'On wheels': mechanical 'mule' 'Falcata'

The Spanish Army, throughout the Direction of Acquisitions belonging to the Command of Logistic Support, has added new vehicles to its fleet. Among them, the special air-launch vehicle, known as "mule" and named Falcata (the sword of the Iberian villages placed at the Peninsula before the Roman conquest), is highlighted.

About 30 acquired units have gone to the Paratrooper Tactical Group, which means that there is an exponential increase of their tactical capacities. Its use will not only contribute to a bigger ability of rapid displacement, once it is on land, but it is also the base of the vehicles of the command post, signals, weapons-takers etc., due to its great versatility. "The 'mules' are important because, with the air means that we have in our Armed Forces, they are almost the only launching vehicles in platforms with parachutes"  explains the chief of the Tactical group, colonel Romero.

In fact, the 'mule' -from the Company of Industrial Equipments, Inc- has enough capacity to be transported at the grocery store of the planes T-10, T-21 and T-23 belonging to the Air Forces, and also by the helicopters Chinook of the Spanish Army's Airmobile Forces, in both internal or external load. Throught external load they can also be transported by a Cougar helicopter. Falcata "mules" provide the capacity of transport necessary to the paratrooper unit, whether for the employment of collective weapons like aids of land defense, air defense or mortars, as well as for logistic transport or trawling for the artillery pieces Light Gun. The capacities of this new material beat the old mechanical "mules", specially because of their power, reliability, capacity of transport, movility and employment with different configurations, as members from the 6th Brigade "Almogávares" could check, designated as pilot unit and responsible for the breaking-in phase.