Telstar Logistics

A Remake of "The Road Warrior"... on Bicycles

San Francsco's Cyclecide has released "The Loaded Warrior," a clever remake of The Road Warrior:

A remake of the greatest action movie ever, The Road Warrior, A.K.A. Mad Max 2. San Francisco's Cyclecide replaces cars with bikes and gas with beer. A film by Jay Broemmel, Taylor Fitzgerald, and Steven Bellesiles. Warning: contains violence, nudity, drunkenness, & exploding Pomeranians.

San Francisco Orders New “Super Pumper” Fireboat

San Francisco is preparing to order a handsome new "super-pumper" fireboat, and if The Big One ever strikes, the new boat is likely to play a starring role in saving the city from unspeakable destruction.

The salty dogs at gCaptain carry the details:

Seattle-based Jensen Maritime Consultants, Inc.announced today they have been chosen to design a custom “super pumper” fireboat for the City of San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD) that will enhance the departments marine fire fighting and response capabilities on water.

This high-volume water and foam pumping NFPA Type II fireboat will feature six fire monitors and 26 manifold valves, allowing for more than 16,000 gallons of water and/or fire-fighting foam per minute to be thrown from a distance of 300 feet to extinguish flames quickly and safely.  Typically NFPA Type II fireboats are equipped with four fire monitors and eight manifold valves, and can pump 10,000 gallons per minute.

The availability of so many monitors and valves means that the fireboat will be equipped to provide water directly from the bay or ocean should shoreside fire mains be damaged by an earthquake.

Meeting NFPA standards, Jensen will design the boat primarily for high-volume water pumping, firefighting, rescue, emergency medical service and patrol in the waters of San Francisco and San Pablo Bay’s and the Pacific Ocean within five miles of shore and the adjoining inland waterways.

If all goes as planned, the new fireboat will arrive in San Francisco in 2013. In the meantime, the city's existing fireboat fleet stands ready.

PHOTO: Jensen Maritime Consultants

 

 

It's a Hemi: Meet the Army's Badass Backhoe

While on a recent survey of the industrial waterfront in Oakland, California, Telstar Logistics spied a most unusual vehicle: A heavily armored backhoe strapped to an open-sided shipping container.

Moving in for a closer look, we observed that the vehicle was built in an unusual configuration, with four equally sized wheels on each corner. "It wants to go fast," we theorized.

Upon returning to headquarters, our reasearchers quickly identified the odd vehicle as a High Mobility Engineer Excavator, or HMEE. (The troops call it a "Hemi.")  Built by JCB and first fielded in 2009, the HMEE was designed to provide military engineers with a piece of front-line construction equipment that can keep up with fast-moving convoys of Stryker armored fighting vehicles. Toward that end, the HMEE has a backhoe. It has a front-end loader. It has an armored, air-conditioned cabin. it has four-wheel steering, and it goes 60 mph on paved roads. In other words: It hauls earth and it hauls ass: 

The JCB HMEE-I is designed for excavating, earthmoving and loading. Its heavy-duty backhoe loader can self-deploy at speeds of up to 60mph and is designed for blast and ballistic protection. The vehicle is ROPS (rollover protective system) and FOPS (falling object protective structure) approved, and extra plates of appliqué armour can be fitted to the cab. It also has a blackout facility for night operations.

Here's a clean photo of a HMEE in action:

This promotional video from the manufacturer shows what the HMEE can do.

Impressive!

And here's a video that shows a HMEE deployed to Afghanistan:

 

Lastly, this photo provides a reminder that HMEEs are required to work on some very unforgiving jobsites:

Here's what happened:

The Army's new High Mobility Engineer Excavator saved the life of a Soldier in Iraq May 29, [2009], when an anti-tank mine exploded as he was digging a culvert trench near South Balad Ruz.

The device exploded and immobilized the Army's replacement to the Small Emplacement Excavator, the HMEE. Sgt. Adam Smith Jr., 9th Engineer Battalion, 172nd Infantry Brigade, walked away from the wreckage.

"I'm thankful I was in the HMEE and not the SEE," Smith said.

"I am extremely happy with the blast protection offered by the HMEE; it saved my Soldier's life," said Capt. Andrew Maxa, Company B, 9th Engineer Battalion commander.

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