US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) of the 5th Special Forces Group in a modified LMTV cargo truck during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Special Operations Forces or SOF have used what are colloquially referred to as low visibility vehicles for many years in an effort to blend in with the local population in whatever warzone they are operating in. Just as importantly they could also fit within the confines of heavy-transport helicopters such as the MH-53 without needing to be externally sling-loaded beneath the aircraft, a distinct disadvantage with the likes of the HMMWV.
In the 1980s, the American Delta Force and SEAL Team 6 used a range of civilian vehicles including pick-up trucks as low-profile vehicles; however, the first public use of armed technical-style pick-ups was by Army Special Forces, the famous Green Berets. During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the 5th Special Forces Group built their own technicals from Land Cruisers, including a variant mounting an M40 RCL. They featured both factory-detailing stripes and an inverted ‘V’ stencilled onto the doors to act as a simple Identification-Friend-or-Foe or IFF measure. These Green Beret technicals were built in-theatre to supplement the unit’s desert modified Humvees." (1)
This vehicle is a stripped down LMTV M1078 cargo truck nicknamed the 'War Pig', with the cabin roof, doors and sides tray panels removed, and it was used as a lighter weight flatbed re-supply vehicle and mounting a range of armaments and other equipment like fuel, ammo and long range radio equipment. This particular example is fitted with an LMG on a swing mount on the front and a M2 12.7 HMG on the rear for protection.
Stripping vehicles as much as possible is pretty common in international SOF, particularly for long range recon patrol/support vehicles like this one, and others that fulfil a similar role- look at the use of DPV's, LSV's and other light weight, lightly or unarmoured desert patrol vehicles. Stripping something gives you more cargo space, which was the primary role of this thing, while also making it lighter, faster, more compact and easier to transport by air if needed.
It's also much cheaper to strip an existing vehicle than to buy specialist vehicles for this kind of long range recon/logistical support vehicle. Before the 'War Pig' was built some US SOF (CAG/Delta Force in particular) used stripped down Pinzgauer's in this role but as the LMTV is an American vehicle they already had in larger numbers so it was more efficient to convert those instead.
US Army Special Forces/ ODA (Green Berets) team members in al-Kherbeh village, northern Aleppo province, Syria on October 24, 2016. The technical is armed with a M2 heavy machinegun and is absolutely loaded down with bags and equipment.
The Green Berets at the time were providing aid and support to allied forces in the area, and they often work with irregular or local forces, so using a technical instead of a more easily identifiable vehicle makes sense.
US Army Special Forces ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) with two 7.62 M240 machinegun armed technicals and an M2 50. calibre armed Humvee, Afghanistan. Photo by Randy G, third from left.
Technicals were well liked by US Army SF in Afghanistan because from a distance they could be mis-identified by the enemy as allied, compared to the more obvious Humvee's and overt military vehicles, and considerable numbers of utes from various brands such as Land Rover, Toyota and Ford have been used in the past, due to different regions of the globe having different vehicles being more common.
Since 2018 US SOCOM has been looking into a new program they’re officially calling the Purpose Built Non-Standard Commercial Vehicle, or PB-NSCV. This would be a way to standardise all the various technicals used by SOCOM SOF under a single banner/program as right now having so many different brands and types of trucks is logistically difficult to maintain, with the idea that the new NSCV would have a single base chassis.
The users would then be able to drop panels and external bodywork over it to resemble different brands of ute depending on where it has been deployed, as well as allowing it to have a higher cargo weight and support ballistic armoured panels and weapon mounts easier than a normal civilian ute.
A Pinzgauer 6x6 truck, heavily laden down with supplies and armed with 2x 7.62 M240's, a 12.7 M2 heavy machinegun and also having 3 AT4 and 1 Carl Gustav anti-tank weapons on the vehicle. This example was used by US Army Special Forces from CAG/ Delta Force in Iraq on the 19th of March 2003- Two of the men pictured are Pete Blaber, who would go to write a book 'The Mission, The Men, and Me' about CAG's operations during Iraq and using vehicles like this for rapid raids and attacks forwards of the main invasion force in Iraq, while another man is Brad Thomas (2nd from right). (2)
1- Neville, Leigh, ‘Technicals- Non-Standard Tactical Vehicles from the Toyota War to modern Special Forces’, Osprey Publishing, 2018
2-Blaber, Peter, 'The Mission, The Men, and Me', Penguin Group, 2008