Mexican drug gangs building own tanks as war intensifies
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Mexican drug gangs building own tanks as war intensifies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQc61...layer_embedded
Mexican drug gangs building own tanks as war intensifies
http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/...iX.SlMa.91.jpg
This heavily armored vehicle was found in April 2011 near the town of Ciudad Mier, Mexico. Even burned out, you can imagine how intimidating it would be, bearing down on you with its gun turret blazing. Mexican soldiers are finding more and more such vehicles in Mexico, heavily armored for doing battle with similar armored vehicles from rival drug gangs. (Mexico Secretariat of National Defense/MCT)
By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers
MEXICO CITY - Mexico's rival crime gangs are in an arms race, and the latest sign of that are the homemade "Mad Max" type heavily armored vehicles they deploy to withstand fierce clashes with each other.
The army found two more "narco tanks" over the weekend in Ciudad Camargo in Tamaulipas state along the border with Texas.
In earlier discoveries in April and May, armored vehicles found by authorities contained swiveling turrets, snipers' peepholes and gadgets to dump oil and scatter tire-puncturing nails on roadways.
The latest discovery showed that the gangs are upping their game. The two armored vehicles were cloaked in inch-thick steel plating. Built on a three-axle truck bed with a heavily armored cabin, the latest "narco tanks" are far larger than previous versions.
"You can easily fit 20 armed people in here," an unidentified army officer told El Porvenir TV as he showed the inside of one of the vehicles.
The officer said the vehicles could withstand fire from 50-caliber mounted weapons and grenade blasts, and contained a vicious pointed steel battering ram.
An army patrol found the tanks after soldiers spotted two armed men along a road on the highway from Nuevo Laredo to Reynosa, just outside Camargo, authorities said. The men ran into a warehouse. Inside, soldiers found the two armored trucks and a workshop to fabricate more. Two more trucks were in the process of being fitted with steel armor.
Each of the armored trucks had special synthetic insulation to deaden the sound of incoming rounds and air conditioning for the compartment.
Mexican media have dubbed the homemade armored vehicles "Los Monstruos," or The Monsters, while security consultants label the cumbersome vehicles "rhino trucks." None have been used in confrontations with Mexico's army.
"It is believed that they are manufactured to try to intimidate rival groups," said an army PowerPoint presentation sent to McClatchy in May after a previous seizure of a homemade tank.
On April 16, an army patrol heard blasts around Ciudad Mier, which also is in Tamaulipas state, and discovered the burnt hulk of another "narco tank." That vehicle was painted military green and had two turrets on top and six lateral firing ports. It had capacity for 12 combatants.
The vehicle, the army said, was heavy, large and "not very maneuverable in urban areas or on soft or sandy ground."
While the army claimed the vehicles are a "desperate attempt" by drug cartels "to protect their people from the occasional casualties from military personnel," the reality appears that they're used for clashes with rival gangs.
Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, two drug gangs, are locked in brutal warfare in Tamaulipas state for control of a key drug smuggling route into Texas.
In mid-May, police found an abandoned "Monstruo" on a highway near Mezquitic in Jalisco state. Five dead bodies lay nearby. The slope-sided, armored vehicle was built on the chassis of a Ford 2011 F-Series Super Duty pickup truck. It also contained a swiveling pop-up turret.
The "narco tanks" are only the latest of a constant effort by drug gangs in Colombia and Mexico to improve their arsenals and find better smuggling methods.
In recent years, cartels have built homemade submarines to bring cocaine north from the Andean region. Some of these submarines are over 100-feet long, can travel as deep as 25 feet below the ocean's surface and carry loads of up to eight tons of narcotics.
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This vehicle might have carried as many as 20 armed men to whatever battle it was headed for. Imagine guns blazing out each of the windows cut into its heavily armored sides. With steel as much as an inch thick, the armor could stop a bullet from a 50 caliber machine gun. (Mexico Secretariat of National Defense/MCT)
http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/...ZP.SlMa.91.jpg
For American Civil War buffs, these ungainly looking fighting vehicles might recall the Monitor and the Merrimack, the ironclad ships that pummeled one another for two days in 1862 at Hampton Roads, Va., failing to inflict serious damage on one another but changing naval warfare forever. What must a battle between rival drug gangs, each sporting such armored behemoths, must look like? (Mexico Secretariat of National Defense/MCT)
http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/...C0.SlMa.91.jpg
This vehicle with a turret was found abandoned on a rural road in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. It's a smaller, possibly more maneuverable example of the kind of armament that Mexican drug gangs increasingly are turning to in their wars with one another. (Mexico Secretariat of National Defense/MCT)
They ought to donate those captured vehicles to the U.S. Military overseas, for the heck of it.
Pictures at the link. One would need an anti tank gun to defend against these things.
Mexican cartels now using ‘tanks’
By William Booth, Published: June 7
For the drug cartel boss who has everything, the latest piece of military hardware is the “narco tank.â€
Can I drive one? Im sure we paid for em :lol:
AirborneSapper7,saidThe same comparison is being used on the Navy's stealth boat."These are pictures of the Navy's new stealth boats. Strange, they look a lot like the Monitor and Merrimac. Civil war tech? "Quote:
For American Civil War buffs, these ungainly looking fighting vehicles might recall the Monitor and the Merrimack, the ironclad ships that pummeled one another for two days in 1862 at Hampton Roads, Va., failing to inflict serious damage on one another but changing naval warfare forever. What must a battle between rival drug gangs, each sporting such armored behemoths, must look like? (Mexico Secretariat of National Defense/MCT)
http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t...XTER/1Tank.jpg
As for those narco tanks they look pitiful compared to a real tank.
Yes you can strugglin!!! Just dont forget to pick me up.Quote:
Originally Posted by strugglingcitizen
You'll be my first stop! Hmm wonder what kind of gas mileage they get? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by pattyk
Mexican Drug Lords Building D.I.Y. Tanks
June 6, 2011 | 6:50 pm
Video: Ejercito Mexicano incauta Narcotanques
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tQc61D_nq5k
Rival drug gangs are playing around with really serious military hardware, including .50 caliber machine guns and grenades. At least some of them figured out an armoring solution for the uptick in firepower: armoring. Chop shops add inch-thick steel plates to a standard truck chassis like that of a Ford F-150. At least 100 of the so-cold El Monstruos
Mexican cartels taking ‘war’ on drugs VERY seriously… with 100 new homemade TANKS
Huge and imposing, these heavily-armoured converted trucks look like the warrior trucks out of action film Mad Max.
But the vehicles, cloaked in inch-thick steel plates, are actually the DIY project of Mexican drug cartels.
Gangs have transformed the pick-up trucks as part of their arsenal of weapons to battle with rivals for supremacy in the drug trade.
A cable entitled ‘Honduras: Military weapons fuel black market in arms’ states that the serial numbers of arms taken from drug gangs coincide with those supplied by the U.S. to the Honduran Armed Forces.
According to the Defense Intelligence Agency file, the brands and serial numbers seized equipment are the same as a shipment sent to the Second Infantry Battallion in Honduras.
http://amazing-best.blogspot.com/201...-on-drugs.html