I was driving down I-35S this morning and at I-35 and Loop 1604 (north of San Antonio) I ran in to the Texas Highway Patrol vessel. I say vessel because this "boat" is a 36' long, triple Mercury outboard (3 x 300hp = 900 hp) engine, gunboat. This dude is awesome, and would seem imposing when barrelling down on you on the Rio Grande or Falcon Lake.
I took a horrible video as I drove past it at 65 mph. The pictures in this forum's thread are much better. With multiple twin M249s mounted on the sides, it could do some harm. There is a decent walkaround video here, second one down. There are some other pics from the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show that show this bad boy.
I guess this is the first watercraft to join the Texas DPS Marine Division? We first heard of the intention of a maritime division about last Septemberish, and this is the first I've seen of the boats.
The boat had two real typical marine fold down antennas above the roof of the navigation console (which are shown in the up position in the pics linked above). Evidently the dude who took those pictures isn't a radio enthusiast because he got no pictures of the antennas or the radios. It was being hauled by a 4 door white F350 duallie which didn't have any antennas that I could see. None of the pics I found really had any good console pictures.
For you folks near the border, be listening for these guys. I'd love to know the callsign/unit number/ whatever they choose to call this thing.
I took a horrible video as I drove past it at 65 mph. The pictures in this forum's thread are much better. With multiple twin M249s mounted on the sides, it could do some harm. There is a decent walkaround video here, second one down. There are some other pics from the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show that show this bad boy.
I guess this is the first watercraft to join the Texas DPS Marine Division? We first heard of the intention of a maritime division about last Septemberish, and this is the first I've seen of the boats.
The boat had two real typical marine fold down antennas above the roof of the navigation console (which are shown in the up position in the pics linked above). Evidently the dude who took those pictures isn't a radio enthusiast because he got no pictures of the antennas or the radios. It was being hauled by a 4 door white F350 duallie which didn't have any antennas that I could see. None of the pics I found really had any good console pictures.
For you folks near the border, be listening for these guys. I'd love to know the callsign/unit number/ whatever they choose to call this thing.