Posted on 03/23/2006 6:56:16 PM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
This is always a good reminder to show how vulnerable our troops are on the roads.
I take issue with the part of the original post that mentions the M113 as a suitable replacement for uparmored humvees.
There is no way they can do 300 mile days at 70-75 mph. Also as far as damaging the road surface, yes they would because a lot of the road surfaces were asphalt, and any heavy vehicle damaged them quickly, wheeled or tracked.
The unit that replaced us received the ASV, one of our platoons in Baghdad also received the ASV, but that was one toy that my platoon wanted but never saw in our motor pool.
When I left in June 04, Buffalo's were in theater along with the MERKAT support vehicles. It would make sense to buy a bunch of the Cougars or ANYTHING that can survive better than the M1114 series Humvees.
Our M1114s sustained several hits with nothing more than marked up windshields and flattened tires.
The serious weak link to the Humvee that I HOPE has been resolved is tire wear! They didn't have a tire that was designed to carry the weight of the M1114 series Humvee that is twice the weight of the standard M1025/M1026 series Humvee, yet use the same tires. Those tires could wear out in as little as a week!
Also there is one thing that is mis-quoted more than anything else. The M-1114 is a built from the ground up armored vehicle. The M1025 was not. The M1025 is the one that had suspension problems with additional armor added to it. The M1114's suspension and engine were designed for the weight (if the tires werent), and the vehicle actually handled pretty well.
The M1025 with armor bolted on was a pig that couldn't get out of its own way.
The up-armor HMMWV is still better and less lethal to its occupants than the vehicle whose role it's taken over - the ACAV or M113.
Thank you for your service - and your first-hand observations.
No idea, but the IED did disable it.
I don't care how much armor you put on something you put enough explosives under it its gonna blow up.
Some people do not understand this.
Exactly....the hummer was pressed into a mission it was never intended for IMO.
Wow, sorry for the double post! My bad yo!
It's along the same lines of personal armor. SFTT.org has talked to a armor manufacturer that can't get a DOD contract for a system that is apparently more protective than the SAPI plates and Point Blank vests we use now.
The more they add to those vests, the more they weigh, the more it slows down the good guys.
Baloney, the scout platoon in the Mech Infantry battalion I was in several years ago used the Hummers for recon and screening. We've known since at least Somalia that the Hummer is insufficient for the tasks it is given in the real world. We shouldn't buy any vehicles without at least some armor plating.
"I don't care how much armor you put on something you put enough explosives under it its gonna blow up."
Oh, absolutely. One can up-armor what is basically a light truck only so much. Anti-landmine designs probably don't work very well against IEDs at road- or above-road-level.
I've seen up close what happens to troops when an IED goes off under their vehicle. Haji adapts to our countermeasures and uses pressure activated IEDs because other kinds of IEDs are not getting the results that he wants. The South African vehicle reflects their experiences in Namibia and would save the lives of our GIs-they have built a better mousetrap. Don't even get me started about what a POS the M997 (Hummer ambulance) is and how it is virtually impossible to up armor.
Exactly, could you imagine doing recon in an Abrams? LOL
Would you have taken a Jeep on any of those missions and felt better?
While of course we can't protect ourselves from every possible attack the reality remains there are better alternatives.
The RG-31 is a definite upgrade over our current Hummer variants.....for the roles they are being tasked with.
While the Cougar (and RHINO to a lesser degree) are both much larger vehicles and do not meet all the requirements that our Hummers look to....the reality still remains putting more of these in Iraq is / would have been a good idea.
The RG-31 (or an updated/tweaked U.S. backed version) is definitely the route we should be going.
I agree. The Hummer was not designed to be blown up. Quit sending them. Send more of the APC variants.
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