UK Ministry of Defence,
Royal Navy technicians based at HM Naval Base Devonport have been helping to assemble Jackal armoured vehicles which when complete will be deployed on operations overseas.
Jackal, a four-wheel-drive all-terrain fighting vehicle, is currently being used by UK troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq. It has several weapon mounts and a heavy duty engine/suspension.
The land-based work being carried out by the Royal Navy engineers is unusual for marine engineering sailors, who are more used to working on warship machinery at sea. Eight Navy engineers at any one time have been integrated into the manufacturer's (Babcock Marine) assembly line team, working alongside civilian mechanics and engineers to produce finished Jackals.
One of those is Petty Officer Jess Owen, who is normally found working with the Royal Marines in Chivenor, North Devon, where he has already broadened his engineering experience compared with working on a ship. He is familiarising himself with the Jackal before he is deployed to Afghanistan:
“I will be going out to Afghanistan where we will be working on maintaining the Jackals in the tough desert where they will be worked hard,” he explained. “We therefore, need to work out before we go out there, the initial trouble-shooting areas to look for a simple fault before we have to open the handbook and delve deeper.”
Petty Officer Chris Peet, 35, of Plymouth, a weapons engineer, added:
“This work has taken me out of my comfort zone and I am enjoying it a lot. I would normally work on a ship on the same systems such as hydraulics and pneumatics, but I have not worked on these on a vehicle.
“It is good experience from a technical point of view and from a working alongside civilians – again a new thing for most of us.”
Jackal, along with other vehicles such as Mastiff, Viking, Bulldog, Warrior, Vector, and Snatch (all currently being used on operations) are variously suited to different threats, terrains and tempos of operation. Together, they give UK commanders the ability to choose the best vehicles for each situation.
Jackals are crewed by three personnel and are well armed, swift, and agile also providing serious firepower being armed with a general purpose machine gun for crew protection. They can also carry either a heavy machine gun or grenade machine gun as the main weapon system in the fire support role. The vehicle can operate across a whole range of terrain, something which troops have found useful in Afghanistan where much of the terrain does not have roads.
