Afghan National Policemen in RSC-South master vehicle recovery techniques, equipment

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN

09.14.2011

Story by Master Sgt. Paul Hughes 

NATO Training Mission Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – An old wrecked pickup serves as a valuable prop. The cable of a boom-crane wrecker is fastened to the disabled truck and is lifted onto the back of a flatbed wrecker.

Members of the Afghan Border and National Civil Order Police forces rehearse that scenario at the Joint Regional Afghan National Police Center so that one day they’ll be able to do the same thing on the dangerous roads of southern Afghanistan.

It’s all part of an eight-week wrecker training course which is taught by the mobile training team working out of the Regional Logistics Center on the JRAC.

Training members of the Afghan National Security Forces to perform missions such as recovering disabled or destroyed vehicles is an important step forward as U.S. and coalition forces work to meet the NATO objective of putting the ANSF in the lead role of providing security operations by 2014.

“They need to be able to get their wrecked vehicles off the battlefield and order new vehicles for their units,” said Maj. Andrew Harmon, senior adviser for Regional Logistics Center-South.

“They'll either be able to repair them, strip them of their important parts or order a new vehicle.”

The whole idea is to get the ANSF’s combat power up to 100 percent. “Once it’s been destroyed, and properly investigated, it’s coded out. That’s when the Ministry of the Interior will be able to write it off and order a new vehicle,” said Harmon.

The security required to recover vehicles varies.

“It could be a case of someone just ran the vehicle off the road or it may have been destroyed by an [improvised explosive device], which could require more vehicles and personnel for security,” Harmon said.

Harmon says it normally takes about 15 minutes to retrieve a disabled vehicle. “If you can, you tow it; otherwise you have to load it onto the flatbed wrecker,” he said.

Location also plays a role in security concerns.

“Depending on the location and what destroyed it, units have local consolidation points so it could be up to a couple of hours away.”

Once the vehicle is recovered, it is taken to the vehicle maintenance shop to determine whether or not it’s salvageable. If it isn’t, workers remove the critical parts and send it to the RLC-South consolidation lot and written off the property book.

Approximately 150 disabled vehicles have been removed from the roads of southern Afghanistan in the last few fighting seasons.

The students also completed a week-long drivers training course before the wrecker training, which began in mid-July.

Following the training, the students returned to their units. The Afghan Border Police students are assigned to the 3rd Zone’s Kodak at Spin Bolder, while the Afghan National Civil Order Police are attached to the JRAC.

• Date Taken: 09.14.2011
• Date Posted: 09.14.2011 02:35
• Story ID: 76990
• Location: KANDAHAR, AF