Military equipment by itself is pretty unusual compared to civilian stuff, even civilian construction equipment. And Engineer equipment is frequently pretty oddball stuff compared to other military gear. There are mobil “bridge tanks” like this AVLB pictured here, and other vehicles that literally launch boats from their flatbed backs, or launch self-unfolding pontoon bridges, and some countries have vehicles that you drive right into the water and then expand into unfolding bridges that lock together, or become flatbed motorboats that ferry vehicles across water.

And this is all just the water-crossing stuff. There are vehicles that not only scoop dirt like a typical bulldozer, but they also lift it up in a metal bucket that part of the scoop and carry the dirt away. There are the usual bulldozers, bucket loaders, graders and other normal construction equipment, but military Engineers frequently have a lot of unusual stuff you won’t see civilian analogues to.

So Captain Mizrachi is getting used to this; she has to go to a course to familiarize herself with Engineering equipment and command since she is coming from a background of Intelligence. She gets to see an AVLB up close and remarks on the complexity of it. They are complex, and like any complex piece of equipment (especially the military stuff) they deteriorate even when they just sit there unused.

A certain amount of wear & tear is expected during operational use, but military equipment is notorious for falling apart just sitting in a motor pool. Hoses, ropes, wiper blades and the like have dry rot; rust and corrosion do their work, and so on. Being parked outside as the weather goes from blazing hot to freezing cold doesn’t help, either. In World War Two, pilots would blame “gremlins” for making things go wrong on airplanes that had just been in perfectly good working order just a few hours earlier; to me it seems like there are Deterioration Devils that are carrying out active sabotage when people aren’t looking.