I saw a video of how Russia is bringing in technicals to Ukraine since they’ve lost so many armored vehicles.
For those who don’t know, technicals are just pickup trucks with heavy weapons mounted in the back
Are small arms enough to disable a technical or do you actually need explosives and grenades? I mean yeah you can shoot out the tires, and a 50 caliber well placed shot will destroy the engine. But the tires can be replaced and an engine shot on a moving vehicle isn’t easy. But what about rifles like an AK-47 which I assume Ukraine has a bunch of? Is that enough to put a technical out of commission? I don’t know if they armor those up to protect the engine components.
There’s plenty of youtubery that shows how easily even handguns can easily penetrate doors and radiators of cars/trucks. I do not know if technicals are armored up though.
There are many soft parts of a civilian vehicle that would be damaged by small arms fire. Radiator has been mentioned, but also belts and hoses, oil pan, alternator, distributor (or, in modern vehicles the electronic module), fuel tank, valve covers… There’s more to be sure.
So even if we assume an Ak-47 won’t penetrate things like the engine block, all those I mentioned would be pretty easy to ruin, and would with varying degrees of quick disable the vehicle.
And, of course, others have mentioned the driver. Neither windows nor doors on a civilian vehicle are going to stop a bullet.
Plus, the guy in the back using the gun has very little protection. Take him out and it’s no more dangerous than any other truck. They’re pretty much all offense, no defense.
If armored vehicles are being lost I sure wouldn’t want to be a dude in a pickup truck. These things offer minimal protection to the crew and are vulnerable to damage from small arms fire.
A sniper rifle chambered in a big enough round can crack the engine block. .50 BMG, .300 WinMag, etc.
But if I had the option, I’d go with the RPG for the sure kill.
Now I’m getting Mad Max flashes. How old are most of those vehicles? Does Russia have the most recent models of pickup truck? Or are those uncommon in Russia?
I’d bet the Russians aren’t using the technicals as replacements for armored vehicles straight-up, but probably more along the lines of freeing up armored vehicles to fight instead of having them doing behind-the-lines work.
I disagree.
One sniper bullet to the driver and another for the back gunner (or a spray of automatic fire by a non-sniper) could take them out – but leaving the vehicle & machine gun intact and re-usable by the Ukraine forces.
And that’s important, because they need weapons for fighters, and the damage to their economy & infrastructure will make it hard for them to purchase in the future.
(I’ve seen videos of them scavenging heavy machine guns from disabled Russian tanks & APCs, and adding mounts & handles converting them (in auto repair shops!) to 2-person carried portable heavy machine guns. Innovative, and very effective use of enemy-supplied materials.)
Sure they can. “Small Arms” aren’t that small. The rounds from an M16 or AK47 would pass through the skin of a vehicle like that as if it was aluminum foil.
The OP question is specifically asking how to disable a technical in a combat situation. That’s mutually exclusive with the question of how to repossess it in working condition.
Obviously nobody’s asking whether you need an entire RPG to kill one dude. In combat, the must-have requirement is to neutralize the threat. Recovering assets is nice, but is of secondary concern.
The RPG is pretty much a guaranteed easy mobility kill, and will probably kill or incapacitate the crew. Trying to get cute with sniper rifle vs. a mobile weapons system is a good way to get dead.
RPG rounds are heavy, expensive and not very accurate against moving targets. A machine gun - SAW or GPMG - is what you need here, especially if you can lay an ambush.
I’ve never been in combat, but I’ve shot a lot of guns into random stuff. I’d it depends on the small arm. A rifle chambered in something like 7.62/.30cal can easily disable a pickup truck with one shot. If it’s a semi-auto, there’s no problem making it completely unusable and everyone within it dead in a few seconds, especially if you ambush them.
Chambered in a lighter round, such as 5.56? Doing anything but killing the operators in the vehicle or shooting out its tires or radiator or other ancillary systems is going to be a tall order.
But yeah, the lightest thing I’d be happy using to attack an armed pickup would be my ex-neighbor’s M2. Hit the truck near the front, and it’s stopped. Hit it anywhere else, and the occupant there is pretty much done for. It’s pretty much the weapon that was made for that type of target.
I’m reminded of a story I once heard about an old FBI training video in which an agent drives a standard passenger van on screen, parks, gets out, and walks away. A SWAT team standing a short distance away then proceeds to unload on the vehicle, firing hundreds and hundreds of rounds into it from all different types of weapons; pistols, shotguns, rifles, anything and everything they have at their disposal. They repeatedly reload, it goes on for several minutes. After they’re finished shooting, the first agent returns, gets back in the shot-up van, starts it right up, and drives away.