This terrain is likely steeper and more severe than it appears on camera. And it's terrain that inherently favors the flex of rigid axles and coils over independent suspension, showing a trade-off between the old and new designs.
Yes, It’s mush steeper, but the old one made it with not trouble.
Even in remote Turing, you can be challenged by short sections like this.
In the Namibia promotion they traversed something that resembles this one, but downhill..
We don't disagree -- it's one reason why my tourer is still rigid-axled. In my experience, far less than one percent of the terrain poses 100% of the potential problems, and those problems can wreak havoc on the rest of the trip.
I think we all knew that the new Defender's design sacrifices capability on terrain like this for the comfort of IFS and IRS. But I have to say that, if in fact the mechanicals were working as they should, this example shows a bigger difference than I had expected.
I expected lots of clumsy teeter-tottering, which is inherent to IFS and IRS, but I didn't expect such poor traction from the 4WD system. I've always felt that flex--keeping wheels on the ground--is traction's best friend, and that lockers are for when you can't. Here, locking didn't seem to provide the backstop that I thought it would.