|
What the Hell is a Cashuat? Sounds Like a Nut or Something
It does, doesn't it? Armor projects originating in nations traditionally considered "Third World" tend to fascinate me. This happens to be one of them. Old surplus military trucks with armor slapped on is common, even with First World militaries. They were commonly used by the US forces in Vietnam, and are still slapped together today in Iraq and Afghanistan. They slapped them together during the Salvadoran Civil War as well.
However, the Salvadorans standardized the practice, seeking identically protected vehicles, rather than welding steel plates to a vehicle in random patterns based upon the theories of personal experiences of the vehicle's crew. The Cashuat is essentially the peak of this practice, the best result of the many attempts made by the Salvadoran Army. The very same practice would emerge once again in the American "War on Terror," with the numerous armor kits now available for HMMWVs, FMTVs and other logistics equipment.
But it isn't just that. There is a lot more potential to the Cashuat. It's also the sort of thing you'd expect to find as a security vehicle for some secret backwater corporate facility, be it located in war torn Africa, the rugged, rural reaches of Eastern Europe, or even the desolation of the American Southwest. Or maybe the top end vehicle for a terror organization seeking legitimacy as a military force in the deserts of the Middle East or North Africa. Or perhaps in the hands of a despotic small town sheriff who can't afford a half million dollars for a modern LEO armored vehicle to maintain his brand of law and order with an iron fist. It's just the kind of thing you expect to find in a lot more places than just El Salvador.
Along with the seven page writeup of the Cashuat and its variants, this book includes detailed writeups of the weapon systems primarily associated with it, the M60 machine gun, the M2 Browning heavy machine gun, and the M79 40mm grenade launcher. Most of these weapons have been covered in past products, but to nowhere near this current depth. The M2 section is 10 pages detailing most of the variants ever developed, from the original M1918 .50 caliber machine gune to the latest M3 series and M2E2 upgrade. The M60 section is 9 pages, starting with the gun's origins as the T24, a WW2 attempt to mate the MG42 with the FG42 and create a .30-06 LMG. The M79 section is 16 pages, detailing the M79, it's only upgrade, every last type of U.S. military ammunition developed in the 40x46 mm low velocity caliber, and ammo storage solutions.It is all topped off by an appendix providing game material compatible with D20 Modern. 48 pages in all, plus the cover.
Additional appendices with material compatible with Spycraft 2.0 and Savage Worlds will be released in the near future.
|
Genre
New Product RSS Feed
