Editing Technical (vehicle) (section)

== Etymology ==
The [[neologism]] ''technical'' describing such a vehicle is believed to have originated in [[Somalia]] during the [[Somali Civil War]] in the early 1990s.<ref name="Neville Dennis 2018">{{cite book |last1=Neville |first1=L. |last2=Dennis |first2=P. |title=Technicals: Non-Standard Tactical Vehicles from the Great Toyota War to modern Special Forces |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |series=New Vanguard |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-4728-2252-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vWlPDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT4 |access-date=January 23, 2019 |pages=4, 21}}</ref><ref name="Drysdale 2001 p. 47">{{cite book |last=Drysdale |first=J. |title=Whatever happened to Somalia? |publisher=HAAN |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-874209-51-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IXYwAQAAIAAJ |access-date=January 23, 2019 |page=47}}</ref> Barred from bringing in [[private security]], [[non-governmental organization]]s hired local gunmen to protect their personnel, using money defined as "technical assistance grants". The term broadened to include any vehicle carrying armed men.<ref name="hilux">{{cite news |url=http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/14/why-rebel-groups-love-the-toyota-hilux.html |title=Guerrilla Trucks: Why rebels and insurgent groups the world over love the Toyota Hilux pickup as much as their AK-47s |work=[[Newsweek]] |date=October 14, 2010 |access-date=October 25, 2010}}</ref>

An alternative account is given by [[Michael Maren]], who says the term was first used in Somalia in the 1980s, after engineers from Soviet arms manufacturer ''Tekniko'' mounted weapons on vehicles for the [[Somali National Movement]] during the [[Somaliland War of Independence]].<ref name="Neville Dennis 2018" /> Technicals have also been referred to as ''battlewagons'' and ''gunwagons''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.yahoo.com/photo/061204/photos_pl_afp/4d556aadc7d2846f7ec811e4bf90f3bc |title=Somalia transitional government soldiers keep watch from a battlewagon over the parliament at Baidoa in November 2006, AFP Photo |publisher=Yahoo! News |access-date=July 6, 2011}}</ref>

In Russia and Ukraine, technicals are often referred to as ''[[tachanka]]'', a reference to horse-drawn machine gun platforms from the [[First World War]] and [[Russian Civil War]].