Military Humvee is a workhorse for the US Army. Developed by AM General to replace jeeps, it can climb a 60 percent slope or ford 2.5 feet of water.
However, the Humvee quickly became ill-suited to the urban warfare that would characterize much of what troops encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were slow and lacked protection from roadside improvised explosive devices. Click Military Humvee For Sale to learn more.
After running their fleet of jeeps ragged in Vietnam, the military realized they needed a new workhorse. Designed by AM General, the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or Humvee as it came to be known, rolled off the assembly line in 1984. Aimed at replacing the older Military light utility vehicles such as the Vietnam-era M151 1/4-short-ton MUTT, M561 Gama Goat and their M718A1 and M792 ambulance versions, as well as the CUCV, the Humvee weighed less than half as much as its predecessor. However, it could still climb a 60 percent incline and glide on a 40 percent slope.
Its first brush with fame was in the Persian Gulf War, where it negotiated sand and desert terrain more easily than its land-bound jeep cousins and became an essential part of US forces. The Humvees remained in use during the Iraq war. Still, their drawbacks became apparent in Somalia — portrayed in the movie Blackhawk Down — and later in the long and brutal conflict in Afghanistan. In their unarmoured form, the Humvees lacked protection against roadside bombs and were easy prey for improvised explosive devices that used buried tubes of explosively formed penetrators to destroy them from the inside. The Army’s response was to bolster the Humvees with more armour, but it was an expensive and inefficient solution.
The Humvee’s military role was largely replaced by the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV, which is lighter and faster than the older model and more adept at urban warfare. Humvees continued to see service, however, and have been modified with a multitude of weapon systems and other accessories including turrets, missile launchers, television cameras and loudspeakers.
The civilian Humvee, meanwhile, went through several iterations and became associated with an image of macho motoring excess that attracted owners such as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Its future, like that of the Military Humvee, looks bleak, with GM reportedly scaling back, selling off or shutting down production. The path both vehicles have taken, from novelty to ubiquity and then to irrelevancy is a familiar one. It is a pattern that is being repeated in the automotive industry as consumers turn away from SUVs and other large vehicles.
Design
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or Humvee as it is known by soldiers, may have gained a macho cachet in civilian culture, but its iconic design was purely practical. Developed in the early 1980s to replace Jeep-type vehicles and older Military light utility trucks like the M151 1/4-short-ton MUTT, the M561 Gama Goat, their M718A1 and M792 ambulance versions, as well as the Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle or CUCV, the Humvee was designed as a jack of all trades for military use.
The HMMWV is a 4×4 truck with a larger undercarriage than most other vehicles. This allows it to carry cargo in the back while allowing the vehicle to maintain its relatively low height, so that it can be transported by air and dropped from planes. The unique design of the undercarriage also allows the vehicle to ride on tracks instead of wheels, which makes it much faster over rough terrain and provides better off-road traction.
In addition to being fast and agile, the HMMWV is very reliable and durable. During testing, the Army drove the prototypes over rocky hills, deep sand, 60in-deep water and desert heat and snow over 965,606 miles. This testing resulted in the Humvee meeting and exceeding the Army’s Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Durability (RAM-D) requirements and specifications.
The Humvee has been a symbol of half a dozen US military interventions, from toppling the dictatorship in Panama to battling Islamic State insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this year the US began replacing its old Humvee fleet with a new model, Oshkosh’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicle or JLTV. The new vehicles are heavier and more heavily armored than the Humvee, and they are supposed to be more nimble.
But some experts say that the Humvee might be better suited to front line combat than the clunky, noisy, thirsty JLTVs. One of the reasons is that the Humvee doesn’t have any electronic engine controls or electronic braking systems that a smart enemy could hack with malware, scramble with directed microwaves, or fry with an electromagnetic pulse from an atomic bomb or other source.
Variations
There are a number of different military Humvee variations, each of which is designed to meet the specific needs of its intended mission. The Humvee is a certified jack-of-all-trades, capable of being equipped in various configurations for cargo transport, light scout vehicles and even field ambulances. It can also be fitted with a variety of weapons, including the Browning M2HB.50 caliber heavy machine gun, the Mk 19 40mm automatic grenade launcher and the BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missile system.
The military Humvee was first deployed in 1989 as part of Operation Just Cause, the US invasion of Panama. It largely replaced two older military trucks, the 2-ton M274 Mule and the larger six-wheel-drive 1-ton M561 Gama Goat, which had been in service since World War II.
Unlike the jeeps that preceded it, the military Humvee is a high-riding four-wheel drive vehicle. It is built to withstand a wide range of terrain conditions, from deserts to jungles. It must be able to carry cargo and its occupants over long distances while avoiding the instruments of war, which are bullets, bombs and mines.
Military Humvees are often seen in action in the movies and television, including a prominent role in the 2005 film War of the Worlds. The trucks make an appearance alongside real Military personnel, who are carrying out a response to the alien invasion. The trucks are also regularly seen in the news, as they are used to transport soldiers and supplies throughout the country.
In addition to the military versions of the truck, there are a number of civilian adaptations. Most of the popular variations are based on the Humvee’s original design, but some have been modified for specific uses. Miles Fiberglass, for example, makes composite Humvee hood reinforcement kits to help combat the problem of cracked hoods, which can result in expensive downtime and repairs.
The military Humvee has evolved several times over its lifetime, and it is now being used in tactical roles that were never originally intended for it. As a result, the military is currently working on initiatives to replace the Humvee, both in the short term with commercial off-the-shelf trucks like the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) and in the longer term with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.
Safety
The Humvee is famous for conquering sand, mud, rocks and snow. It has pulled trailers down highways, dangled from CH-53s and been hauled on board Marine Expeditionary Units. It is a symbol of macho excess and attracted owners like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it’s been less successful at fighting insurgencies in urban environments. Slow and lumbering, they are vulnerable to roadside improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades. They get only four miles to the gallon and, in city traffic, can be difficult to maneuver. Soldiers tinker with the trucks to improve their safety, often sandwiching sandbags between ply or bolting on mild steel.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for Department of Defense personnel and a major source of hospitalization. Many of these accidents are preventable, but some are not. The military must continue to invest in a variety of vehicles and maintain strict training for its drivers.
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV, or Humvee) is a family of light military trucks and utility vehicles designed and manufactured by AM General. It was introduced in 1984 and entered service in 1989, replacing the M151 jeep. In addition to its standard variants, the HMMWV is also available with armor and other modifications for specific missions.
Unlike the civilian Hummer, which has been developed for civilian markets, the HMMWV is only used by the US military and several international customers. The HMMWV is equipped with a powerful engine and can be modified to carry additional equipment and payloads.
A Humvee is unique in that it rides higher than other trucks but doesn’t become the tallest truck on the road. This is because the vehicle frame and body are connected, allowing it to be hooked up to other vehicles and carried or dropped from aircraft.
Since its introduction, the HMMWV has seen heavy use in the United States and overseas. However, as the war in Afghanistan winds down and the army prepares to transition from its old vehicles to the new Oshkosh Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, the demand for the Humvee is likely to drop. As a result, the government has begun to sell off its surplus vehicles through online auctions.