Joe,
You know I pretty much agree with you on this issue, and am a great supporter of using vehicles like "The Rock".
However, as the Humvee is a Jeep replacement vehicle, how many WWII casualties were caused by riding in a Jeep as opposed to a more heavily armored vehicle?
Or, to rephrase, how many more OIF casualties would there have been if the jeep had continued in it's pre-Humvee role. Of course that's a ridiculous question, but, also, imho, is the question of why aren't Humvees safer or why aren't we using the safer vehicles?
To repeat myself, I love "The Rock" and want an answer to why DoD hasn't purchased sufficient numbers of it to relieve the troops dependency on some "up-armored" Humvee?
Mike

Mike,

The difference is that there were front lines in World War 2. I'll also note that the USA used half-tracks in assault roles, not jeeps. If the half-track has a modern day successor, it's probably the Cougar (also noted in my article).

A "rear echelon vehicle" no longer makes sense in actual war zones anywhere once one accepts that urban warfare and the non-linear battlefield are here to stay. I've said it before: get a comparable vehicle fully designed for war zones like The Rock, RG-31s, et. al. If the military then wants a different vehicle (fully civilian, if they're smart) for non-threat areas like the continental USA, fine. But Iraq and Afghanistan are the wrong places for a vehicle like the Hummer - far more expensive that a true "rear echelon" vehicle, and not designed or even fixable as a proper war zone ride.

Why does the military use planar armor? They should use slanted armor to minimize the force applied by an explosion.

Read my "Hummer Deathtraps Suck" article. It makes this very point. It's especially important on the bottom.

Yup. It was intended as a "super jeep" with characteristics such as the tilted radiator and honestly fairly remarkable ground clearance and climbong ability. But they couldn't make such a beastie as repairable as the old Willys;es or Mules.

As Joe says, in the hot zones we're not doing much rattling around rough country with the fighting "over yonder". If the HMMWV was ever the right tool, it's not for this IED- and RPG-rich environment.

Pressure needs to be kept up to try to get something like the following scenario going:

Bite the procuremement bullet as far as unit volumes and parts for Hummers go. Pull them back over here for border enforcement. Secure multi-source licensing ASAP, start buying and deploying V-hulls in quantity. Give as many contracts to FMC and American Motors (whatever they're called these days) as possible. Heck, get Ford on the horn.

In parallel, try to come up with a design that repurposes as much of the Hummer logistics as possible, with an adequate V-hull design that can still negotiate reasonably narrow streets, that can be towed by a Hummer if that's all you have available.

In parallel with that, keep working on advanced sensors that can smell IEDs.

"The solution will not and cannot be complete." But with Strykers the wave of the future, somebody ought to be getting the word about v-hulls.

I forgot to mention another aspect of the Hummer design: there were/are versions configurable as Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Warfare resistant. Originally, this was seen as important for Fulda-Gap-type scenarios. And it might still matter in some foreseeable Middle East "bad days".

"Ain't nothin' simple."

Nort is mostly bang-on. Only thing I'd change is to note that it isn't about developing a better mousetrap or "coming up with a design." Several are already out there, are a similar size/vehicle class, and work much better.

Several are already out there, are a similar size/vehicle class, and work much better.

I'd like to believe the U.S. military would buy a weapons system off the shelf, but how likely is that?

In fact, as my previous article notes, the US military has already bought some of the systems in question for bomb squad units. It's moronic not to make the connection and put these vehicles, which are very similar to the Hummers in size and role, in the hands of all troops.

It's quite true that the Pentagon does have a terrible "Not Invented Here" problem in general, however. There have been times, and there are times, when the US military-industrial-political complex would rather see American kids die than admit that someone else did it better. It's not even an American jobs issue, because anyone who gets big US contracts generally needs to set up US operations for manufacturing just because of the scale, etc.

Both Ford and GM have excess manufacturing capacity. If the pentagon wanted they could easily get a whole factory tooled up to produce whatever vehicle variant they decide upon quickly. The biggest delay would be the tooling changes required and ironing out the supply chain to the plant.

Both Ford and GM would leap at the chance to produce vehicles and avoid laying off part of their work force. But neither Ford nor GM could design a vehicle operate in that kind of environment. They no longer have the engineering experience with combat and explosives.

Brian,

Licensed production works.

The up-armoring of humvees was criticism driven. The humvee should never be used in threat situations. Strykers, Bradleys and M-113[?] are designed for such service. Sending troops into battle in humvees is gross incompetence. The armor doesn't protect against much, and it severely limits the ability to shoot back.

The issue of funding, procuring, testing and deploying a new patrol vehicle more resistant to IED's is far more complex than just building some armored car off some allies' TOE.

There are a lot of long lead times that are obstacles to such a deployment and when done the question is does the new vehicle actually fit into the longer term missions of the US Army. Could such be done before we intend to be out of the business of patrolling Iraq's streets anyway?

The reality in my opinion is that the IED problem is not best solved by equipment replacement but by tactics as no vehicle is immune.

Tactics are part of it, but let's put it this way. Would YOU ride around in an inadequate vehicle, knowing that it lowers your odds of seeing your family again, when more surivable replacements exist - and be happy with the blithe admonition to "use better tactics"? How about "it's been 3 years, use better management and procurement and stop asking soldier to bleed for your mistakes." Or does duty go only one way?

The whole premise of "it's going to take ages to develop this" is bulls--t. The vehicles exist, and are even being bought. As noted in my article, the trends all point to long term need, but the point is that they are needed in theater NOW. To review:

• The funding is already being used to procure over $1 billion in throwaway up-armored Hummers that will kill American soldiers and leave the US with NO vehicles long term, because they wear out in 4 years.

• Alternatives have already been deployed, so testing is a b.s. excuse.

• Licensed production is entirely possible.

I'm out of patience with these kinds of replies. As pointed out in my article, there is a valid response that cites logistics, production, and training to note that Hummers will be with us for a while. But stuff about "we can't just replace it with something better" is a pure excuse for inadequate management and leadership that does not withstand scrutiny.

The military-industrial-political complex is not always the soldiers' friend. Truly supporting the troops demands acknowledgement of realities, but that doesn't mean accepting every half-baked excuse that comes out of the Pentagon as gospel.

Joe,
The time that it takes to deploy a new system is not a half-baked excuse, its reality. A vehicle that the front line troops cannot operate or repair is less valuable to them than even the vulnerable HMMV.

And the fact is that we have lost heavy armored vehicles such as AAAV's and M1 tanks to IED's as well as the HMMV, so the statement that the solution is tactics not equipment is not a "blithe" admonition but the reality of the operational area. I don't believe your response is an objective reaction to my comment.

SPQR has valid points, too. Just thinking out loud from my armchair...

When the bad guys are stacking antitank mines three deep, or whatever it's gotten to now, a great many vehicles are at risk of having a bad day.

If one could cook up a parallel design that uses as much of the HMMWV part set as practicable it might mollify the bean counters and ease maintenance and transition training.

It might be that a "jacked" tallboy Hummvee dog just won't hunt. But in MOUT where you're not trying to scale half-destroyed walls, it seems possible that some kind of undercarriage applique slant armor might help, if one were willing to radically change the frame and further increase the ground clearance with the armor off.

The vehicle wouldn't look that much like like a Hummer, it sure wouldn't handle like one, and it might not be driveable after a close encounter of the boom kind. Could be a bad idea, but it might be worth blowing a few hundred kilobucks on a feasibility study. And that might address some of SPQR's concerns.

Or I might be full of cr*p. :)

The lifetime of up-armored Hummers being four years is, perhaps the most telling factor.

And ditto Joe's gentle request about heads and asses, three years on.

Some other thoughts--comments requested:

It's relatively easy to see out of and into a Hummer, and their turning radius and handling characteristics are pretty well programmed into the drivers in-theater. I conjecture that psychologically, Hummers still feel a bit like cars (to the locals)-- especially compared to the forbidding impression created by "real armor". I remember the Irish Troubles, and what the Brits were driving there. The situations are not identical.

Question for Joe:

Is there a v-hull vehicle available off the shelf that can drive where a Hummvee can, that doesn't feel like a Saladin or Stryker?

Maybe you just can't make a v-hull that can provide decent protection and fit where a Hummer can, that isn't either 14 feet tall, built like a triceratops, or an unobtainium sink. I dunno.

I'll definitely look at your links. Apologies if my tyro questions are answered there.

Joe,

There are conflicts between passive protection measures and mobility, not to mention affordability. M-1 Arbrams are far better protected than Humvees, but at the price of affordability, tactical mobility, operation mobiility and strategic mobility.

Furthermore our infantry is rejecting newly offered personal side armor because it restricts their mobility too much. That additional personal armor is pretty much useable only by troops who rarely leave their vehicles.

And there are conflicts between vehicle mission requirements for conquest campaigns as opposed to occupation campaigns. We might be better off with different vehicle equipment sets for those two quite different missions.

I.e., we don't need a Hummer replacement. Hummers are well suited for their intended role.

Instead we need to augment existing Hummers with a new vehicle serving in the same role for occupation campaigns.

Dont the Brits have some kind of armored car theyve had great success with in Ireland and elsewhere? Cant recall its name.

Joe,

The rule of thumb for Iraqi deployed military trucks is that each truck there is taking a year's worth of service life for every month it is deployed in Iraq.

Afghanistan is actually better because the environmental sand is much less abrasive and the speeds travelled are much slower due to road conditions and the lower IED threat environment. (OTOH, Afghan roads eat tires like little children eat candy.)

Medium and Heavy Military trucks have a 20 year service life with another ten years after a complete bare frame rails, plus new power pack rebuild.

A Humvee class military truck has a 12 year peacetime service life, unarmored. IOW, a year in Iraqi service requires a bare frame rail/power pack rebuild of the armored Humvee.

"Big Army" planners are having a severe case of mental indigestion over light/medium/heavy trucks becoming defacto combat vehicles for a host of reasons ranging from logistics to doctrine to paying the Department of Transportation federal highway excise taxes because the front axle weight now exceeds that required for the taxes to kick in.

The two big issues for thr Army's wheeled vehicle fleet are whether every 2&1/2 and 5-ton truck in a Unit of Action becomes "armored" and how to deal with the fact that 40% of the Army wheeled tactical vehicle fleet is in Iraq and is aging a year of peacetime use per month of combat time.

The feel of it from TACOM folks and some DoD types who have talked to my previous commander in Sealy is that the Army is going to go to three unit sets of trucks per heavy division, as opposed to two right now. It would work out to be one set for fighting, one for training state side and one for depot level repairs/POMCUS storage.

I am in the middle of the production surge solution to the 40% truck fleet problem in my day job.

The issue of armoring has been pushed into something called the Long Term Armored Strategy (LTAS) which calls for a "hardened" but not "armored" cab on the trucks with a 80% common armored "B-Kit" using hexagonal steel/aluminium/ceramic add on armored plates.

The political reality is that a shortage of armored Humvees for the troops is less of a career threat to the procurement bureaucracy than ten thousand dollars of misplaced funds in the hands of a grandstanding Congressmen.

Ditto for an light armored car suppliment/replacement for Humvee.

This is a very old game.

Then Senator Harry Truman killed more American troops than a panzer division by crusading in 1943 that America was “wasting money” on artillery ammunition production. That piece of work lead to a severe shortage of American artillery ammunition in late 1944 that had to be paid for in American military blood.

The longer the war goes on, the more the procuremnt system will be responsive to the soldier.

When the war ends, the procurement system will revert to type like memory plastic.

Mark, that vehicle is the Saxon. Britian is looking to phase them out because they're getting old. Its future FRES armored personnel carriers (currently only in the concept development stage) are the likely replacement.

Australia's Bushmaster can be seen as a much more modern take on the Saxon concept, with some additional design features.

SPQR & Tom,

The linked article "Hummer Deathtraps Suck" does indeed discuss vehicles that are similar to a Hummer in size and handling, and in some cases is quite explicit about that. It also covers larger wheeled vehicles that offer more protection but are not APCs. In all cases, however, mobility compromise is zero. ZE-RO.

My earlier article also addresses the logistics and fielding time issue at some length. the bottom line, however, is that the military has to be serious about fielding a better vehicle while it sustains the current force. And it just flat-out isn't serious right now - look at the Update links above.

I'll add that it's a bit much to complain I'm not substantively addressing your points, SPQR, when you won't trouble yourself to read the earlier article that delivers the core of my arguments (and incidentally, addresses a few of yours).

An example of doing it better...

The Norwegians just bought Iveco's Panther CLVs, another vehicle very similar to the Hummer but with vastly better mine protection. Procurement time? TWO MONTHS FROM DECISION ON NEED TO ORDER. Why? Because they got serious, and they're headed to a combat zone (Afghanistan) where IEDs make their existing ride as inadequate as a Hummer would be.

The distinction isn't between conquest and occupation campaigns. If we roll into Iran like Tom wants, does he really think the roads won't be mined, in front of US forces and also behind by Iran's large cadre of trained terrorists?

The distinction is between high-threat zones, that need vehicles with modern standards of protection, and low-no threat zones that can get by with purely civilian vehicles or the old US Army Jeeps at about 1/4 to 1/10 the price of a Hummer.

The Hummer's problem is that it is inadequate for the first scenario, and too expensive for the second.

Final point... Trent, thanks as always for the illuminating and educational response.

Joe,

You overlooked my distinctions between tactical, operational and strategic mobility. This entails lots of figures - average mass per type of Hummer replacement vs. the Hummers (sea and air portability, bridging requirements, etc.), vehicle mass per unit of cargo mass, vehicle mass per unit of cargo volume, #'s of vehicles required to move a given volume/mass, fuel needs per unit of cargo mass per mile, etc.

We won't always be operating in the desert. We'll be operating in swamps, mountains, etc.

When we need to go somewhere fast against opposition, the existing equipment set and mix is close to ideal. This is especially true against WMD.

A large cadre of trained terrorists means nothing in a conquest campaign. Well, it means a target rich environment initially and less trouble later on. They would be much more effective in the long run if they just hide during the conquest campaign, and come out cautiously only after organized resistance ceases.

We'll go into Iran with the vehicle park we have. A Hummer replacement is at least five years off. I don't care about the Norwegians in Afghanistan. There is a difference between a few dozen vehicles, and several score thousand. This is Trent's day job.

Joe,
I too have long hated the HMMV but despite your assertions, your article doesn't address the arguments above about deployment time for a new light utility vehicle at all. You just handwaved past it. It doesn't address training time for operators or maintainers of the vehicle. It doesn't address time to build a logistics base for the immense number of vehicles. It doesn't address the tradeoffs of dedicating the amount of funding for such procurement, logistics, training and deployment costs.

That some of the alternate vehicles have been used in specialist roles does not mean that these time and cost factors do not exist.

It doesn't address the question of whether or not the US Army will have a mission for the replacement vehicle in 2007, 2008 etc.

Interestingly, the review of the M113's you linked to discussed the M113's survivability not against IED's but against RPG's ( using improvised standoff protection ) but that is a completely different problem. You can find other discussions of the M113 chassis going back to the Vietnam era when the Army learned the hardway that it had poor survivability to mines as well as RPG's.

Robin,

ACAV troopers in my age cohort rode on top of their M113's in Vietnam because of the landmine hazard.

Light multi-purpose vehicles capable of both combat and cargo missions simply can't be protected against mines. There is a conflict between cargo capacity and personnel survivability.

Joe,

It is necessary to create a bright line difference between multipurpose combat vehicles and cargo vehicles. Combat vehicles must have the entire length of the chassis be designed with mine protection to make the fighting compartment more surviveable. Cargo vehicles need only have the driver and passenger cab area made mine-resistant.

Joe,

Your lack of industrial experience is showing.

Logistics my friend is a bitch.

Sure the Norwegians can ge a couple of hundred vehicles on short notice. However, they will have to learn to use and maintain them in a war zone. Not to mention spares kits. Field maintenance items. etc. Maybe this is not a good idea.

Now suppose the American Army needs 20,000 such vehicles.

Go back and re-read my article on logistics posted here. Then multiply the difficulties by 2X or 5X. Why? Because military requirements are different.

So the vehicle is in production and you want to ramp up the production rate. This means acquiring tools, production space, workforce, increased material flows. Then what do you do when the demand colapses after the big procurement? All the tooling and space and people then represent a big overhead. It could kill a small company.

OK. You don't want to kill the small company. Co-production is the answer you say. How do you learn the special skills that make production possible? A set of blue prints is not enough.

I worked at an aerospace company that was required to get a Euro company to co-produce eqpt. we designed. We sent them prints, engineers, and technicians etc. It still took them 3 years longer than expected to get production on track. Despite the fact that they were in on the deal from the beginning.

Logistics my friend is a bitch.

BTW Joe,

Robin in #24 raised questions about training etc. that I raised in another thread on this subject.

Were you paying attention?

Here is a production hypothetical that comes up often: You need 100 tons of a specialty steel formed in a special way six months from now to maintain the schedule. There is one company that makes it and they are booked for the next 18 months. Using an alternate steel reduces the life of the vehicle by 50%. What are you going to do?

Start with the train you have to get in motion to get a waiver from your customer.

Now multiply that by 10,000 for a new piece of eqpt.

As an engineer I spent about 50% of my time on design issues. The rest was spent on logistics and redesign when I found out the gee whiz gizmo I wanted couldn't be had in the time frame/quantities desired.

The amateur studies eqpt. and tactics. The professionals study logistics. It is really hard to get a feel for logistics until you have been repeatedly confronted with the problems.

BTW it is nice to see so many professionals on the board. Gives me the warm fuzzies.

OK. You now have your heavier up armored vehicle. But it uses 30% more fuel than the up armored Hummer.

So fuel costs are up. Fuel depots require more storage and people. There are more fuel trucks on the road, which requires more force protection. etc.

More folks on the road means more/bigger targets.

So you save lives with a better vehicle and lose more in the logistics train. What is the trade off?

No decision can be made in isolation. Which makes the decisions harder. Harder decisions take longer.

You want to make the decision in isolation. Reduce Hummer casualties. It is not so easy.

"Here is a production hypothetical that comes up often: You need 100 tons of a specialty steel formed in a special way six months from now to maintain the schedule. There is one company that makes it and they are booked for the next 18 months. Using an alternate steel reduces the life of the vehicle by 50%. What are you going to do"

You, ('you' being the President of the United States) tell your secretary to get the CEO of said company on the horn. You inform him his company is about to perform an invaluable service to the national security of the nation by dumping their production schedule and working triple shifts to turn out the necessary product. His cooperation is much appreciated and hence the IRS, OSHA, EPA, and INS will be cancelling their scheduled visits next week.

Engineering and logistic issues are one thing. BS redtape is another. This administration has had a disgusting tolerance for it vis-a-vis the rebuilding/occupation of Iraq. This is wartime, boot to ass is how things get done and we have seen precious little of it. If i were running this show half the industrial capacity of our generator and high voltage cable makers would be churning out parts to ship to Iraq. Let the baddies blow up all they want, there are 500 spares of everything sitting in Kuwait. With the amount of money we have dumped into Iraq we could have put a geny in every house in Iraq and probably airlifted the fuel in to boot.

M.Simon,

Ask me for anything but time - N. Bonaparte

Going against WMD puts a premium on speed in taking out the launchers, and not just speed in operations, but speed and stealth in deployment prior to the commencement of operations due to the need to minimize the exposure time to a pre-emptive enemy attack.

War is about winning, not force-protection.

All the mine proof vehicles are copies/rip-offs of 25 year old South African technology anyhow..The South Africans have been using the Casspir (on which the buffalo is based) successfully for years with little or no death or injury. They are currently replacing their Casspirs with a new design so why not recondition them and use something that we KNOW works? They have had YEARS of experience in these types of vehicles (over quarter of a century) I recommend reading a fascinating book published about 10 or 15 years back called TAMING the Landmine by Peter Stiff(?) ..There are lots of pitfalls in the design and effective use/implementation of these vehicles..so in the interest of our troops lives and time, just go to the experts.I would think this is the immediately obvious route to follow.

Vin,

There were a lot of political obsticles to using South African military technology directly.

When the South Africans came clean on their nuclear program. They told American imort export regulations, via the IAEA, how they did it.

The sanctions that resulted on Armscor and other South African military contractors were an effective barrier to the intoduction of that technology into the US Military.

TRENT,

If selected areas and roadways were pre-seeded with smart armed bomblets ,(land mines with signal receptors) and thereby could be
rendered "safe" by U S field comand on 'signal'...then ,
our patrols could pass unharmed
and the enemy could not easily bury their IEDs in areas thusly
pre-seeded and rearmed.

Tactics not vehicles is the prime
element...