Humvee vulnerabilities raise doubts on future

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-21-iraq-armor_x.htm

Even the most heavily armored Humvees may be inadequate to protect U.S. troops from ever-changing insurgent tactics, the Marine Corps' second-ranking general told lawmakers Tuesday. New vehicle designs, however, would take years to develop.
The House Armed Services Committee questioned Gen. William Nyland, assistant commandant of the Marines, about how long it has taken to get armored Humvees into the field. Nyland said hundreds of new armored Humvees and armor kits to upgrade standard Humvees have been put to use or are en route to Iraq.

However, the roadside bomb attacks that have killed and wounded hundreds have forced the Pentagon to consider alternatives to the Humvee, he said. "If this is the threat of the future, the long-term utility of the Humvee has to be questioned," he said. "We have to take continued steps to find what will defeat this kind of a threat."

Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who has a son who served in Iraq, said the Marines should have moved faster to increase vehicle armor when insurgents began devising more powerful roadside bombs using triple-stacked mines, 155mm artillery shells and "shaped charges," which concentrate the force of an explosion. Nyland told Hunter the final batch of vehicle armor upgrades will be in Iraq by December.

BTW, anyone know of anyone producing a bumper sticker along the lines of "Want to Drive a Humvee - Enlist!"? I'd love to put one of those on my vehicle to complement my Bring the Troops Home and Draft Bush Voters

[brainshrub]

1. The best way to protect troops from attacks is to end the occupation.

Quibbling about the armor isn't going to solve the problem, getting the troops home will.

[ckramer]

2. Nothing is safe if US fights an illegal and immoral war

Want to be safe? Get out of Iraq, like getting out of Vietnam.

[unhappycamper]

3. You can make any bumper sticker you want.

http://www.makestickers.com/

Same for ribbons:

http://supportourribbons.com/

[RamboLiberal]

8. Thanks - I'm going to save these to my Favorites

eom

[flamin lib]

4. Like it or not there will always be a need for the Military. Too

bad Bush doesn't understand that there should also be a NEED to use it.

The Humvee is a replacement for the "Jeep", a small agile 4 passenger vehicle. The military expanded the vehicle mission to include troop movement, a gun platform and a host of other missions like chemical warfare detection.

It's the fate of such a do-everything vehicle to do nothing very well. Armor it heavily enough to protect the troops inside and it won't move and will wear out prematurely. Make it fast and agile and even small arms fire will prove deadly.

Such vehicles should be relegated to safe rear areas and used for errand running and transportation of the Brass. APCs and Bradley fighting vehicles are what you need for patrols.

The other issue is that with insurgents nothing can be safe. They adapt, improvise and . . . oh, that's the Marine motto.

[readmylips]

5. Blame it on Ahhnold...

he made the humbee popular as an extension of his penis. I mean, if your penis is a good size, why does any man need to enhances it with toys? I don't get it.

[Zynx]

6. The Humvee is not an AFV. It's prefectly good in its actual role.

That role being a Jeep.

[malmapus]

9. Thank you!

Was about to make a post in support of the Humvee myself for the role it was designed for.

The thing NEVER rarely let me down, it could take a beating.

But yeah it can't take IED, hell Bradleys can't even seem to handle some of the IEDs.

I think the Humvee has really gotten a real bum rap in Iraq. It beats the living hell out of the CUCVEE's that were still in service and being phased out when I was in.

EDIT After I made this post I've been sitting here trying to think of anytime a HUMVEE let me down. I can't think of even one.

[SlipperySlope]

7. The humvee was never intended to fill this role.

The HMMVW was never intended to provide a high level of protection. A lot of people forget this, but the HMMVW was design to replace the good old Jeep and a handful of other trucks (M274, M561, M718, M792). It was never intended to be an armored personnel carrier.

The planners in the 80's wanted a more reliable and versitile vehicle for behind the front, to be used to carry people and material around.

Unfortunately, in Iraq the front is everywhere, and unarmored vehicles are too tempting of a target. Even up-armored, the HMMWV is only intended to protect against small arms and light blasts.

The designers of the HMMWV did a great job creating a vehicle that filled the need that had been explained to them. That need didn't anticipate urban guerrilla warfare.

Blame the planners of the current situation, but all in all, the troops are better off in HMMWVs than in the old M151 Jeep.

[malmapus]

11. Exactly!

Couldn't of said it better myself.

[sweetheart]

10. All it would take to protect a humvee is a bumper sticker

Something like: "Fuck Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice, Those war criminals
should face the firing squad"

Write it in arabic and put them in big lettering on the sides of the
humvees and perhaps some will be spared.

... and really, wasn't that what the bradley fighting vehicle is for?
Want more armour, drive a tank.... revive the sherman tank and show
that the republicans are going backwards!

How terribly pathetic bush's whole iraq quagmire has become.

[IndianaGreen]

12. Well, there is the Batmobile used in Batman Begins!

A movie prop may offer better protection than what is essentially a SUV on steroids.

[formercia]

13. The insurgents will just adapt

If you increase the belly armor, they will use self-forging (Miznay-Chardin) type devices that the Afghans used effectively against the Soviets.
Going on patrols to show the flag and draw fire is lame.

[The_Casual_Observer]

14. The military is fighting a war they can't win.

A hated occupation force is perpetually vulnerable. The Germans figured this out in the 40's.

[JohnyCanuck]

15. Good news is - replacements for humvees are on the way.

Bad news is - they're minivans.

WINDSOR, Canada — The U.S. Armed Forces have ordered 19,000 minivans and 5,000 Pacificas from the Chrysler Group for use as light-duty vehicles in Iraq and elsewhere around the world, displacing less fuel-efficient Humvees, according to the Windsor Star.

The switch to the gas-powered school-carpool mainstays is designed to reduce fuel consumption and improve passenger-carrying ability. The U.S. military has complained it is inefficient to use Humvees to carry a few soldiers at a time, especially in noncombat situations.

The minivans — all gold-colored — will be built at Chrysler's St. Louis, Missouri, and Windsor assembly plants.

"The U.S. government has put their down payment on the vehicles and we're building them already," a plant source told the Star. "They're supposed to be going to Iraq as taxis and stuff."

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Articles/articleId=105726


First we learned, courtesy of Edmunds, the car magazine, that the Bush administration has decided to equip the occupation forces in Iraq with Chrysler minivans, in place of GM's Humvee gas hogs. This is a low blow to General Motors, which only days earlier saw its bonds reduced to junk status by the ratings agencies largely because of the company's moronically short-sighted decision to focus on gas-guzzling SUVs…like the Hummer.

It's more than a little ironic that Bush--a guy who has spent his oil-stained career mocking those who call for federal laws to mandate better gas mileage from Detroit automakers--would make a major purchase decision (we're talking about a 25,000- vehicle order here) based upon fuel economy. It's also worth noting that these Pentagon-bound Chrysler minivans will all be made in Canada, (actually some will be built in the US as well /jc) while the Humvee is made in the good old USA.

I'm not sure what the opinion of the troops is on this one. There have been complaints all along that the Humvees were inadequately armored to protect against RPGs, AK-47s and IEDs, but if the government-ordered minivans are anything like my own Chrysler minivan, which is a piece of tin that gets dented by the slightest kicked-up pebble, we can expect the American casualty rate to soar when these babies start rolling along Iraqi roads. (Judging from my own experience with Chrysler products, I hope the Pentagon also buys the extended warranty on these babies; my trans went after just 30,000 miles.)

Then we have the new crackdown in Baghdad--you know, the one that the Iraqi government announced four days ahead of the launch date. What was that all about? Clearly the Iraqi military and police wanted to make sure everyone who might be shooting at them got well out of the way beforehand. Even so, the U.S. military managed to botch the job by immediately going out and arresting, not insurgents, but a leading Sunni imam. And not just any imam, but a man who heads of one of the political parties the U.S. has supposedly been trying to coax into participating in the puppet government of Iraq. This is the kind of tactical brilliance that has turned what was supposed to be a quick war of liberation into a bitter quagmire. You almost have to think US Ambassador John Negroponte is channeling the incredibly inept L. Paul Bremer.

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2317&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

[SlipperySlope]

18. GM does not make the HMMWV

Which makes me doubt the rest of this article.

[JohnyCanuck]

20. It was reported in the mainstream media

Actually the Chrysler contract to build minivans as replacements for humvees was reported in the mainstream media here in Canada. They were treating it as a happy story because the Canadian auto workers would be getting lots of overtime and more shifts would open up for new hires at Canadian car plants.

The Edmunds' report in my previous post quotes the Windsor Star which is a mainstream Canadian newspaper in Windsor Ontario which happens to be a major centre for the Canadian auo industry. I tried searching for some news stories in the Canadian newspapers but their free search features only allow you to go back 7 days, so I haven't been able to pull anything up.

Of course,crazy as they are, they have to be really crazy to replace humvees with minivans for patrolling the streets of Baghdad. Nevertheless I did hear it reported some of these minivans were for Iraq. Maybe they'll use them for transporting troops around the enduring bases they are supposed to be building over there or maybe just chauffering people around in the green zone.

On Edit: Found another link on the story with a link to the original Windsor Star article (which no longer works).

The U.S. military has been increasingly concerned about fuel consumption in recent years, and its commanders have complained publicly that the diesel-guzzling Humvee is extremely inefficient in non-combat use to ferry a few soldiers at a time around base.

Ten thousand of the minivans -- all gold-coloured -- will be built at the Chrysler Group's St. Louis assembly plant, 9,000 at the Windsor plant. Windsor is the sole source of the Pacifica, so its employees get to fill the lion's share of the order, 14,000 vehicles.

Asked about the huge order this week, Frank Ewasyshyn, executive vice-president of manufacturing for DaimlerChrysler, would only grin and say that "Sales are great."

Asked to confirm that the Windsor plant and its suppliers have been told they will be working double time on Monday and every Saturday until the shutdown in mid July in order to fill the military order, Ewasyshyn kept grinning and saying: "sales are great. We're running full tilt."

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052505_world_stories.shtml

[SlipperySlope]

21. Ok - thanks for the detailed followup.

Now, I only wonder why they picked gold???

[formercia]

22. It's an easy color for the Insurgents to remember

and there are probably no other vehicles of the same type and color in Iraq.

Shoot for the Gold.

[TahitiNut]

16. Heaven-fucking-forbid that our military personnel are actually vulnerable.

IMHO, this is freaking INSANE! What's the expectation here? That our military personnel can cruise around a war zone, killing indiscriminately, and be as "safe" as some cell-phone-wielding soccer mom chauffeuring her over-indulged brats to some Neo-Nazi picnic in her gas-guzzling, $45K, 8mpg SUV?

Incredible! So, a 50-to-1 kill ratio isn't enough?

This is a freaking distraction! Our military personnel, as well as thousands of innocent civilians(!), are being killed and maimed because this corrupt administration is deliberately engaged in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It's not the Jeep-replacement's fault! It's The Bushoilini Regime's fault!

[Lowell]

17. Why don't they take the old M113A1

Armored Personnel Carriers out of mothballs and use them. We have thousands of them in storage, they are already paid for and they are much safer than those stupid Humvees. They served us well in Vietnam and they can withstand most of what the insurgents have to throw at us. Newer is not necessarily better. Humvees are junk, they always have been.

[RamboLiberal]

19. Actually they are taking the M113A3s out of mothballs

and shipping them to Iraq.

From Jan 2005

The Army, beset with complaints that its troops are going into combat in inadequately armored Humvees, will send an older and less used class of armored personnel carriers to Iraq after spending $84 million to add armor to them.

These vehicles, both veteran warhorses, are the M113/A3 armored personnel carrier and the M577 command post carrier. Both will be tougher and safer than newly armored Humvees.

Army officials who pushed hard over the last two years for getting the M113 into duty in Iraq said it was more useful, cheaper and easier to transport than the Army's new wheeled Stryker armored vehicle, which also is in use in Iraq.

<snip>

An Army representative, who didn't want to be identified, said Monday that $84 million was being spent to add armor to 734 M113/A3s and M577s.

For the M113s, that includes hardened steel side armor, a "slat armor" cage that bolts to the side armor and protects against RPGs, anti-mine armor on the bottom and a new transparent, bulletproof gun shield on the top that vastly improves gunners' vision.

http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,SS_010405_Armor,00.html

[formercia]

23. And since the Iranians have M113's

it will make for a really fucked up battlefield situation whe Fearless Leader decides to invade.

[daleo]

24. Best solution is to stay out of unnecessary wars. n/t

[speedingbullet]

25. Hummer's Future

My son's rap videos indicate that the civilian Hummer has a secure future. Everyone needs a huge,ugly, gas-guzzler to drive down to the mini-mall. Oh wait, you mean the military version doesn't have leather seats? Get me an Escalade.

[spanone]

26. Didn't Bush* say our troops have EVERYTHING THEY NEED?

Lying motherfucker.