Bushmaster in Ukraine

The Bushmaster infantry mobility vehicle in the Ukraine War. A video showed the variants--an armed patrol variant and an ambulance.

A little video since a video was posted online showing Ukraine’s news Bushmasters donated by Australia. Now, they’ve been in country for a while, but I realised I never actually did a video about them. Surprising, because the Bushmaster is a really cool vehicle. One of the best infantry mobility vehicles in the world. Australia sent 20 of them.

What’s interesting about this video is we get to see what roles they are being used for. So we see a number of armed variants first. Bushmasters main armanent can be a 12.7mm HMG or a 40mm AGM launcher. Some variants have this manned, others remote firing.

The second variant we can see at the front of this column are ambulance variants. These will be useful to Ukraine given the toughness of the vehicle—which we will soon come to.

So the Bushmaster entered service in 1997. It is combat tested, having served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Including Ukraine, nine countries operate the Bushmaster—including the UK who ordered 24 for Task Force Black and special forces operations.

The Netherlands ordered 98. Now, the Bushmaster is tough—very tough. An example of this comes from 2007. During an engagement with the Taliban, a Dutch soldier was killed in action. His body was evacuated in a Bushmaster. The Bushmaster was attacked—fiercely attacked with small arms, mortars and even RPGs. The vehicle was hit hard and immobilized, but not one oft the soldiers were injured.

Another example of its toighness also comes from 2007—a Dutch Bushmaster hit an IED and though the vehicle was damaged, none of the passengers were hurt. In the book “The Bushmaster: From Concept to Combat” by Brendan Nicholson it says, quote, “when it did get hit by an IED, people survived. There wer einjuries and the vehicles were sometimes destroyed beyond repair, but what a testament to the design and use of the vehicle. We had not one death.”

This is a tough, tough vehicle. It also capable of carrying a decent amount of troops—one driver and nine passengers. So it’s able to carry a good sized number of troops, keep them protecred and do it at a speed of up to 100km/h. And, do so while carrying fuel and supplies for up to three days.

And on top of all that—it just looks cool. It looks mean.