Club of the Month
They may be over 20 years old, but these Lithuanian Army Defenders still have plenty of life in them
This month it’s the turn of the Lincolnshire Land Rover Club and its Barrie Murdock Memorial Trial
In the early 1990s, following the fall of the Iron Curtain at the end of the Cold War, East and West Germany reunified and most of the Eastern European nations except for Belarus started to realign with both the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Over the next decade, with the notable exceptions of Poland and Romania, which already produced their own military light/medium utility vehicle models, most of the other now fully-independent armies started to discard their Russian UAZ-469 fleets in favour of more modern Western makes.
For a brief period some troop contingents from the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania participated on Partnership for Peace (PFP) multinational exercises using donated ex-us Army pick-up trucks as they commenced integration with NATO, but more recently they have mostly gravitated towards the Mercedes-benz Geländewagen as batches of secondhand German and Dutch examples have become available due to downsizing and replacement. Lithuania, however, although it too now uses a large number of G-wagens, also fields quite a few Defenders as they bought a batch of Core Military models in the late 1990s.
Although these 300Tdi-powered Defenders are mostly now over 20 years old they still have plenty of life left in them and are regularly deployed on field training exercises for a wide range of communications, logistics and liaison duties. During 2017 I dedicated a lot of my time to covering the establishment of the four mutuallysupporting NATO multinational enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) battlegroups forming a defensive shield from Poland through Lithuania and Latvia to Estonia,
and naturally I kept an eye out for military Land Rovers on each of my trips.
With the exception of the armed Lithuanian Special Operations Forces (LITHSOF) Wmik-style gunships photographed in Poland in 2015, all Defenders seen on these pages were shot on the linked exercises IRON WOLF ’17 and SABER STRIKE ’17 in Lithuania last June. On these major manoeuvres, Lithuania's Iron Wolf Mechanised Infantry Brigade with the German-led NATO EFP Battle Group Lithuania (BG LTU) under its command faced up to an attack from Yellow Force invaders and neighbouring NATO battlegroups from Poland and Latvia came to their assistance, both overland and by air assault.
Part of the exercise scenario saw American, British, Polish and Romanian troops from Battle Group Poland conducting a Passage of Lines through Battle Group Lithuania, including crossing the Neris River on a floating bridge constructed by British and German combat engineers working as one team. Some of the photos seen here were taken on consecutive days near this bridging site and the others were taken at the Iron Wolf Brigade's deployed tactical headquarters. Vehicles covered are representative of the four Lithuanian Defender types I spotted over the course of four days with images of four different vehicles selected to give you an overall picture.
The majority of Iron Wolf Defenders I spotted on this trip were hard top D110 models and all VIN plates I checked revealed them to be 1997 year model with the 300Tdi engine. Being from Land Rover's Core Military range, that is slightly militarised rather than being full-on military specification like the Wolf, these have the ability to be Fitted For Radio (FFR) with up to four antennae mounts bolted to the hard top, but not all vehicles were rigged this way.
All hard tops have bench seats each side in the rear compartment and those rigged for radios carry sets transversely behind the bulkhead that separates cab from rear. I was not allowed to photograph the radio fit, but did not expect to be as “no internal pictures, please!” is the default setting for most armies. Those hard tops were not rigged with radios, although they still had blanking plates at the forward end of the upper body sides and in the roof back panel either side of the door to allow mounts to be speedily fitted. They were being used for light logistics and transportation – the rear seats could be folded up to increase
cargo volume if troops were not travelling in the back.
I also spotted a couple of soft top Defender 110 models busying around in a logistic role, but unfortunately I was unable to photograph their VIN plates to confirm model year. I suspect these might be a little older than the hard tops but was unable to confirm this. The one photographed here has a bottle green canopy which may well be a locally-made replacement as it does not look to be a genuine Land Rover item. Back in 2002 I worked with Iron Wolf Brigade troops in Poland who were using an ex-us Army Chevrolet Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle (CUCV) and it was fitted with a similar green canopy, which was clearly aftermarket.
At first I wondered if this soft top might have been a converted hard top, but inspection of the rear drop tailgate and the lack of lower holes in the back panel for a sideswinging rear door suggest this is not a conversion. Interestingly, this vehicle has a mounting box for an antenna unit on the upper right back panel so appears to be FFR.
Land Rover’s Core Military range was essentially a build specification between the standard model and full militarisation which could be run down the production line at the same time as civilian vehicles without impeding the speed of the line. The full military-specification Wolf variants being produced at the same time as the Lithuanian hard tops were much more complex to assemble and so ran in batches with workers on the line who had additional training. In the end only the UK and Dutch military bought the more complex and more expensive Wolf-spec vehicles and most other militaries opted for either Core models or, like the Czechs for example, procured base civvy-spec vehicles which they then had converted nationally to suit their precise needs.
Two other Land Rover models I spotted in service with the Lithuanian Army were three-door Defender 90 and fivedoor Defender 110 Station Wagons. Used for liaison duties, I suspect the D110 may be standard civilian specification rather than Core Military, but I spotted and snapped at least two of the short wheelbase Station Wagons had pairs of FFR blanking plates and/or mounting boxes for antennae on their roof back panels.
All Lithuanian Defenders were painted in a three-colour scheme of forest green, red brown and black pattern, broadly similar to that found on both German and French Army vehicles. Markings were mostly limited to light grey call signs, consisting of one letter and two numbers, on the doors or body sides (though not on the long wheelbase Station Wagon) but I also spotted the occasional tac sign or unit crest.
Tyres sported by all vehicles, on standard unpierced wheel rims, were 245x7.5 R16 Goodyear Wrangler AT/R. Spares, where carried, were bonnet-mounted. Finally, a couple of vehicles sported bumper-mounted brush guards, of slightly different construction, but front light guards were not fitted to the other. I did not spot any vehicles fitted with either convoy or infrared lighting.
In addition to their Land Rovers the Estonians of the Iron Wolf Mechanised Infantry Brigade also now use a quantity of former Dutch Army G-wagens, mostly hard top, station wagon and ambulance variants. These became available after the Netherlands military started re-equipping with the Volkswagen Amarok.