Jeep

This article is fucking 'Murican. Expect copious amounts of Freedom with an infrequent side of Awesome.

Beep beep!

The jeep is a 4 wheeled vehicle capable of transporting up to 4 men and a man-portable weapon system, from machine guns to anti-tank missiles.

In Team Yankee

Jeep Recce

The stats, Sa'al!

Have you ever wanted special forces in Team Yankee? This is the unit for you!

Representing an unnamed 'Sayaret' unit, the badasses of the IDF ride around in 40-year-old cars, gunning down all Arabs/Europeans/Americans who dare cross their path. When not putting Rambo to shame with their impressive ROF3 machine guns, they scout ahead of the battlegroup and are totally indistinguishable from a recon unit in the context of a high-escalation military engagement where tanks, aircraft and artillery have been deployed to the field: at the tactical level, that is.

The Jeep Recce is the Israeli equivalent to the BRDM of the WARPAC nations, providing fragile recon for spearhead deployments and scouting. You may take no more (or less than) 3 Jeeps for 2 points: essentially, a strictly worse M113 Recce with 16" more of road movement.

As a very minor bonus, this unit’s low profile might make it preferable to some players. At half the height of an M113, almost any piece of cover will suffice to completely block line of sight.

You would ONLY take these units if you were a fluff player. Compared to the M113, it's unarmoured, is slower, (by 4 inches for open AND terrain dashes) has less MG fire and dies instantly when captured. It is a little easier to totally hide behind cover though.

The Jeep Recce platoon may only be taken as a recon option for IDF tank companies, and cannot be taken at the same time as an M113 Recce platoon.

In Real Life

Much like other support units in Team Yankee, the scale has been horribly compressed to the point that artillery with a range of 60 kilometres is engaging the enemy at a few hundred meters. The Sayeret are no different. In the IDF's organization, 'Sayaret' literally translates to reconnaissance. In practice, the term refers to special forces and commandos, NOT conventional reconnaissance at the battalion or brigade levels. At best, they might be employed as deep recon forces at divisional levels, but even so, the IDF has dedicated special operations forces to conduct such operations.

Sayaret Matkal is one of the most notorious units of the IDF, with a botched hostage rescue mission and many other successful raids under their belt. Their specialization (publicly) is special reconnaissance, but their skill set (based on previous operations) seems to align more with direct action missions. To simplify, their typical mission might be to sneak into a headquarters, kill the commanders and capture some intelligence.

To Battlefront’s credit, this is one of the most accurate representation of special forces in battle. Small, stealthy and virtually useless in direct combat, their niche for unconventional warfare makes them one of the worst choices to bring against tanks, airplanes and everything the enemy force has to throw. Your Tempestus Scions might want to jump into the enemy’s back line, but real Sayaret forces would usually hit the commander (read: YOU) while the rest of the force was asleep, and as realistic as shiving your opponent before the game starts might be, most tournament organizers tend to frown on such behavior. In a Team Yankee sort of war, the Sayaret would be sitting around with a pile of backpack nukes that Israel doesn't officially have, waiting for the POTUS to ante-up.

Unit designation aside, these jeeps were indeed used by recon units in the IDF's infantry battalions to cover the desert ahead of the main force with speed. They were crewed by infantrymen trained in reconnaissance who understoond how to operate a pair of binoculars, not special operators doing hit-and-run missions VERY far away from your battle.

Jeep TOW

The stats, Sa'al!

Israeli Variant

A (slightly) cheaper TOW carrier than the M150 TOW, IDF TOW jeeps are one of your only true sources of long-ranged anti-tank support.

As with other missile carriers, this is a vulnerable bit of kit that will die horribly when sneezed at. Without a hammerhead equivalent system, these vehicles should not be trusted to survive any serious fire which is where the Jeep suffers greatly. With literally no armour to speak of, Jeeps are incredibly vulnerable to the full range of small explodey devices the enemy might throw your way.

As the stats suggest, these units WILL take casualties if targetted by any type of artillery whatsoever, including 60mm mortars. Tanks with brutal will make your jeeps re-roll saves, giving a 25% chance to survive hits taken. Conversely, small arms fire will destroy one Jeep for every two hits. The M150 is immune to small arms and smaller caliber mortars, but is equally vulnerable to units like BTRs and IFVS.

Iranian Variant

One of Iran's few platforms with greater than AT 20, these may be one of your only options to engage those western MBTs. They only cost 1 point each, coming in either a pair or a group of 4, as a support formation. They are a must have. The only drawback is their small unit size and max of 4 in your army.

They should sit at the back and take pot shots using their long range and the fact that they can't fire on the move. They won't live that long so make sure they can fire in turn 1 and have enough support especially against MG and small arms fire.

Anti Tank Jeep (106mm Recoilless Rifle)

Iran

The madmen in Iran strapped 106mm Recoilless Rifles to Jeeps to blow up invading Iraqi armour, after the example set by the Aussies. They get brutal and accurate, but the recoilless rule means they cannot be concealed after firing. Pretty much the same as the Australian Land Rovers. A 4+ Vehicle save won't help much, but 2+ FP will hurt anything that isn't an MBT and 3 points for 6 is a bargin, especially when you lack Brutal on most of your tanks.

Maybe they can find a niche at digging infantry out of bulletproof cover at long range using accurate, Brutal and 2+ FP. They could be APC hunters, locking a flank down against lightly armoured vehicles. Or maybe they could just suicide rush up one side to get flanking shots using 48" road dash, your opponent won't be able to ignore that, saving your tanks from potentially a lot of fire for a turn.

These units can be taken as a group of 2, 4 or 6, for half a point each.

In Real Life

During WWII, the United States government put out a contract for an all-terrain 4x4 reconnaissance vehicle with only a 49 day deadline to create a prototpye. These high demands ended up defining what would become the Jeep: simple, rugged, and ubiquitous. Originally produced by Ford and Willys-Overland during its WWII production, postwar demand for the Jeep was so high that an entirely separate division dedicated to this vehicle was developed. Many foreign imitators such as the Land Rover were also made. As for where the Jeep got its name, it's a reference to "Eugene the Jeep" from Popeye, a creature known to defy gravity and go anywhere; soldiers began calling the car the "Jeep" to signify that it was a car that could pop up in the most unexpected places, which the enemy thought were inaccessible. The Jeep was by no means perfect however, with its tendency to roll-over and kill the crew being a major fault.

Regardless, we seriously cannot overstate the sheer ubiquitousness and versatility of the jeep in World War II. With a few field modifications, people used them for towing, troop transport, scouting, supply transport, ambulances, or even weapon platforms - the SAS were quickly noted after their formation for putting four Vickers K machine guns on them and conducting night raids against German depots and airports in North Africa. You could run the engine just to heat up some water or hook it up to power a searchlight. Even the fucking hood turned out to be incredibly useful by the virtue of being flat and wide as a table and correspondingly people used it for almost everything a table could (aside from dumping your shit on it and forgetting about it because you can't be arsed to move it - it surely wouldn't have been long until someone found another use out of that jeep). Some people ended up taking bumpy rides in jeeps so much that it caused them pilondial disease. The variety of uses and popularity of the vehicle had it appear repeatedly in the famous Willie & Joe comics (which can be seen in the gallery) - the creator Bill Mauldin himself was even given a jeep after the comic took off for touring the front to better allow him to make comics out of his experiences. The Jerries themselves thought the jeeps were amazing as well (there's rumors that some Germans believed that every American was issued their own jeep) and quite loved them whenever they could capture them.

The Jeep remained a mainstay until the adoption of the HMMWV, a vehicle that shared the Jeep's off-roading capabilities but could also carry heavier loads and weapon systems, as well as offer marginally better protection than the open-topped Jeep, and being super-wide to ensure it would not roll over (at the cost of not being able to use narrow roads). The Jeep is still highly valued on the civilian market as the off-road vehicle, while the typical HMMWV is now so top heavy from armor and add-ons that they too now have rollover problems.

IRL, the big ol' M40 106mm recoilless rifle was a US system dating from just after the Korean War intended to replace existing stocks of WWII-era heavy antitank guns, and was most frequently mounted on a jeep on the same pintle mount that was used to mount a machine gun, though crews were also taught how to dismount them, disassemble them, and carry them into rough terrain inaccessible with vehicles to fire them from a tripod. The M40 was very widespread in US military service until around 1980 and very VERY widely exported to US allies the world over, including to the Shah of Iran, which is how the Iranians got them in the first place. The Iraqis captured lots and lots of them and were still using them when the 2003 war came. They're still in service with militaries the world over. Recoilless rifles are low pressure, low velocity weapons, which gives them short effective range in direct fire--1150m maximum for the M40, according to various sources, and really at their best at 400m and closer. IRL the doctrine was that they were best employed like any other antitank gun--dug in, camouflaged carefully, and fired at enemy vehicles to engage them from the flanks and rear, from the closest range practicable, always keeping in mind that in WWII on average an antitank gun crew would get to kill four enemy tanks before they got pasted themselves. When it was introduced the M40's big fat HEAT rounds could kill any tank on the planet from any angle on the first shot, but this wasn't widely known for a while.

Gallery

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  Drive-by hell on wheels

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  The proto-Old Yeller

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  Jeeps were indeed that popular

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  The bigger, more expensive and gas-guzzling but far more mobile and sexier version of a portable water heater

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  On the bright side, they've proven that they aren't alcoholics

Israeli Forces in Team Yankee
Tanks:	Merkava - M60 Patton
Transports:	M113 Armored Personnel Carrier
Troops:	IDF Infantry Platoon
Artillery:	M109 Howitzer -M106 Heavy Mortar Carrier -M125 Mortar Carrier
Anti-Aircraft:	M163 VADS - ZSU 23-4 Shilka - M48 Chaparral - Redeye SAM Platoon
Tank Hunters:	Pereh - M150 TOW - Jeep TOW
Recon:	M113 Recce - Jeep Recce
Aircraft:	AH-1 Cobra Attack Helicopter - A4 Skyhawk

Iranian Forces in Team Yankee
Tanks:	T-55 - T-62 - M60 Patton - Chieftain
Transports:	M113 Armored Personnel Carrier - BTR-60 - BMP-1
Troops:	Iranian Mechanized Platoon - Basij Infantry Company
Artillery:	M109 Howitzer - BM-21 Hail - M125 81mm
Anti-Aircraft:	ZSU 23-4 Shilka - ZSU-57-2 - SA-8 Gecko
Tank Hunters:	Jeep TOW - Jeep 106mm Recoilless - M113 106mm Recoilless
Recon:	Scorpion
Aircraft:	AH-1 Cobra Attack Helicopter
Soviet Support:	SU-25 Frogfoot