Cadillac Gage Ranger - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Cadillac Gage Ranger is a 4×4 armored personnel carrier (essentially an armored truck) produced by Cadillac Gage

Cadillac Gage

Textron Marine & Land Systems is an American military contractor that manufactures armored vehicles, turrets, advanced marine craft, surface effects ships, and other weapon systems...

. The largest customer was the United States Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

(where it was called the Peacekeeper, or P.K.) which at one time had over 700. It is also used by Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...

and Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

. The vehicle is no longer offered.

History

Rangers/Peacekeepers were produced in the late 1970s through early 1980s on a shortened Dodge 200

Dodge D Series

The D Series was a line of pickup trucks sold by the Dodge division of American automaker Chrysler from 1961-1980. After 1980, the trucks were renamed the Dodge Ram and the same basic design was retained until the 1994 introduction of a completely redesigned Ram...

or Dodge Ram

Dodge Ram

The Dodge Ram is a full-size pickup truck manufactured by the Chrysler Group LLC. As of late 2010, it has been sold under the Ram Trucks brand. Previously, Ram was part of the Dodge lineup of light trucks...

pickup truck chassis, the same chassis as the CUCV. Many were subsequently sold off to local police as SWAT

SWAT

A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...

vehicles. A newer version called the PeaceKeeper II was offered on a Ford F-350 chassis.

US Military service

The US Army's Military Police used the Ranger as a heavy support and armored patrol vehicle.

The military police units of the United States Marine Corps

United States Marine Corps

The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

also used the Ranger as a convoy vehicle. It was used in support of United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

Submarine-launched ballistic missiles and their warheads while in transit between storage facilities and the subs.

Description

It had a crew of four: Fire Team Leader/driver, Rifleman/assistant gunner/front passenger, M-60 Gunner/left rear passenger, and Grenadier/right rear passenger (the fire team leader and the rifleman could swap positions in the vehicle). The seating in the vehicle was two up front facing the front, one directly behind the driver and one in the rear of the vehicle; both of the members in the rear faced the opposite wall.

The vehicle had firing ports providing 270° coverage. There was one in the front center, one in each of the four doors (driver's, passenger's, and two rear), and one on each rear side. All firing ports except the one in front had an armored vision block above it. The driver and front passenger had large armored glass vision blocks for forward visibility and two smaller ones in the doors for views to the side. The two front (right door and left door) vision blocks (for driver and passenger) were larger than the rest.

The doors were extremely heavy, and when opening them great care had to be taken that the latch engaged the top of the door. The doors were spring-loaded and if the springs were strong the doors would close immediately. On the inside, the driver and passenger both had door release pads located above the door openings. All one had to do to close the door was hit the pad and the door would slam shut.

The rear doors were a different matter. The grenadier had to lean out of the vehicle to use his thumb to depress the door hold open latch while pulling the door closed. These two doors were much lighter than the side doors.

The vehicle was equipped with a turret

Turret

In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification...

capable of mounting an M60 Machine Gun

M60 machine gun

The M60 is a family of American general-purpose machine guns firing 7.62×51mm NATO cartridges from a disintegrating belt of M13 links...

. The turret had an armored gun shield

Gun shield

thumb|A [[United States Marine Corps|U.S. Marine]] manning an [[M240 machine gun]] equipped with a gun shieldA gun shield is a flat piece or section of armor designed to be mounted on a crew-served weapon such as a machine gun or artillery piece, or, more rarely, to be used with an assault rifle...

(which prevented the mounting of the M-60E3) bolted onto the front of the machine gun cradle. The cradle itself had a coaxial

Coaxial

In geometry, coaxial means that two or more forms share a common axis; it is the three-dimensional linear analogue of concentric.Coaxial cable, as a common example, has a wire conductor in the centre a circumferential outer conductor and an insulating medium called the dielectric separating...

spotlight attached to its right side, enabling the gunner to illuminate any area; the cable of the spotlight was a constant source of entanglement for the gunner.

The hatch opening was notoriously small. Any gunner of extra-large size or larger, while wearing his body armor, would have trouble fitting in the turret, and it would be nearly impossible if he was wearing his gas mask

Gas mask

A gas mask is a mask put on over the face to protect the wearer from inhaling airborne pollutants and toxic gases. The mask forms a sealed cover over the nose and mouth, but may also cover the eyes and other vulnerable soft tissues of the face. Some gas masks are also respirators, though the word...

case across his chest. The hatch itself had three positions: full down, half up, and full up; when full up it acted as a rear shield for the gunner. When opened, the spring-loaded hatch automatically went to the mid-point lock. This forced the gunner to pull down the handle in the rear so that the hatch opened fully. When closing the hatch, the gunner just pulled the rear handle down until he could latch the hatch. The gunner had a folding pedestal to stand on when behind the machine gun. Operationally, any time the gun was mounted, the gunner had to be behind it whether the vehicle was moving or not.

As initially produced, the vehicle was equipped with a 360 cubic inch (0.005904 m³) gasoline

Gasoline

Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...

-powered Mopar

Mopar

Mopar is the automobile parts and service arm of Chrysler Group LLC. The term was first used by Chrysler in the 1920s and has been in continuous use ever since. Mopar parts are original equipment manufactured parts for Chrysler vehicles...

engine. This proved to be too powerful, leading to speeding incidents and accidents. It also proved to be too prone to overheating

Thermal shock

Thermal shock is the name given to cracking as a result of rapid temperature change. Glass and ceramic objects are particularly vulnerable to this form of failure, due to their low toughness, low thermal conductivity, and high thermal expansion coefficients...

. In practice the vehicle crew would spend many hours parked with the engine idling and the air conditioning

Air conditioning

An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...

on. This was especially true during the long hot days of the short northern plains summers (sundown at Minot AFB North Dakota

North Dakota

North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

is between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm during the summer) where most of Strategic Air Command

Strategic Air Command

The Strategic Air Command was both a Major Command of the United States Air Force and a "specified command" of the United States Department of Defense. SAC was the operational establishment in charge of America's land-based strategic bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic...

's ICBM bases and several of its bomber bases were located. As the 360 cubic inch Mopars failed, they were replaced with 318 cubic inch (0.0052152 m³) gasoline-powered Mopars, though a few vehicles did receive diesel engine

Diesel engine

A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...

s.

The original grill made up of a series of interlocking inverted "V"s designed to catch incoming bullets and direct them down away from the radiator

Radiator

Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are constructed to function in automobiles, buildings, and electronics...

. It was found that this restricted air flow enough to also contribute to the overheating problems, so a new "Summer" grill with unrestricted air flow was installed on some vehicles. The "Summer" grill offered no protection for the radiator but by the time they were installed it was realized that the vehicles were expendable. The Ranger/Peacekeeper really did not need the protection, because they only had to survive long enough to get the fire team to the fight, or the convoy being protected out of one.

The vehicle was originally equipped with foam-filled "run flat" tires. These, however, caused control problems when operated for extended periods of time at highway speeds (45–55 mph (20.1–24.6 )). The foam in the tires would heat up and liquefy, throwing the wheels out of balance; if this happened to all four at the same time the driver could lose control and roll over. By 1990 all of the foam-filled tires had been replaced with tubeless pneumatic types.

While the vehicle was mechanically four wheel drive

Four Wheel Drive

The Four Wheel Drive Auto Company, more often known as Four Wheel Drive or just FWD, was founded in 1909 in Clintonville, Wisconsin, as the Badger Four-Wheel Drive Auto Company by Otto Zachow and William Besserdich.-History:...

, its off-road capability was nil (the four wheel drive provided for extra traction in the excessive snow

Snow

Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...

of the northern plains winters). In fact, United States Air Force Space Command ordered that any P.K. operated on a gravel road not exceed 25 mph (11.2 m/s); on some of the worst roads, drivers would slow down further to 15 mph (6.7 m/s) or slower.

Tactically the vehicle would pull up to a hostile area, with one of the two front corners pointed at the area of incoming fire. The machine gunner would lay down suppressive fire

Suppressive fire

In military science, suppressive fire is a fire that degrades the performance of a target below the level needed to fulfill its mission. Suppression is usually only effective for the duration of the fire. Suppressive fire is not always a direct form of fire towards targets; it can be an effective...

and the grenadier would deploy from the rear of the vehicle to an area of cover. Once under cover the grenadier would also lay down suppressive fire for the rest of the crew. The next person to dismount from the vehicle would be either the driver or passenger (who ever was on the side of the vehicle not taking fire). If that member was the fire team leader, he would follow the grenadier's example and seek a position of cover and lay down suppressive fire; if it was the assistant gunner he would take cover behind the engine compartment and wait for the gunner, in order to assist him with his ammunition. The last person out would be the machine gunner; once out he and the assistant gunner would move together to a tactical position.

Peacekeeper II

The Peacekeeper II is a heavily modified version of the Peacekeeper, is being marketed to law enforcement agencies across the country to fight increasingly well-armed criminals in high-crime areas.The Peacekeeper II, using a General Motors or Ford pickup truck chassis and auto parts, has automatic transmission, power steering and brakes, air conditioning and heat and four-wheel drive, as well as tires that can operate for up to 30 miles if punctured. Peacekeeper II armor is a half-inch thick. Cadillac-Gage wanted to build 200 of the $170,000 Peacekeeper II vehicles a year. It takes 15 to 50 workers to build each one, said Clay Moise, Textron's vice president of marine and combat vehicles. No peacekeeper IIs were sold and it is no longer being offered.

Cadillac-Gage Ranger in popular culture

The Cadillac-Gage Commando Ranger appeared in the following movies:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a 2009 American action film based on the Marvel Comics' fictional character Wolverine. The fourth installment in the X-Men film series, it was released worldwide on May 1, 2009...

, 2009
Get Smart
Get Smart (film)
Get Smart is a 2008 American spy-fi comedy film based on Mel Brooks and Buck Henry's 1960s spy parody television series of the same name. The film stars Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99...

, 2008
End Game
End Game (2006 film)
End Game is a 2006 action/thriller film, written and directed by Andy Cheng. The film stars Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Secret Service agent Alex Thomas, who is shot in the hand, while unsuccessfully trying to protect the President from an assassin's bullet...

, 2006
Hostage
Hostage (film)
Hostage is a 2005 thriller film with Bruce Willis that was directed by Florent Emilio Siri. The film was based on a novel by Robert Crais, and was adapted for the screen by Doug Richardson....

, 2005
The Alternate, 2000
Desperate Measures, 1998
Seven Days, 1998–2001
The Siege
The Siege
The Siege is a 1998 American thriller film directed by Edward Zwick. The film is about a fictional situation in which terrorist cells have made several attacks on New York City...

, 1998

External links