Greg Pajo|Car and Driver
- The United States Air Force is looking to buy a couple of Tesla Cybertrucks to use as target practice, according to recently submitted contracting documents.
- The military service’s precision munitions team wants to see how the trucks react to air-launched missiles and bombs.
- The Cybertrucks can be non-running examples, to be towed and fired upon.
The United States Air Force would like to blow up a couple of Tesla Cybertrucks. Specifically, the Air Force Test Center (AFTC) is looking to add several dozen new wheeled targets for its White Sands facility in New Mexico, and it wants two of those vehicles to be Cybertrucks. It’s part of the Air Force’s precision munitions program, aimed at developing air-launched weapons to take out enemy combatants, no matter what they’re driving.Target AcquiredNow, when we say enemy combatants, the Air Force is not looking to take out your local rolling billboard for creatine supplements and cryptocurrency. The stated concern is that Cybertrucks might make their way into the hands of organizations that might field these trucks in an active operations theatre overseas. This is not as ludicrous as it might seem. Rather memorably, 10 years ago, a Texas plumber was quite outraged to see a Ford F-250 with his company decals on it fighting in the Syrian civil war alongside ISIS. Toyota has also ended up with egg on its corporate face for the fleets of nearly new Hilux pickups and Land Cruisers that always seem to show up on CNN in conflict areas.View PhotosGreg Pajo|Car and DriverAnd, lastly, Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov is known to already have several Cybertrucks, some of which he’s added 12.7 mm machine guns to. So it’s not entirely a Tom Clancy-grade fantasy that an MQ-9 Reaper drone might have to blast a “bulletproof” stainless-steel Cybertruck with a Hellfire missile sometime in the near future.Bombs Away!Thanks to its thick, slab-sided steel construction, the Cybertruck can resist subsonic small-round penetration. It’s not a tank, but those flat surfaces might offer a bit more of a challenge when fitted with additional kinetic armor, or react in some way that wouldn’t happen with a conventional vehicle.Either way, the AFTC is going to lob a couple of precision-guided ordinances at Cybertrucks and see what happens. They’ll be sure to figure out a way to compromise the truck to a permanent end, even if the production version was eventually able to put up with designer Franz von Holzhausen lobbing a ball bearing at the windows. And, given that a Cybertruck might stand out a bit in a world of guerrilla-fighter Toyotas, maybe the bad guys would do well to stick with the Land Cruisers for now. A Cybertruck’s skin might put up with parking lot dents, but a Hellfire missile is going to ruin its day. Related Stories
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Brendan McAleerContributing EditorBrendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.
Source: caranddriver.com
