The Humvee, also known as the HMMWV, has become one of the iconic symbols of modern US military conflict. It is a rugged vehicle that was designed to be air-dropped from aircraft, and could be easily modified for different missions.
After the attacks in Iraq, the Pentagon has accelerated production rates for up-armored Humvees. Civilians are allowed to purchase Humvees through military surplus auction companies, but they must meet your state’s inspection and titling requirements before driving it on the road. Contact Custom Humvee now!
The US Army wanted a new vehicle that would be easily manoeuvrable, transport people and cargo in the same way as jeeps, and allow for the mounting of various weapons systems. The result was the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or HMMWV. It offered road and cross-country mobility, and its design pushed load-carrying capacity and agility to the limits. The basic vehicle did not offer any armor protection, however, since the military desired to maintain low empty weight.
Nicknamed the Humvee, the HMMWV proved an extremely versatile vehicle during the Gulf War and beyond. It has fought in deserts and jungles, evaded detection in hostile environments, ridden inside the belly of helicopters and jumped entire continents in transport aircraft.
During the Iraq conflict, the Humvee was called upon to perform a much different role than originally anticipated. It was no longer responsible for whisking service members across vast expanses of sand; instead, it was an urban taxi in some of the world’s most dangerous neighborhoods. And its soft aluminum body might as well have been tissue paper in the face of small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs.
To deal with these threats, the US military rushed to upgrade many of its Humvees, replacing some of their armor. At the same time, it pursued a crash program to develop vehicles that could protect crews while remaining lightweight and agile enough to handle the fast-paced movements of a high-tech war.
The resulting Humvees are a mixture of commercial off-the-shelf vehicles such as the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) and new designs that have been built from the ground up. The MRAPs are being used in short term replacement initiatives, while the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle is being developed as the long-term successor to the Humvee. In the meantime, several manufacturers are offering up-armored versions of the Humvee that could prove useful in the current conflict. Some of these designs offer the added bonus of being resistant to electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which could be a significant threat in an electronic warfare environment. The Humvee may also experience a 21st century rebirth as an unmanned vehicle, with several programs developing technologies that could make it feasible to convert the vehicles into highly mobile scout vehicles for troops at the forefront of battle.
Development
The Humvee entered the world of military vehicles in the early 1980s when the Pentagon awarded a production contract worth more than $1 billion to AM General Corporation to develop 55,000 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV). Nicknamed the Humvee, these wide, rugged vehicles entered the spotlight after being used by the American military during the 1989 invasion of Panama and the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s.
While the Humvee has served its purpose, it’s starting to show its age. In fact, the military is looking for a replacement to this aging workhorse. It’s not because the Humvee can’t do its job anymore, but because the military wants a new ride that can better withstand roadside bombs.
To help with this, the University of North Dakota has been awarded a $5 million contract from the Department of Defense to help develop an augmented reality system for Army ground vehicles. The system would allow soldiers in Humvees, aka the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle or HMMWV, to view battlefield data as an AR heads-up display in their windshields.
Currently, the military uses a range of different systems to provide soldiers with information about their environment. Some are simple, like a head-up display that shows the vehicle’s speed and location. Others are more complex, like the Advanced Distributed Interactive Simulation (ADVIS) that provides a complete 3D representation of the vehicle’s surroundings to its operators.
Other systems help with intelligence collection, including sensors that detect mines and other threats. The military also has several options for additional protection, including turrets and armored hulls. However, these additional systems require a significant amount of time and money to develop, test, and produce.
So, it’s no surprise that the military is looking to reduce costs by finding ways to do more with less. And one way to do that is by making its vehicles more energy efficient. To this end, the military is working on an electric-powered Humvee.
The HUMVEE Charge hybrid-electric light tactical vehicle will use Commercial-Off-The-Shelf technology to integrate electric drive components into the Humvee. This will reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions. It will also increase performance and acceleration while enabling the vehicle to operate in extreme conditions.
Production
For more than 30 years, the Humvee has represented the Army’s wheeled vehicles in combat. It’s big, boxy and designed to withstand a lot of punishment on the battlefield. Its origin dates back to 1979 when the military issued a draft specification for a new light utility vehicle. Chrysler Defense, Teledyne Continental and AM General submitted design proposals. The Army selected AM General’s model and it entered service in 1984, gaining fame after surviving the Gulf War and Operation Just Cause, the US invasion of Panama. The vehicle’s full name is the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, but soldiers began calling it the Humvee.
While the Humvee may look like a standard military vehicle from the outside, it’s actually designed to be highly customized and capable of operating in many different terrain types. The chassis is made from bonded aluminum panels that help the vehicle flex to handle driving on rough ground. The wheels are specially designed to be flexible, too. This allows the Humvee to go places a regular car can’t and to negotiate obstacles such as deep sand or rocky hills.
The vehicle’s original unarmored design proved vulnerable to improvised explosive devices during the Iraq War, leading the military to quickly up-armor some of the fleet and replace front-line vehicles with the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP). The MRAP has better armor and a V-shaped hull that deflects explosions away from the vehicle. The Army has also begun replacing Humvees with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV.
The JLTV is smaller and lighter than the Humvee, but it’s also designed to be more customizable. It can be fitted with a variety of different seats and controls, and it can be equipped with various weapons, including mounted machine guns. The JLTV can even be outfitted with a wire command-guided anti-tank missile system. The JLTV was conceived to be a rapid deployment vehicle, and it’s possible to fit three in the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and 15 in the Lockheed C-5A Galaxy. The Army can deploy these vehicles to troops on the ground in a matter of hours.
Variations
As the world’s military has fought in an increasingly unconventional way since the Cold War, new designs for light vehicle fleets have been called for. As a result, the Humvee has seen plenty of variations to suit various missions and roles. Some have even been customized with everything from machine guns to turrets and missiles. The Humvee’s design has proven so flexible that it continues to be a primary tactical vehicle today, over forty years after the first production models hit the road.
The Humvee was originally designed to replace the M151 Jeeps used by the US Armed Forces in the 1960s. While these vehicles were sturdy enough, they did not offer the protection needed to protect soldiers against Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG).
The HMMWV’s independent front and rear suspension and bonded aluminum body allow it to handle rough terrain with ease. It also has advanced shock absorbers and torque-biasing differentials that help it to gain traction on terrain that would stop most four-wheel drives in their tracks. Disc brakes are mounted inboard, near the differentials, to keep them protected from debris and to improve off-road performance.
Its oversized tires, portal axles and wide track provide plenty of ground clearance, allowing the Humvee to drive over obstacles that could damage smaller cars. This includes improvised explosive devices (IEDs), mines and rocket-propelled grenades. The Humvee can carry a maximum payload of 2,500 pounds and seats 1+1 or 2+2 people depending on its configuration.
There are several different versions of the Humvee, including ambulances, cargo and troop carriers. However, all of them share a common chassis, engine and transmission. They also use 44 interchangeable parts to make maintenance and repairs easier. Some of the more popular variations include the H1 Humvee, the M109A8 heaviest-payload variant, and the M1151 up-armoured vehicle that offers IED blast protection.
The Humvee is a rugged and reliable vehicle, and it’s no wonder that it has lasted so long in the face of changing warfare tactics. It has conquered sand, rocks and snow. It has dragged trailers down the highway and ridden inside the belly of CH-53 helicopters. It has jumped whole continents in transport aircraft and endured the low-altitude air drop of the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System. But like any vehicle, the Humvee needs to be maintained to continue working hard for its owners. That’s why Miles Fiberglass offers Humvee composite panel reinforcement kits to protect the hood from cracks and tears and make repairs faster.