So, with the last comic I brought up what I consider to be the Army Combat Armored Unicorn-mobile, a sort of super-duper do-everything vehicle that is airborne capable and can carry troops into combat. The US Army is convinced that such a vehicle cannot ever exist. Perhaps the vehicle as they envision it –super armor, tank-killer, huge troop load and practically weightless– doesn’t exist, but something pretty darn capable does.

I feel that airborne forces need a capable vehicle, and the Germans have built the “Wiesel”. It carries a few troops (typically about three, five if you include the driver and commander) and the armor is relatively light, but as far as I am concerned, anything beats walking. Especially when that “anything” can carry heavy machineguns, mortars, anti-tank rockets, and so on. Heck, even just a vehicle that can carry their packs would be a huge improvement.

I was originally going to draw the helicopters and Wiesels (I was looking forward to it, really; these are cool and I love to draw gear) and then include the photos below to show that I wasn’t making them up as fiction for the sake of the comic. But then I thought, “why not just incorporate the photos into the comic itself?” and take care of both the comic’s story-telling needs and address the fact that these vehicles actually exist at the same time? So here they are, in all their glory, and my thoughts on airborne mobility to boot. As far as I’m concerned, the lack of useful vehicles for Airborne forces is an incredible blind spot in strategic planning, and if we’re going to insist on carrying out these types of operations, it is counter-productive to deny it any longer.