Technical (vehicle)

A technical, known as a non-standard tactical vehicle (NSTV) in United States military parlance, is a light improvised fighting vehicle which has been modified to mount small arms and light weapons (SALW) and heavy weaponry.

The vehicles most commonly used to make technicals are open-backed civilian pickup trucks and vehicles with four-wheel drive capabilities. Armaments used include machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, anti-aircraft autocannons, rotary cannons, anti-tank weapons, anti-tank guns, anti-tank guided missiles, mortars, multiple rocket launchers, recoilless rifles, and other support weaponry. Technicals perform a similar function to gun trucks and self-propelled guns, but are helpless against more advanced weaponry and superior air power.

Etymology

The neologism technical describing such a vehicle is believed to have originated in Somalia during the Somali Civil War in the early 1990s. Barred from bringing in private security, non-governmental organizations hired local gunmen to protect their personnel, using money defined as "technical assistance grants". The term broadened to include any vehicle carrying armed men.

An alternative account is given by Michael Maren, who says the term was first used in Somalia in the 1980s, after engineers from Soviet arms manufacturer Tekniko mounted weapons on vehicles for the Somali National Movement during the Somaliland War of Independence. Technicals have also been referred to as battlewagons and gunwagons.

In Russia and Ukraine, technicals are often referred to as tachanka, a reference to horse-drawn machine gun platforms from the First World War and Russian Civil War.