January-February - Air Defense Artillery

Cross Country Driving
By Richard Gordon McCloskey
EDITOR'SNOTE: This article is a portion of Chapter
2 of Keep 'Em Rolling, the JOURNAL'Snew handbook
for annv ,'ehicle drivers. The author founded Army
Motors,' and was its editor for two years. Other chapter
titles include Winter Driving, Towing Big Stuff,
Blockout Driving, Motor Marches, and Camouflage.
There are fourteen chapters in all. Further information
on Keep 'Em Rolling may be found on the inside front
cover.
Some day-even if you've read this book-you're going
to get stuck. If it's in a crap game, we can't do you
any good; but if it's during a cross country run, come
on and read. Maybe we can tell you how to lick that
kind of driving.
Cross country driving is the thing you do least of in
peace time and most of in war. Nine times out of ten
you'vehad little cross country driving 'when you're suddenly
called on to do plenty of it.
Practically anyone can drive a truck on the highway.
And you can do a lot of fool things on the highway, but
notmany of them will seriously damage you or the truck
or delay you very much. But cross country driving needs
every bit of brains and guts you have-and good cross
country drivers are scarcer than beer in barracks.
, ,
By way of being cheerful, remember that you can t
alwaysget out of trouble by backing away from it-the
pick and shovel and jack aren't hung on a truck for
looks.
DITCHESANDSHELLHOLES
What a truck can do in the country depends on its
condition. Remember that the transmission, the axles,
and the crankcase hang below the running board. Keep
outof ruts that look deeper than any of these assemblies.
The pioneer tools aren't for looks.
A s~umpcan't get out of the "'cay but you can. If you
cant get around it, drive over it carefullv. That mav be
hard,but it's always better than ruining ~ front axle: It's
easy to belly up on a slope if you don't remember those
low-hanging assemblies. Take a slope at an angle or you
may be left with your front ,..,heels hanging in the air
and your crankcase buried in the ground.
Take deep wide ditch~s, shell holes, and craters at an
angle, too. If the nose at the truck hits the ground before
the front wheels, or if the tail hangs on a ledge before
the rear wheels can get traction, there's not much
you can do about it except dig out. Drive slowly and
carefully over deep, wide holes and ditches, or you'll
twist the truck frame into a corkscrew.
Some experts recommend going through ditches
head-on. Ease down into the ditch, holding the steering
wheel tightly to prevent the front wheels turning against
the ditch and damaging the steering mechanism. Tale
it in low gear and climb out still holding tightly to the
wheel.
Try both systems, the slantwise and the straightahead,
and use the one you like best. Mix 'em on different
kinds of ditches.
Before getting down to the meat of cross country
driving, you'll have to go through a couple of sticky but
necessary paragraphs on the things that control and affect
driving. If you know these, it will save you many
a long wait and much pioneer tool work. If you know
why your truck hasn't enough traction to get up a
muddy hill, you're not going to try it and risk landing
in a ditch. If you didn't know what traction was, you'd
probably run hog-wild up the hill and into trouble.
FOURESSENTIALS
So let's begin by finding out what four things, besides
an expert jockey, a truck needs to get across country:
power, momentum, traction, and flotation are the
babies. Without going into a scientific mumbo-jumbo,
here's what they mean and what they can do for you.
Power is the "guts" of an engine. If an engine :sn't
operating fast enough it hasn't got power. Without
power, you just don't go. Shifting into lower gear cuts
the speed of the truck but it speeds up the engine and
giyes you power-and since it's power that pulls you