It’s not unheard of. I work for a county hospital district in a large city and we have our own police force. And believe me, we need it, too.
Now as for them needing an armored car, that’s a different story…
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Chassis’s too low to the ground. That thing’s meant for surviving HEAT shells or RPGs, not mines blowing up from underneath (slat armor around the cab).
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They go a lot fewer places than you’d expect. Most of them can’t cross the majority of bridges due to their weight between 8 and 40 tons. And they don’t do it in a hurry either, unless you’re okay flipping like a Chevy Tahoe on a set of Firestones. MRAPS have all the disadvantages of a regular APC and are practically half as useful and mobile as an up-armored Humvee.
ETA:
Which isn’t to say MRAPs aren’t good at what they’re designed for. If you’re patrolling nice smooth roads in the desert, and need to be protected from a shaped-charge buried under the road, the MRAP’s the ground vehicle to use. Pretty much any other use is a waste of money, and is like using a hydraulic press to wedge a square block into the circular hole.
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But they look impressive and are a pretty nice toy for big boys. I know that despite all the disadvantages I know about, I would be sorely tempted if offered one.
It’s such a clichéd choice, though.
Couldn’t they get something with a little more…je ne sais quoi?
Bit pricy, mind.
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That will be the decisive factor. $5000 military surplus is a no-brainer.
In your rush to protect BoingBoing from those mean ol’ haters (not me this time!), you’ve managed to completely make up an argument that no one else was having!
Hey! I’ll have you know that I bought my tank with the sweat of my brow, like Jesus and Ayn Rand intended.
Exemplified by how we define the world through our language, where we define problems as things to be conquered and defeated, rather than issues to understand and rehabilitate: war on drugs, war on poverty, war on terror, our continued love of an esthetic based around an endless Star War(s), the “battle for hearts & minds”, the football match-ups i.e. civil wars, verbal combat, gang wars, war on christmas, storage wars, ultimate warrior, warhammer, battleship, gears of war, battlebots, the war narrative of the star-spangled banner, the explosions of fireworks on July 4th, etc., etc., etc. Our cultural language has incorporated violence into everyday parlance to where we don’t notice or question our basic use of very loaded and very powerfully indoctrinating verbage that promotes divisive and destructive core philosophical beliefs.
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By “move and protect soldiers in a firefight,” I thought we were specifically talking about armored vehicles with internal seating for infantry. I’m not aware of any infantry tank with internal transport.
Of course there’s always the “tank desant” tactic of having infantry ride on the outside of tanks, which is a great idea if you want to combine the damage resistance of infantry with the stealth, size, and target priority of a tank. And it’s true there are the occasional weirdos like the Merkava, an MBT which can carry six passengers in a pinch, and has a fully-armed medical-bay variant called–and I am not making this up–the Tankbulance.
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And there’s the new name for my fighter/cleric. Thanks!
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I wasn’t allowed to do Shop/Design/Technology etc, as I wanted to do physics chemistry & biology, so learning how to make and build things was verboten, and I had to do geography instead. Go figure.
(AND they had a hovercraft in there. A hovercraft. With a Wankel out of an Ro80. I’m still angry 25 years later)
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To be fair, if I was gonna force a square peg into a round hole, I’d probably try a hydraulic press at some point, once I’d run out of hammers and so forth.
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A friend of mine had an Alvis stalwart he used to tow an old Showman’s caravan with. The police hated it.
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Hello,
I would think it would be best if the vehicle was repainted to look less militaristic and repurposed as a community outreach vehicle. I also think it would perhaps be more useful for search-and-rescue type operations or even as a support vehicle for the fire department.
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I am afraid, my friend, that arguments are made of statements, and those were questions, not statements. And you did not respond to any of them.
Add in the characterization of my intent as well as the mischaracterization of my questions as statements and I suddenly recall why I didn’t reply to you for 3 months or so, Which I will get back to now.
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I made it pretty clear, the last time we talked about armored military vehicles, that I think the police absolutely should not have them. You ought to be able to deduce from that how much armor I think police vehicles should have. I shouldn’t need to give you numbers.
Are you genuinely going to tell me that those weren’t leading questions, that they came from simple curiosity? You weren’t trying to call out people that you thought were advocating in favor of police MRAPs?
“Giving a Bronx cheer.”
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In San Diego, they know the meaning of ‘tank’, and they have always been very prudent about protecting the public from potential tank disasters.
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