Rattling along in the “washing-machine environment” of an armoured personnel-carrier (APC) on steel tracks can vibrate the soldiers inside to the point of exhaustion according to Dan Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think-tank in Arlington, Virginia. Meanwhile J.G. Brunbech, an APC expert at the Danish Army Material Command in Oksboel, observes that the crew’s limbs are prone to becoming prickly and numb, and their hands get tired because they must hold on tightly to the safety handles inside a vehicle’s cabin in order to try to avoid being jostled.
The vehicle itself suffers, too. The vibrations cause rapid wear and tear—not to mention outright damage, especially to its electronics. In the past, engineers have tried to reduce these vibrations by fixing rubber pads to the treads. The results, however, have not been satisfactory. The pads wear out quickly, and often rip apart or even melt. But now tough, new rubbers have come to the rescue. Moreover, these rubbers are not being used just as pads. Instead, they are crafted into enormous rubber bands that replace the steel tracks completely. As a result, the Danes are converting their entire APC fleet to rubber tracks. This means they have raised the amount of time a soldier can safely spend on board from one and a half hours to ten.
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