news/master-box-buggy-mongoose
This is partial text from the full article (usually with photos) at https://armorama.com/news/master-box-buggy-mongoose
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Having grown up in Southern California where all sorts of surgery was done to VW’s, this looks like they have taken an old M151 MUTT and done a chop job - a modern version of the classic “Baja Bug”
I wonder if they would be “street legal” in the US.
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They seem to be more related to the Californian development of the VW Beetle-based Dune Buggies, the space-framed Sandrail. The Ukrainian buggies seem to be semi-standardised but capable of utilising whatever is available; it seems the rear-mounted motor can be either air- or water-cooled.
Regards,
M
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Looks close to the The Desert Patrol Vehicle, formerly called the Fast Attack Vehicle. I’ve had the pleasure of fighting against these. They ride so low to the ground, it’s hard to see anything.
BTW they renamed it because it is utterly incapable of attacking anything. It’s really just a jeep. This photo has M1 helmets, so was probably 1984, when the 9th Mountain was trying them out. They are the US’s experimental division, and get all the cool toys. They didn’t like them at all. In the desert where vegetative covered dunes are common, you can’t see over the dunes. It really has visibility issues.
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Yeah, the Chenowth DPVs and FAVs had issues, namely the air cooled engines overheated in the hot deserts because they lacked liquid-cooled radiators. Also, the US Army and USMC thought that they were “Too light to fight.”
According to legend, Chenowth wanted a huge sum of money to give the rights to make a model kit of the DPV and Dragon wasn’t willing to pay. Also, Dragon said that they couldn’t reproduce the thin roll cage with plastic injection technology at that time although a DPV model sat on the Dragon owner’s desk according to a Chinese magazine photo.
To fire weapons on the two-seater FAV, the gunner/passenger had to get out and climb over the plating over the hot engine deck to crouch awkwardly to aim the weapon, be it a machine gun or a TOW launcher = not the ideal firing position. Chenowth makes a Light Strike Vehicle (LSV), but I never seen photos of it being used in action by anyone. I think Chenowth just faded away from the military market, even if they have a radiator on the LSV. So the Rangers got the Land Rovers, and the USMC got the Mercedes-Gwagen IFAV before the M1161 “Growler”—all those little trucks have hoods and radiators and are better than dune buggies. Now these IFAVs have been replaced by the Flyer 60 and 72 (numbers indicate width of the vehicle with the 60-inches fitting inside the V-22) and the M-Gator, RZR, ATV, DAGOR, Infantry Squad Vehicle, and MRZR. These tactical trucks just carry more cargo than dune buggies where Delta Force and the SEALs complained that the DPV lacked enough cargo carrying capacity for long SCUD hunting missions during Desert Storm.
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