In the middle of November over 400 army reserve and regular army personnel from throughout Queensland, rendezvoused at Canungra during the 11th Brigade Collective training Activity.

They lived ‘in the field’ for two weeks and the Combat Service Support were there to provide services such as water, rations and medical supplies to the exercising troops as well and doing their own training.

There were various aspects to the two weeks but this particular exercise involved the recovery of a Unimog by the 8 tonne Mack ‘wrecker’ which was deployed to assist with training and real-time recovery.

The exercise was started by stranding the Unimog off the road and well and truly entrenched in a gully within the Canunga Training Area.

This rescue mission took about 30 minutes and the wrecker was required to use its strength to pull out the Unimog, which was calculated to have an eight tonne lift weight based on its position in a gully on the side of a hill.

With the strength of the heavy recovery vehicle (HRV) MC3 the Unimog was hitched to the winch and successfully towed up out of the steep gully.
“When calculating the weight of the lift, we need to consider the ground resistance, the number of wheels on the ground, and gradient resistance,” Warrant Officer Cooley said.

Join Kate as she explores this further in the March issue of Truckin' Life Magazine.