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Technical

Technicals are field expedient vehicles used as weapons platforms. Groups in the Sahara today use the Toyota Land Cruiser or smaller Hilux models. These vehicles were used extensively in the “Toyota War,” the Libyan-Chadian conflict from 1978 until 1987, and they continue to be used today by virtually everyone, such as tourists, non-governmental organizations, embassies, and traffickers. Toyotas are not unique to Africa, and American soldiers encountered them in Iraq and Afghanistan. These trucks are exceptionally reliable and have a well-established reputation for simplicity, robustness, functionality, and relativelycheap maintenance.

Contemporary paramilitary groups use a mix of guerrilla warfare hit-and-run and terrorist tactics, including ambushes, complex ground assaults involving dozens of fighters, road side bombs, rocket attacks, assassinations, kidnappings, and car and suicide bombings; fighters are armed with small arms, light and heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, landmines, mortars, rockets, explosives, including improvised explosive devices, and trucks mounting machine guns (aka “technicals”).

Over the last 30 years, the ‘technical' or armed pick-up truck has become arguably the most ubiquitous military land vehicle of modern warfare. Harking back to the armed Jeeps and Chevrolet trucks of the SAS and Long Range Desert Group in North Africa in World War II, the world's first insurgent technicals were those of the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army in Algeria in the late 1970s, followed by the Chadian use of technical in the so-called Toyota War against Libya. Since then, technicals have seen use in Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as being used by Western and Russian Special Forces.

A Technical is typically an open-backed pickup truck that has been converted into an improvised fighting vehicle by mounting a machine gun, or other support weapon, to the bed. Somali "Technicals", the Somali term for Jeeps or small trucks with machine guns attached to the top. The DShK 1938 is a Soviet, heavy-machine gun firing a 12.7×108 mm cartridge. The weapon is a particular favorite for mounting to technical vehicles. It is sometimes nicknamed Dashka, from its abbreviation. Although Army helicopters have a point target capability, survival in the urban environment is chancy. Technicals mounted with antiaircraft guns had been a feature of Somali conflict since the early 1990s. The “technical” improvised fighting vehicles that in Darfur were normally a modified Toyota Hilux.

Toyota has long worked to distance its association with terror groups and has publicly supported a US Treasury Department investigation into how their vehicles fall into the hands of terrorists. The automaker also announced a new policy in 2021 when they launched the 2022 model of the Toyota Land Cruiser, the company’s longest-running model. After it went on sale in Japan on August 2, priced at around $46,500, the car manufacturer announced that anyone buying one had to sign a contract promising not to resell the vehicle within a year. In a statement, Toyota confirmed the purpose of this clause. The Land Cruiser, Toyota said, “is particularly popular overseas, and we are concerned about the flow of vehicles from Japan to overseas immediately after their release, as well as the possibility of them being exported to certain regions where security regulations are in place.”

Selling Toyotas to proscribed groups like rogue governments or terrorist outfits can invite legal penalties. “There is a risk of violating foreign exchange law, and depending on the export destination, it may lead to major problems that threaten global security,” Toyota said in its statement.

Terror groups can also get their hands on them through unscrupulous ways. Toyota SUVs are the preferred vehicles of humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross and the United Nations—the latter a group Toyota supplied with 150,000 vehicles over the last four decades. With the international aid groups operating in many developing countries, its vehicles can become ripe for theft by terrorists who might steal them, buy them through unlicensed sellers, or find them through other channels.

In Vietnam, American "Guntrucks" were usually made from an ordinary army truck, the body (and often the cabin) was covered with armor (and sometimes an armored hull of an M113 armored personnel carrier was installed instead of the body), machine guns were installed that covered all 360 degrees around the car, and these vehicles were used in basically the same way as Soviet trucks. with anti-aircraft guns - mainly for escorting columns, because in the dense jungle attacks could be expected from any direction (even from trees, Johnny!), or even from several at once.

The use of technical-style vehicles and tactics was pioneered by the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army, the armed wing of the POLISARIO Front, fighting for independence against Mauritania (1975-1979) and Morocco (1975-present) from headquarters in Tindouf, Algeria. Algeria provided arms and Land Rover jeeps to Sahrawi guerrillas, who successfully utilized them in long-range cross-desert raids against the less agile conventional armies of their opponents, recalling Sahrawi tribal raids (ghazzis) carried out in much the same manner in the pre-colonial period. POLISARIO later gained access to heavier equipment, but the 4x4 vehicle remains a staple in their arsenal.

There was a lengthy conflict between Chad and Libya in the 1970s and 1980s. The latter part wasknown as the Toyota War memorializing the seemingly ubiquitous pickuptrucks driven across the desert carrying missiles. The war finally endedwhen the Chadian Army, backed by the U.S. and France, stopped Qadaffi’sforces. However, during that conflict, Qadaffi had armed rebel forces inChad. Some of these armed rebels later became known as the Janjaweed. These tactics used speed and all-terrain mobilityto outflank and outmaneuver heavy or dug-in Libyan forces.

The Toyota War demonstrated the importance of speed and maneuverability in the Sahara, while serving as an example of the effectiveness and lethality of light forces against a more heavily armedbut slower and less maneuverable opponent in such terrain. After the "Toyota War", whether because of word of mouth, or because the time has come, technicals began to appear in almost all insurgents around the world, and Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan got acquainted with such equipment.

The term "technical" used to describe such a vehicle appears to have originated in Somalia. The name is thought to have derived from use by the Red Cross there who were often forced to bribe local militias or be the victim of robbery and attacks. The money used for the bribe was then written off as "technical expenses". In 1993, Somali “Technicals” in Mogadishu brought down helicopters with rocket propelled grenades; an enemy with even slightly advanced weaponry could inflict far worse damage. Throughout Operation Restore Hope, MP units were in great demand because of their ability to serve as a force multiplier. MPs responded to a significant number of hostile acts taken against US forces, NGOs, and civilians by armed bandits and "technicals" and to factional fighting that threatened US forces or relief efforts. In spite of the wonders of Force XXI technology the U.S. could not quickly find and capture Adid and his "technicals."

The first time the Taliban’s fighters stormed the presidential palace, back in 1996, journalists from India Today described how “tanks and ammunition-laden Toyota Hilux trucks raced into Afghanistan’s capital.” The vehicles were “ideal platforms for intimidation and enforcement,” the New York Times wrote in 2001. “From their Land Cruisers and Hiluxes, the Taliban were ready to leap down and beat women for showing a glimpse of ankle or to lock a man in a shipping container for three weeks until his beard grew to the approved length. Or, most dismal, to drag an accused adulterer or blasphemer to the soccer stadium for execution.” The Standard Toyota Land Cruiser 100/ 105 represents the culmination of 50 years of experience and technical expertise that have earned the Land Cruiser its solid reputation for off-road performance, toughness and reliability. The vehicle is a true 4X4 SUV vehicle and not a truck with 4-wheel drive. Diesel models can travel up to 600 km without a fuel stop. The armoured vehicles based on the Toyota Land Cruiser LC 200 are very popular in many countries and regions. Land Cruisers are greatly appreciated as they are very robust and easy to repair.

There is hardly a better advertisement for a civilian vehicle than a demonstration of its endurance, reliability and unpretentiousness in military conditions . Undoubtedly, for Toyota such advertising has become numerous reports from hot spots, in which rebels, soldiers or simply robbers armed with Kalashnikovs drive around, crammed ten into the back of a Toyota Hilux.

Since its introduction in 1968, the Japanese pickup truck had become an ideal platform for what the NATO military calls “technical”. The term itself appeared later in the 90s during the war in Somalia. So the Americans called pickups with a large-caliber machine gun or recoilless gun installed in the back. Even without a name, but it was in this capacity that Hilux became especially popular in the 1980s, when Muammar Gaddafi invaded Chad. The number of Hilux used by all parties to the conflict was so great that Time magazine dubbed it in one of the articles "Toyota War".

The Hilux name comes from a combination of High Luxury, and while the Land Cruiser traces its heritage to a military jeep, the Hilux was originally a convenient urban pickup, designed to replace the Crown and Mark II pickups. However, somehow it so happened that by the 80s, the "Haylaxes" became something like "Kruzak" - a harsh conqueror of off-road, but simpler and cheaper, but just as reliable and strong, which allowed them to catch up with the older ones in popularity. At the present time, due to the lack of a pickup version of the LC, "Highlux" has become the only choice for those who want to carry a machine gun in the back, but are not constrained by traditions and are burdened with the desire to have cruise control and parking sensors, or just at least modern technical equipment.

The need to perform vehicle maintenance for self-sustainment poses its own challenges. Dust makes vehicle maintenance constant but difficult; thorns puncture tires, and sharp stones shred them. Changing tires was a routineaffair, and AQIM fixed flat tires and repaired bent tire rims all night on one occasion. The average life of a light truck tire is approximately 30,000 miles, but the life expectancy of the same tires under the off-road driving conditions in this region is around 12,000 miles. As such, AQIM maximized tire life by driving on tires until they are destroyed completely.

Toyota Land Cruisers can operate without a major overhaul for several times 100,000 miles if maintained properly, but given difficult conditions and hard driving, such trucks will not last more than 5 years, and groups who rely upon these vehicles for quick getaways need toreplace their vehicles every year or so, probably selling older vehicles and purchasing new ones. This practice minimizes larger vehicle maintenance tasks such as engine overhauls, gearbox and differential rebuilds, and changing hubs. These tasks would require maintenance equipment that would be difficult, if not impossible, for AQIM to move across the Sahara.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an al-Qaeda-linked commander was an Algerian national and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who broke from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) organization to form his own militant group Those Who Sign With Blood. Belmokhtar’s competent drivers were capable of performing basic maintenance tasks, such as changing fluids, filters, tires, and even suspension springs. They could not do shop maintenance in the field, like that of army units or race teams, however, because they did not have the skills, experience, or tools. These groups constantly had to replace used or destroyed vehicles and incurred substantial cost. Determining logistical requirements based upon vehicle capabilities and limitations in this environment demonstrates that these operational costs are significant due to the wear-and-tear of equipment. Belmokhtar operated vehicles day and night, sometimes at speeds over 130 kilometers per hour, for extended periods of time. He also traversed very difficult terrain, including difficult rock formations, and even across plowed fields if necessary. Such operational costs, however, are not inclusive of the rents needed for sanctuary, but do detract from available funds. In other words, increasing operational costs for sanctuary-seekers causes further difficulties in paying the rent.

Almost 40 years of success in such a difficult "market" - but no advertising agency could have achieved such a result in brand promotion! But it seems that the days of unconditional dominance of Toyota Hilux in the "hot spots" of the Middle East are coming to an end - from an unpretentious and simple car that could be repaired right in the field by a car mechanic from yesterday's peasants, a pickup truck has turned into a "modern" car and "fattened up" by typing mass and luxury are two things that are useless in a war.

As stated by Ronnie Schreiber on the Truthaboutcars website, today Toyota meets aggressive competitors in the market for "guerrilla fighting vehicles" in the face of the Chinese Greatwall, Huanghai and ZX Auto. These cars, which cost less than $ 10,000 (similar to the Hilux cost ten years ago) copy the design of Toyota and Isuzu and are quite simple by modern standards.

In photo and video reports about the latest events in Libya, the Chinese ZX Grandtiger replaced the "Japanese" . This car is a familiar Russian Admiral pickup, which is equipped with a 126-horsepower 2.3-liter gasoline engine and a 5-speed manual transmission or a 4-speed "automatic". ZX claims that half of the market for medium-sized pickups in Libya belongs to them, and perhaps this is so. In 2009 alone, the company delivered 6,000 pickups to the country. ZX recently announced that 2,250 Grandtiger units were exported to Libya in January 2011. Maybe they look like the "unkillable" Toyota Hilux, but the fact that the "Chinese" will be able to hold out as long as their Japanese predecessor for some reason is hard to believe.