Germany. US tanks caught in the act of not respecting the highway code. The police intervene
(B2) This is information unearthed by my German colleague Thomas Wiegold. German traffic police on Wednesday (January 10) blocked a military convoy carrying several US armored vehicles. A typical example to illustrate the problem of the difficulty of mobility of military means in Europe, he explains on his site Augergeradeaus.
During an inspection of an exceptional transport on the A4, which was at the rest area of Oberlausitz Nord (between Dresden and Görlitz, the Polish border), the traffic police (probably warned by some disgruntled motorists) stopped a convoy of several heavy goods vehicles bringing, on behalf of the US Army, six self-propelled guns type M109, from Poland (*).
The story told by Saxony Land Police worth its weight in gold... The control of the police turned out to be very positive. It is even a real festival in terms of failure to circulate heavy goods vehicles, since at least four counts of offenses were noted by the police. 1° the semi-trailers used by the company were all unsuitable. 2° The necessary documents and exemptions were missing. 3° The load was too wide and, above all, much too heavy, up to 16 tons. In “overload” according to the police. 4° some of the drivers had exceeded their driving and rest times.
After drawing up this "long list" of PV, Pandoras have " prohibits the continuation of the journey until the appropriate vehicles are available, the necessary authorizations and all the conditions required ". The management of the Land will take care of the case " from now on. And some " Appropriate fines will be imposed on the truck drivers and drivers involved ».
Comment: this adventure raises the question of the transport of military goods. On the one hand, the armed forces transiting on "civilian" roads must respect all the rules of the highway code (and must ensure that their co-contractors respect them), in particular rest times. On the other hand, to what extent these rules cannot be adapted for military convoys, in certain circumstances. What about control... This is the whole point of the "military mobility" project currently being carried out jointly by the European Commission, the European Defense Agency, the Member States (in one of the projects carried out under the permanent structure) and NATO.
(NGV)
(*) And not tanks as improperly called in a first version)
Read also:
For information, these are not strictly speaking tanks but M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzers. I recognize that for the uninformed the confusion seems obvious but it is not. Their role is vested in indirect fire support (shotgun) and not direct fire, the role of combat tanks (Main Tank Battle in NATO jargon).