Photo By Staff Sgt. Mark Shrewsbury | U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Ryan Wahler, a senior medic with Headquarters Troop, 1st...... read more read more
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DONNELLY TRAINING AREA, Alaska - The paratroopers of the 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, received training Sept. 14, 2013, at Donnelly Training Area on the operation and capabilities of the Search & Rescue Tactical Vehicle designed by HDT Global.
The training began with representatives from HDT Global walking the Denali soldiers around both the “Storm” SRTV and its counterpart, the “Sword.” One of the instructors, Brian Johnson, discussed HDT Global’s hopes and intents regarding the uses of their vehicles.
“The SRTV was always a specialty vehicle,” Johnson said. “We’re not looking to replace the Humvee. We’re trying to bring this to the table for the specialty parts of military operations such as combat search and rescue. Special Operations Forces and units on the front lines have always been our target demographics due to their need to quickly reach and remove wounded soldiers from the line of fire.”
Johnson explained that he been designing vehicles for many years. He builds buggies, rock crawlers, ‘baja’ trucks, and most of the gambit of the competitive off-road industry. In 2004, he visited an old high school friend in Tucson, Ariz. The two of them talked about off-road vehicles and Johnson recalled being surprised when his friend, a parachute jumper in the Air Force, told him what the military used for infantry personnel recovery and long range surveillance. He decided to come forward and use some of the experience and applications he had learned during his time in the off-road industry to design a vehicle that could both save the lives of wounded American soldiers and give the military updated off-road capabilities.
The paratroopers of Headquarters Troop, 1-40th CAV were given the opportunity to directly experience the capabilities of the SRTV’s when the representatives of HDT Global took them for a ride through the rugged terrain of Donnelly Training Area. They finished the day excited about the vehicles and the benefits that they could potentially bring to the combat environment.
“The SRTVs could help us significantly on the drop zone and on the battlefield,” said Sgt. 1st Class Ryan Wahler, a U.S. Army medic and native of Fort Knox, Ky. “We would be able to get to our casualties and remove them from harm at a faster rate than we are able to currently. In the cavalry, we’re looking for the bad guys like everyone else. We need to be able to move guys from a specific location to another with greater mobility. It is kind of hard to do so with the stuff we have right now.”
The intent for executing the demonstration with the SRTV was to evaluate the vehicle’s performance and to acquire feedback from experienced cavalry scouts. The representatives also wanted to give exposure to the SRTV’s capability of being integrated into a conventional unit.
| Date Taken: | 09.14.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 09.17.2013 20:59 |
| Story ID: | 113809 |
| Location: | DONNELLY TRAINING AREA, AK, US |
| Hometown: | FORT KNOX, KY, US |
| Web Views: | 460 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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