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'Technically Speaking' is a website for Improvised Armed Vehicles, colloquially known as 'Technicals'. 

The origin of the word ‘technical’ was originally used for any sort of flatbed ute/truck that has a machinegun mounted in the back, and comes from humanitarian NGO (Non-Government Organizations) working to distribute food and supplies to Somalian civilians during the early 1990’s.

Use the bar at the top of the website to select a category or region for more general information, and then the drop-down menu can be used to gain further specific information about individual vehicles or types of vehicles in that region. If you are using mobile or tablet, a square button to the top right opens the menu, where you can select category titles for more general information, or the plus to expand to show the whole range of articles. 

Due to rampant gang violence at the time the NGO's hired local mercenary gunmen known as ‘Mooriyan’ and their vehicles, which were often flatbed utes mounted with a machinegun in the back. Due to wanting to appear less threatening to backers, the funding used to pay these Mooriyan gunmen and their vehicles were categorised as funds allocated for ‘technical advisors’ which was later shortened by the US Army’s Combat Studies Institute to ‘Technicals’ (1) but are also known as NSTV, Non-Standard Tactical Vehicles as well as other more regional names, like 'Gun Trucks'. (2)

The site has a bar with options for regional and thematic filtering for viewing only Technicals / IAV's from that time period or region, and where possible individual examples will have their users, region, time period and known history included. Considering there is inherently no standardisation in most modified armed vehicles, you can tell a considerable amount of history about each vehicle based on its users, markings and equipment, and this can be combined with written accounts to track the individual vehicles' history, as well as known combat actions or theatres the vehicle was used in. 

1- Neville, Leigh, ‘Technicals- Non-Standard Tactical Vehicles from the Toyota War to modern Special Forces’, Osprey Publishing, (2018)

2- https://www.newsweek.com/why-rebel-groups-love-toyota-hilux-74195 , (Published October 14th, 2010)

Page Header image by James Mollison (http://jamesmollison.com/ , 2011) from the Libyan 'Arab Spring' uprising, featuring Salah and Adel in a 1960 J40 Land Cruiser armed with a ZPU-1 14.5 Heavy machinegun.

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