On or around Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:42:29 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
couple of thoughts. there's a bloke about 7 minutes in who's in a very silly place, immediately downslope of an unstable vehicle. If the driver had accidentally applied too much boot or lock and rolled it, that bloke was underneath.
other general thought - the penalties for getting it wrong are usually a lot more damaging than on softer terrain.
mind, I don't really, myself, see the point of gratuitous impassable mudholes, except for winch-and-recovery training.
it's a pity that the Pontardawe site seems not to be operating any more. there was excellent variety there.
TBH it looked to me like he was behind it rather than directly to the side, it's hard to judge with cameras especially when you don't know the zoom settings (the greater the zoom, the more flattening the perspective).
Possibly, it's a bit swings and roundabouts, mud gives less grip which gives less control, roll-bars can sink into soft ground, and turning a vehicle over in water is not a good thing. Plus of course there's the quite scary attitude to vehicle recovery usually seen on the mud sites.
That course in the vid wasn't too extreme either, I didn't see anything in there that I felt was particularly dangerous, but would be fun for sure. After all if unmodified humvee H2s can handle it then how hard can it be! I've seen H1s off-road and they were far from impressive, the h2s aren't any better.
No, mud plugging is dull, and if you don't regard your vehicle as disposable then you have to clean it off the underside every time, which is very messy. Plus of course for those of us with drum brakes it's expensive!
|| On 2006-07-28, Austin Shackles wrote: || ||| couple of thoughts. there's a bloke about 7 minutes in who's in a ||| very silly place, immediately downslope of an unstable vehicle. If ||| the driver had accidentally applied too much boot or lock and ||| rolled it, that bloke was underneath. || || TBH it looked to me like he was behind it rather than directly to the || side, it's hard to judge with cameras especially when you don't know || the zoom settings (the greater the zoom, the more flattening the || perspective).
He was looking under the vehicle with his head turned to the left, presumably looking at the track of the rear wheels, so he must have been ahead of the back axle, ie to the side of the vehicle rather than behind. Unless there was a girl in a short skirt standing behind the Hummer. Who knows.
I thought he was looking forward and to the left, but I'm not about to watch the thing again just to check! Us sitting here commenting on the safety of a situation that we weren't present at is a waste of time anyway given how hard it is to judge positioning from a video.
I dont see much my SWB IIA couldn't cope with although i'd need to put the 9.00x16s on it.
Alex
I meant the humvees were doing quite well for the fat whales that they are, I was surprised they could manage what they did.
On or around Fri, 28 Jul 2006 20:29:30 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
the H2 is some kind of chevy ain't it?
looking at it in action, it's got most of what you want - good articulation, good ground clearance and the wheels are at the ends so there aren't silly overhangs (which is a bugbear of rangies and discos). It's also presumably got more than enough power and an auto box which is better for rockcrawling provided you accept and understand the lesser engine braking. About the only thing against it is the long wheelbase, which means it can be prone to get hung up on big lumps - but if it's got suitably strong rocksliding ability underneath then that's less of a problem in terms of damage.
The original H1 suffers mainly from being huge and heavy.
Chevvy Tahoe IIRC, it didn't sell well in its own clothes so they dressed it up funny.
It's got rotten ramp-over angles though, and is extremely heavy, not to mention physically too large for most things.
I think the most important thing is that like all the vehicles in that video it doesn't appear to have open diffs, you don't see them twirling wheels in the air. Having experience of the difference locking diffs can make I'd not be without them any more. I'd imagine that the jeeps/hummers have either traction control or some kind of auto locking setup.
It's also still got the crap ramp-over angles and enormous width, it's not an impressive vehicle other than in the McDonald's car park.
Yep - there was some plonker generally mouthing off about how good his one was at an off road site I frequent. I suggested that he put his money where his mouth was and follow me round for a bit and see who got stuck first. He should have managed to leave me stuck in a swamp somewhere..... if he'd got further than across the first field where he wouldn't fit through the gateway. :-)
On or around Sat, 29 Jul 2006 11:35:22 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
I did make that point, later.
then again, the Americans who go off-roading fit detroit lockers or similar as a matter of course - essential on that sort of terrain where you're very likely to get wheels in the air.
The width has at least got a valid reason - it's that wide so it can drive in M1 Abrams tank tracks, AIUI. The width becomes a problem if you take it into dense urban conflict areas, but to be fair, that wasn't really what it was designed for.
It bears absolutly no resembelance to the Hummer/HMMVW other than looks.
I thing I did notice about the H2 is the ludicrous amount of body roll and bounce. It's evidently set up like most american cars - soft and squidgy - which means whenever he stops suddenly the bodywork lurches about like a boat on the high seas. You'd think he'd have the springs changed for serious off-road work.
Alex
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