Ratmobile

Not to be confused with batmobile.

Overambitious ratmobilists in Libya, 2011

Ratmobile convoy in Anbar province, Iraq, 2014 (Photo: US State Department)

Dead Ratmobile, Mali, 2013

Ratmobile on steroids (Libya 2015)

a mischief of armored ratmobiles

Brand new Toyotas at the site of the Camp Speicher massacre in Tikrit in 2014

Ratmobile to be backbone of Russian Army "Super-Light Battalion" announced in December 2016.

Ukrainian Banderomobile

A Ratmobile, also Technical is the favorite means of transportation for Islamist fighters, spotted en masse at least since the 2011 western-supported campaign to get rid of Libya's independent government. But already in 1987 a conflict between Chad and Libya has been dubbed the "Toyota War" thanks to the achievements of the Chadian army utilizing ratmobiles of that brand. Recently they have been introduced to Ukraine by the pro-Maidan forces. Often ratmobiles are a gift from wealthy foreign donors.

Ratmobiles consist of a light flatbed truck, often Toyota, with mounted more or less heavy weapons - the 12.7mm Soviet-era heavy machine gun nicknamed Dushka ("Sweetie" in Russian) being the most common choice. Typically manned by 6-8 young men in black clothes longing for the 7th century and engaging in feverish allahuakbarking.

The modern ratmobile has its origins in the tachanka, a horse-drawn platform mounting a heavy machine gun, invented by Ukrainian revolutionary Nestor Makhno, who gave his name to Makhnovshchina – a state of violent anarchistic chaos.

The first vehicle carrying weapons, the Ur-mobile, was manufactured in Ur, south of Baghdad, Iraq, around 2500 b.c. Around 1884 c.e., Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim invented the machine gun. At first machine guns were mounted on elephants. The ratmobile combines a wheeled vehicle with a machine gun, resulting in a highly mobile platform of terror.

A group of ratmobiles is called a mischief.

Variants

• An armored ratmobile is called a shushpantser.
• A jihad mobile is used for suicide attacks. It is often made by adding armor to a ratmobile. Sometimes IFVs or even main battle tanks are used.
• According to recent leaks, the Russian military-industrial complex is working on Nanoratmobiles.
• Iranian ratmobiles have recently been seen armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles.
• A machine gun can also be mounted on a shopping cart or a wheelbarrow.
• Russia has experimented with mounting a machine gun on the chassis of T-72 tank.

  BMPT, armored vehicle of tank support "terminator", is an established, major, industrial-grade piece of military equipment (essentially a T-72 variant). Its multiple automatic guns, + PKMT, + AGS, are used to suppress infantry and protect tanks, especially in city battles; it also has multiple anti-tank missile launchers. Design is based on experience in Afghanistan and Chechnya, when 'Shilka' was used for a similar role. Video (Eng) explains differences between BMPT 1 (T-90 based) and 2 (T-72 based, cheaper, lighter, less crew members, other deficiencies also fixed)

• Russian off-road Sherp beats the crap out of Detroit's competition, in a swamp-hogging exercise

ISIS Ratmobile Origins

• US Officials Ask How ISIS Got So Many Toyota Trucks ABC News via Yahoo News, October 6, 2015 (a timely question).

  U.S. counter-terror officials have asked Toyota, the world’s second largest auto maker, to help them determine how ISIS has managed to acquire the large number of Toyota pick-up trucks and SUVs seen prominently in the terror group’s propaganda videos in Iraq, Syria and Libya, ABC News has learned.

  Toyota says it does not know how ISIS obtained the vehicles and is “supporting” the inquiry led by the Terror Financing unit of the Treasury Department -- part of a broad U.S. effort to prevent Western-made goods from ending up in the hands of the terror group.

  ... the U.S. State Department delivered 43 Toyota trucks to Syrian rebels. A more recent report in an Australian newspaper said that more than 800 of the trucks had been reported missing in Sydney between 2014 and 2015...

• Nosy US Officials Ask: 'How Did ISIS Get so Many F---ing Toyotas?' - Russia Insider, October 7, 2015
• Highway to Hell: US Looks Into how ISIL Gets its Infamous Toyota Trucks - Sputnik, October 8, 2015
• Moderate Syrian rebels 'to be given power to call in US air strikes', The Telegraph, February 17, 2015

  The Wall Street Journal reported that some rebels will be equipped with pick-up trucks modified with mounted machine guns as well as radios for calling in US airstrikes [...] American and Turkish officials said an agreement on training fighters on Turkish soil would be signed within days. [...] Four to six-man units will be equipped with rugged Toyota Hilux vehicles, GPS and radios so they can identify targets for airstrikes.

• The Mystery of ISIS' Toyota Army Solved, Tony Cartalucci, October 9, 2015
• How Did ISIS Get All Those Toyota Trucks? - Ron Paul Institite, October 13, 2015
• Plumber Whose Decaled Truck Went to Syria Settles Lawsuit - US News, January 9, 2017

Suicide vehicles

• Stopped by Kurds, December 26, 2015
• Rusvesna, report, photos and video (those captured vehicles are shown in the second half of the video, a loaded Mitsubishi pickup, also a BMP), June 20, 2016.

Commercials

Controversial Dakota Johnson SNL - ISIS Toyota Commercial (plus original commercial snippet)

actual IS video, for comparison (Russian with English subs)

Doug DeMuro reviews a Ratmobile without mentioning weapons.

Ukraine

• LIVE UPDATES: US, Allies Not Interested in Ukrainian Settlement, Russian MFA Says - Sputnik, February 26, 2022

  "There were clashes with mobile groups of nationalists and Banderites, who used light vehicles and trucks fitted with weapons on the principle of 'jihad mobiles,' only there they are now called 'Bandera mobiles'," the spokesman said.

Syria 2.0

• Sprinter Observer @SprinterObserve on X, January 22, 2024 (video)

  A cargo ship from Qatar, loaded with numerous pickups, anchored in the Port of Tartus in Syria.