Monday, February 15, 2010
Humvee Avenger
In the early 1980s, the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or Humvee, replaced the Jeep as the U.S. Army’s primary all-purpose transport vehicle for soldiers, and eventually spawned a gaudy status symbol for the SUV-mad civilian world. But now the Humvee is going the way of the Jeep, replaced by a newer vehicle that better meets today’s demands of modern counterinsurgency warfare.
In the latest budget proposal from the Army, all funding for construction of new Humvees has been eliminated. AM General, the Indiana-based sole manufacturer of the Humvee, will finish building the 2,620 vehicles on order, completing a production run that totaled 240,000 over a 25-year period.
In the 1990s American consumers were introduced to the Hummer, the civilian counterpart of the Humvee, thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who urged General Motors to expand its assembly line of vehicles. At its peak, Hummer sold more than 71,000 vehicles in 2006, but the recession and high gas prices wiped out consumer interest, and the specialty line has been sold to China.
Meanwhile, the Humvee lost its military value once insurgents in Iraq began employing the improvised explosive device (IED). Unable to withstand IED attacks to its belly, the Humvee became a deathtrap for American soldiers, ushering in the heavily armored Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Indiana-Made Humvee Could Soon Be an Army Relic (by Carly Everson, Associated Press)
HMMWV Humvee Overview (MilitarySpot.com)
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