What's this vehicle please?

[Stormin]

Saw this at Witham's yesterday.

Not not in the tender sale, but near the offices.

Looks like a CVR(t) APC but full rubber tracks and what look like nylon drive sprockets.

 

 

[sirhc]

Norman,

 

It's a CVRT Spartan. Those are experimental tracks, they were obviously not that great because the MoD never bought them. I've seen similar tracks on M113 vehicles in Denmark I think.

 

Chris

[Stormin]

Thanks Chris.

 

That's sort of what I had assumed.

I thought the rubber tracks would be an improvement for civvy (Non armed forces) use due to the reduced maintenance burden.

[sirhc]

Norman,

 

I see those tracks and just see more problems!

 

What happens if one snaps when you're driving along? You have no idea if and when they're going to fail. If a track comes off, how do you put it back on? Normally you can split the track, line it up and then rejoin it. If a track comes off you have no steering and no brakes.

 

When they're worn out, where do you get new ones from? There won't be surplus anywhere, you can't get some from a scrap yard. New track costs around £20,000 and you'd have to buy it from whoever makes it.

 

Apart from checking the pads are all there, the nuts are tight and that the tracks have the correct tension there isn't really that much maintenance involved in looking after the ordinary tracks.

 

Chris

[Stormin]

I thought ordinary (metal with rubber insert) track was only good for a few thousand miles.

So unless you buy a vehicle with very new tracks on release you could soon be looking at an expensive bill.

I also thought the track bushings were prone to wear leading to the slackening of tension and seizing of track pins.

With all of the above rubber track looks quite attractive, except if the costs are as high as you say. It certainly seems to be very common on small excavators these days.

I would love a tracked vehicle one day but practicalities are keeping me sensible, at the moment.

[sirhc]

Norman,

 

Yes the track only does so many thousand miles, but how far are you planning on driving? You'll run out of money to pay for fuel before you'll run out of tracks. The rubber track will also wear out, how many miles will it last? No idea, but when it wears out you'll be looking for ordinary track to replace it. Small excavators don't drive around at 45mph and certainly don't do thousands of miles.

 

Sabres were mostly released with worn out track but most of the other CVRTs were released with pretty good track, I've seen Spartans with new track. The last 432 we had also had new track fitted. Although that's not important anymore, since there won't be any more CVRTs or 432s released for a long time. Any tracked vehicle you buy (unless you want something Russian or a Chieftain AVRE) will come from a private sale and who knows how well they've looked after it.

 

You're right, the bushes can wear out, but you can remove a link to regain the tension. Once so many links have been removed you need to replace the track. Track is avaliable, expensive, yes, but then how much does it cost to replace all 10 tyres on a GMC or a Reo? A set of CVRT track is probably the same price.

 

Everyone goes on about how impractical it is working on a tracked vehicle, maintenance costs, cost of track etc, but very few of them have owned one or worked on one. It's not that bad really!

 

Chris