RE: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,184371,00.html

of course it is a death trap. That is why there are so many that have burned to death inside them.

Good Grief, when will people get it through their heads- jeeps, Hummers where never meant to act as an APC. They were designed to move equipment & personnel from one point to another- not to be Polish mine finders or assault vehicles.!

Why are people suprised that the replacement for the M151A2 Jeep, M880 Cargo Truck(Dodge Ram), and CUCV series (Chevy Blazer) isnt an Sherman Tank?

It was never from the outset designed as a Armored Fighting Vehicle

you're tight lovatscot....... an APC is a death trap also, as is the tank -- just depends on the size of the gun they're going to shoot at you, or want to blow you up with.

quote:

Originally posted by LineDoggie:
Why are people suprised that the replacement for the M151A2 Jeep, M880 Cargo Truck(Dodge Ram), and CUCV series (Chevy Blazer) isnt an Sherman Tank?

It was never from the outset designed as a Armored Fighting Vehicle

Absolutely, positively correct. It is a flippin' light truck.

"The report distributed throughout the Army and Marine Corps in 1994 found that a Humvee "even with a mine-protection retrofit kit developed for Somalia remained a deathtrap in the event of an anti-tank mine detonation, USA Today reported."

What genius wrote this? An anti-tank mine is pretty rough on tanks too. Humvees are handy, but they're not the answer to everything. I understand a retired SEAL is designing a new armoured vehicle. Necessity is the mother of invention.

makes one wonder who wrote that IG report and what did they intend to accomplish. Was the intent to criticize the vulnerability of the HUMMER, to criticize the way they were intended to be used or to criticize the failure to adequately plan for their use or protection?

I don't recall ever seeing any document (or magazine article, etc) that ever mentioned a hummer being anything other than reliable/versatile transportation. It was never supposed to be anything other much more than a replacement for the Jeep (with better towing capacity).

And from what I understand, a Jeep going over a land mine or getting hit by an RPG never garnered a favorable result.

I WAS OVER IN KUWAIT AND I WAS PUTTING ARMOR ON THE MRAP'S AND THE ARMY CANCELLED THE CONTRACT WITHOUT ANY REASON AND THIS IS THE KIND OF THINKING THAT WILL GET OUR SOLDIERS KILLED BECAUSE WE ARE LOOSING TIME ON FIXING THESE TRUCKS THEY ARE TYING OUR HANDS AND THEY WOUNDER WHY THE BODY COUNT IS GOING UP.

Myself never have ridden in the Humvee because
I retired from the Army before they got them.
About any motor vehicle from 5 ton to 2 1/2 ton
truck is a death trap.

Really!? REALLY?? The American public, those who care to vote are the ones who need a slap on the face, not the Army or the DOD! When there is a war, "OH MY" how concerned we are about what happens to the soldiers, but when we come to politicians & American public, and say that we don't have a up to date and adequate APC. We say that the HMMWV may be a High Mobility Multipurpose WHEELED Vehicle, but it was never meant to survive IED's or tank mines let alone an RPG hit! Why, no you can't have the money to find a replacement, after all the cold war is over and we kicked butt in the Gulf War, so why waste the money.... Because there will always be people who don't naively agree that we can all live in peace,and who want their piece of the pie,and usually it always easier to take it then work for it. Hell Americans rather buy "made in China" as it allows them to have that gas guzzling SUV and 8 TV's, 3 DVD players, and all the tons of consumer crap that we all just can't live without. Come on what's a few 1000 soldiers life when I can still afford to fill the tank with gas, and I'm still employed so I can get my daily Starbucks and pay my $120 cellphone bill... really why plan for the future when I won't be there anyways...I'm a American and my fellow Americans make me sick...I rather lay my life down for some unknown Afghan or Iraqi then any fellow American OTHER then those I serve with. WAKE UP AMERICA and take back your country so the politicians and money don't destroy it when your too busy with your text messaging and MySpace page.

quote:

Originally posted by 9699020:
Really!? REALLY?? The American public, those who care to vote are the ones who need a slap on the face, not the Army or the DOD! When there is a war, "OH MY" how concerned we are about what happens to the soldiers, but when we come to politicians & American public, and say that we don't have a up to date and adequate APC. We say that the HMMWV may be a High Mobility Multipurpose WHEELED Vehicle, but it was never meant to survive IED's or tank mines let alone an RPG hit! Why, no you can't have the money to find a replacement, after all the cold war is over and we kicked butt in the Gulf War, so why waste the money.... Because there will always be people who don't naively agree that we can all live in peace,and who want their piece of the pie,and usually it always easier to take it then work for it. Hell Americans rather buy "made in China" as it allows them to have that gas guzzling SUV and 8 TV's, 3 DVD players, and all the tons of consumer crap that we all just can't live without. Come on what's a few 1000 soldiers life when I can still afford to fill the tank with gas, and I'm still employed so I can get my daily Starbucks and pay my $120 cellphone bill... really why plan for the future when I won't be there anyways...I'm a American and my fellow Americans make me sick...I rather lay my life down for some unknown Afghan or Iraqi then any fellow American OTHER then those I serve with. WAKE UP AMERICA and take back your country so the politicians and money don't destroy it when your too busy with your text messaging and MySpace page.

Feel better?...
Respectfully, SUNLINER81

I came in about the same time as the HMMWV. Anyone who has ever driven or ridden in an M151A2 probably has a more objective view of exactly what a vehicular "deathtrap" is. True, 4 people could pick the old Jeep up if it got stuck, and it fit perfectly in the dump bed of our 817 engineer dump trucks, and the gasoline engine was a whole lot quieter than the HMMWV's diesel. But the 151 could find almost any excuse to flip over, the web-mesh doors meant you about froze to death if you had to do a night movement from Fort Lewis to Yakima Range in the wintertime, and you didn't really care how quiet the engine was if you were the guy sitting on the gasoline tank when the bullets began to fly.

The HMMWV was and is a godsend when viewed in the light of what it replaced and the mission it was designed to do. The report in question in this article was written after the "Battle of the Black Sea", aka "Blackhawk Down" - and proved what the leaders on site already knew - HMMWVs can't function as armored personnel carriers. That's why the Rangers asked for tank and APC support but got turned down by the geniuses in DC. D'oh! HMMWV's weren't designed for that mission then, and aren't now. The concept was tried back in the late 80's (2-2 Infantry, Light Attack Battalion, 9th ID) and found wanting in areas where there was inadequate cover or restricted mobility (places like, I dunno - the flat open desert or downtown Mogadishu?)

It's not fair to call HMMWVs 'deathtraps,' but words like that make great headlines - even more so when you're trying to take a backhanded slap at an unpopular war or an unpopular administration. The sad truth is that very few vehicles are going to survive when someone buries a pair of 155 shells in the roadway and detonates them under the driver's seat. The Soldiers and leaders who use the things need to be highly trained in their use, their capabilities and their limitations.

On 21 January I started service under my fifth Commander in Chief. I'm praying that a return to the low point we hit in 1997 - when we had enough training dollars to drive our vehicles a whopping 11 miles for the whole year - isn't on the horizon between now and 2013.

Well it did take me 20 years to get to this point...Ummm YES as a matter of fact I do! LOL!

Why in the world would the Pentagon allow such a thing to go on for so long after finding out over a decade ago that it was a deathtrap?
I know it takes a lot of money to replace all those vehicles, but is the cost of replacing all of those greater than the lives of our soldiers?

The BIG problem is we people back home are now of the opinion we should be able to send soldiers into combat, kill hundreds of thousands of the "bad guys" and not have any of our folks get hurt. If people get wounded or maimed or killed - we throw a fit!!!

Well, wars wound, main, and kill!! That's what wars do! You send a soldier. Someone sends a bullet. You send a jeep, truck or 50 ton tank. They send artillery, mines, and rockets to blow them and their crews up. In World War II, America would send FIVE Shermans against one Tiger, hoping only to lose 2 or 3 before they could knock the Tiger out. More often than not, they lost all five Shermans and the 25 men inside....

To avoid losing GIs in convoy duty, the only options are to STOP doing convoys, or build robots....

Besides that, GIs in vehicles will die. That's why the Armor crews in Viet Nam rode on top!!

Damn!!! if the Humvees are death traps just what the hell were GammaGoats? The deathtraps of all deathtraps................

quote:

Originally posted by greywolfghost:
The BIG problem is we people back home are now of the opinion we should be able to send soldiers into combat, kill hundreds of thousands of the "bad guys" and not have any of our folks get hurt. If people get wounded or maimed or killed - we throw a fit!!!

Well, wars wound, main, and kill!! That's what wars do! You send a soldier. Someone sends a bullet. You send a jeep, truck or 50 ton tank. They send artillery, mines, and rockets to blow them and their crews up. In World War II, America would send FIVE Shermans against one Tiger, hoping only to lose 2 or 3 before they could knock the Tiger out. More often than not, they lost all five Shermans and the 25 men inside....

To avoid losing GIs in convoy duty, the only options are to STOP doing convoys, or build robots....

Besides that, GIs in vehicles will die. That's why the Armor crews in Viet Nam rode on top!!

looks like a picture from my troop.... it is true that we rode on top for the reasons you mentioned, what gets me however is when it is mentioned on the mil. channel showing grunts riding on top and saying they ride on top for the reason you've mentioned - I do get annoyed... they rode on top because we were not configured to transport troops... we were "gun tracks", no benches for infantry.... if they were going our way they were more then happy for a ride, and it was enough just to get all their rucksacks inside.. we told them if "S" hits the fan for them to get off and we'd toss their rucks out.. downside of being on top? A well placed mechanical ambush w/claymores and they'd have swept all us guners right off the things, so, toss the coin - inside behind your gun all the time or on top.

quote:

Originally posted by SignalSgtWilliams:
Damn!!! if the Humvees are death traps just what the hell were GammaGoats? The deathtraps of all deathtraps................

Damn, haven't thought of one of those things for years.